Check out the video reviews on the bottom of this page:
www.facewest.co.uk/Ortovox-3-Plus.html
They convinced us to go with tracker 2's due to the weirdness they describe a few meters out. Has anyone else noticed this?
Yeah, my jury's still out regarding this unit. Two of my partners and I just bought the 3+ at the recent REI sale based on the review at beaconreviews.com.
I have been out practicing with this unit twice now, once searching for two SOSs and one 3+, the other time searching for one SOS and one 3+.
In both sessions I experienced the confusion period mentioned in the above videos more than once. I was thinking that possibly some of the confusion was due to the long analog pulse of the SOS beacon, but now I'm not too sure... or at least not sure that the long analog pulse is the total cause.
Another thing I found a bit frustrating was that if I moved too fast the unit's processing would not keep up. I'm sure that coming from an analog beacon that can keep up even if I am running contributes to that frustration.
Right now I'm thinking my search times will still be faster with my SOS (especially considering the time advantage of locking on sooner due to the longer range). I'm planning on spending a afternoon at a beacon basin to test this out.
Of course even if my search times with the Analog machine are faster, that benefit then gets offset by the fact that the longer pulse signal of the Analog machine in send mode reputedly confuses the Digital machines in search mode which could result in the user of the Analog machine being recovered last (or at least later) in a multiple burial situation. So it appears that analog users are destined to go digital soon whether they like it or not. That was actually a factor in deciding to go digital with the 3+.
I was hoping the 3+ would be the cat's meow and the transition to Digital would be a breeze because of it. Now it's not as simple as I'd hoped.
Are we working towards taking the 3+ back and getting something else?
What are all you pros seeing out there on the matter?
Anyone have any words of wisdom to help with this dilemma?
