Avalanche transceivers and cell phones

[mikeadam]

Received this recently in the mail.

> Subject: avalanche transceivers and cell phones>> Just yesterday I was forwarded a posting from a backcountry skiing> newsgroup. It detailed an accident at a European ski hill> where a skier was buried by an avalanche. He was carrying a digital beacon> and his partner, alone, began an immediate> search using his beacon, but the victim could not be located.> Later investigation revealed that the lone searcher was carrying a mobile> phone and that the phone was turned on. It> interfered with the function of the digital beacon he was carrying andgave> false readings, directing the searcher to an area> approximately fifty metres away from where the victim was buried. The> victim's body was later found using an analogue> beacon, though the article is not clear as to whether or not the phone was> still on and nearby.>> A group of manufacturers and distributors conducted tests afterward and> found that analogue and digital beacons are both> somewhat affected by mobile phones. They recommend that all mobile phones> and other electronic devices be turned off> while carrying an avalanche transceiver. Please consider these facts when> using avalanche transceivers.

[Andy_Bourne]

Excellent beta. Thanks for passing that on.

[slothrop]

Here's some commentary on the topic from a maker of avalanche beacons: http://www.bcaccess.com/fdpressrel/cellphone.html

The story above sounds like an internet rumor to me... and why would you bring a cellphone to the mountains anyway? I know I'd just smash mine, and it wouldn't get reception until I got back to the highway anyway.

[Fairweather]

Just curious. Can anyone answer? Why the hell is a simple transceiver like an avalanche beacon so expensive? The technology is quite simple. Especially in the non-directional type. Is there some major gouging/price fixing going on? Additionally, avalanche probes...you know, those segmented aluminum poles...are going for $70 and up! Do the companies that produce, import, and sell these devices have no shame?

Don't get me wrong. I'm a total believer in the free market, but even gun makers are willing to sell gun locks at, or only slightly above cost.

[mikeadam]

Sloth,

The story above is not a fabrication. We got that email from a legitimate source. Note that the information pertained to a Euro location hence a Euro band which jives with the information you posted.

Mike

[haireball]

After twelve years as a professional ski patroller and avalanche worker at class-A hazard rated ski resorts, I can speak authoritatively to this issue. In informal testing at Stevens Pass back in the early eighties, we found that virtually any electrical device - even such things as a headlamp or digital watch would, if brought into sufficiently close proximity, interfere with avalanche beacon performance. We recommended that patrollers wearing digital watches would hold their receiving beacon in the opposite hand while conducting a beacon search. Since patrollers typically wore radios in chest packs, we usually opted to wear our transceivers hanging down our backs - the idea being that the body of a buried patroller might offer some shielding between his/her radio and transmitting beacon. Most of us opted to turn our radios off when performing ski-cuts, and would turn the radio back on after making the cut.

In 1987, the death of a pro-patroller during the performance of an avalanche hazard-control at Jackson Hole was widely published and analyzed in avalanche-worker trade publications. It was reported that patrollers attempting to perform beacon searches for their buried colleague were stymied because they were receiving country music from a local radio station through their beacons!

On all three of the pro-patrols on which I worked,(Stevens Pass, Squaw Valley, and Mammoth Mountain) it was standard procedure to turn off two-way radios in the vicinity of a beacon search. A cellular phone is a modified two-way radio, and any in the vicinity of a beacon-search must be turned off for the duration of the search. Any signal received or sent from a radio or cell-phone within a few hundred feet of a searching beacon WILL interfere with any beacon signal being transmitted.

Please pass the word; and if you ski in avalanche terrain, and rely on a beacon for protection, PRACTICE with the damn thing and get used to what it will and won't do. Over the years, I observed considerable variability in performance between apparently identical beacons. Most seasoned pros can retrieve a transmitting beacon buried three feet deep in a 100-foot-by-100-foot area within three minutes. The standard for Certification with the Far West Professional Ski Patrol Association was to retrieve a two-foot deep beacon in that size of area within two minutes. To meet and maintain this standard of performance, pros perform timed practice searches several times per week during their work season. I haven't patrolled as a pro since the early nineties, but I still play the game with my kids - one of us hides a beacon (sometimes in the house - it works fine indoors)and then another gets to search for it. They learn quickly to turn off the t.v. and computer while searching...

[slothrop]

What use is the FCC rating that (I thought) was supposed to guarantee some degree of resistance to radio interference?

[slothrop]

Point taken. I wonder if ski patrollers and the like have ever had problems with their radios interfering with avalanche beacons...

[mikeadam]

I have heard from several ski patrollers that radio bands can become an issue also when used in close conjuntion with transceivers.