Avvy beacon

[snoboy]

OK I'm a little behind in this, because I had to work today So I am going to have to catch up on the reading and then do some research...

 

In the meantime, some fuel for the fire:

 

The options on the Barryvox are:

1)Digital or Digital Analog

2)Revert to send? No/4min/8min

3)Earphone volume

4)Speaker config in the Digital mode basically wether you hear an analog tone, or digital tone in the primary and secondary searchs.

5)Direction indication stops at: 3m/0.3m (in D mode)

 

Not really that confusing is it?

 

I'll be back...

[Beck]

Practice, practice, practice! both beacon work, snow analysis, avy awareness, to keep your and your partners safe, both in avalanche avoidance and recovery skills.

After being at work for twelve hours, I 'd love to wax, at length, about beacons, but fatigue and drunkeness preclude this; however-

In personal extensive field testing, strict analog beacons have a higher sensitivity (and correspondingly, range) as they are operating like a radio picking up distant AM stations.

A soon as a digital proccesor is added to a radio receiver of any kind, sensitivity is reduced, similar to how a digital tuner never seems to pick up as many radio stations.

This being said, the new, Dual "digi-ana" beacons strive to combine the best receiving range of analog peeps with the search finesse, directional prompts etc. you see in newer dual antenna, avy transies.

 

In actual, extensive, realistic condition, field tests with many many people on beacon tests, the Ortovox F1 has an incredibly superior range. I've also watched 10's of people with Trackers fail to even register a test burial at more than fifty feet on 30 degree slopes.

 

Individual comparision between beacons,

Barryvox, complicated, and LCD??? Wow, I hope it doesn't get cold or anything...

Tracker, best no brainer beacon out there.

F1, beacon with most realistic range.

 

I haven't tried the X1, looks like a winner.

 

As for actual scenarios, although I haven't had to dig a partner out of avalanche debris, I have been on enough emergency events in the mountains, and extended realism practice in avalance scenarios,

to say it needs to be as simple as possible. Tthe whole emergency of the situation "amps the event so much, it's REAL easy to make mistakes, and the easiest, most reliable safety tools are the best ones.

[Beck]

Oh, and one more thing(although I do know it's a faux paus to double post)Terrible Ted, and TLG ,your advice on beacons are both pretty bogus.

[philfort]

quote:

---

Originally posted by terrible ted:

Does anyone know of a case where someone was completely buried by a PNW avalanche and recovered alive?

---

If you look at last year's incidents on the csac site in Washington, there are a number where people were completely buried (or very nearly so, with a hand sticking up, or in one case, a tiny piece of binding showing), and recovered successfully.

 

Not all PNW avalanches are heavy wet things, I've seen powder avalanches here where the debris was not that firm.

[Kevin_Ristau]

The range at which a beacon can pick up a signal is influenced by the orientation of the two antennas ( sending and receiving). The advertised range is usually a "best case" scenario involving two beacons of the same manufacture - there are differences in their signals.

 

Practice, experience, and technique are what enable fast and efficient searches.

 

Having said that, I use an SOS F1-ND. Analog, with a stated range of 90m. Simple to use, good signal strength indicator, forced "on" harness and a panic switch in case you are caught in an avalanche while searching.

[mikeadam]

I have to agree with Beck. I enjoy tearing down 38 degree slopes in the dead of winter. I will always wear a beacon. I've been buried fully and partially, and known folks in the same category. At least with a beacon you have a fighting chance. Phil is right, not all Cascade avalanches are heavy and wet. Most of the heavy wet ones are slow and you can get out of the way.

 

Another good thing about a beacon is if you go into a tree well. There have been several persons killed falling into tree wells that might have been saved if they had been locatable.

[mattp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by mikeadam:

Phil is right, not all Cascade avalanches are heavy and wet. Most of the heavy wet ones are slow and you can get out of the way....Another good thing about a beacon is if you go into a tree well. There have been several persons killed falling into tree wells that might have been saved if they had been locatable.

---

I agree that not all Cascade avalanches are heavy and wet and that people DO survive being buried some times and a beacon might save your life. I don't think this is true for getting stuck in tree wells, though - to survive these incidents you need to ski with a buddy and keep track of them while having them keep track of you.

 

For backcountry skiing, I use a beacon and expect my partners to use one as well. They weigh almost nothing, and the accompanying shovels come in handy for digging test pits and getting out of the wind at lunch time. But after carrying a beacon for twenty years during which time I have NOT ONCE heard a story where the use of a beacon saved a life, I have become less focussed on beacons as a safety device and for winter climbing I often don't carry one at all.

 

I'm not saying the beacons don't work -- the incident reports Phill points to contain some incidents where they did in fact work. But I think a review of the reports will show that they almost always or always involved highly skilled rescuers and probably probes as well. And if you compare the success stories to the number of incidents where someone was buried with a beacon and their friends did not save their life, I bet the success rate is not very impressive -- even when the friends know what they were doing. I'll continue to use one for skiing but I will also try to keep vigilant for the possibility that the use of beacons may in fact encourage my and my partners to do things they wouldn't do without them.

 

So the CSAC site does contain a couple reports of successful recovery of a totally buried power skier. How about climbers - anybody know of a single incident where a climber has been recovered? It is a different situation when you get swept off an ice climb than it is when you get buried in a powder bowl.

[iain]

I will always carry a beacon winter climbing or skiing, particularly in a continental snowpack or complex transitional mountain conditions like those in the B.C. Selkirks. I would feel terrible after an unpredicted slide where my buddy's nowhere to be seen, and everything's silent around me, and I'm alone with no beacon. Even if cause of death is massive trauma. I'd want to kill myself for choosing to leave it behind. In addition, plenty of people die in avalanches where cause of death was suffocation and not trauma.

 

[ 11-21-2002, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: iain ]

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Seems like with the advances and increased availability of GPS units that some melding of GPS and avy transceiver technology could yield more useful results. Would that not cut out all the walking in a grid and triangulation and all that shite? GPSes are good to what, about ten feet now? Seems like using the GPS to instantly narrow your search area to a 20' diameter circle and then having the capability to switch to a more sensitive standard beacon function would really streamline the unburial process. Or do GPSes not function under snow?

 

Again, why is Dr. Flash Amazing, sports climber, speculating on avalanche rescue technology? Preposterous.

 

[ 11-21-2002, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Dr Flash Amazing ]

[b-rock]

With a beacon it's pretty easy to get within 20 or so feet of the burial. I don't think a GPS would be accurate enough to pinpoint a location after that - a 20 foot circle means a lot of time digging. Ideally you get it down to an 8x8' area and get to probin'.

[Kevin_Ristau]

GPS technology is of no use in a burial situation. The GPS signal sent from orbit is very weak and incapable of penetrating a snowpack. In fact, signals can be blocked by tree cover.

[iain]

on most consumer GPS units, there's just too much lag and cloudiness in the readings to be reliable when time is an issue. I too have thought about this. Seems interesting that with all the tech out there, beacons are still basically 1/2 of a transformer coil and nothing more. You could make one with a trip to Fry's electronics in an afternoon.

[Mattski]

Just a couple of points to bear in mind about the backcountry and the safety equipment you use:

1 A beacon is only 1 of 4 tools you need for a safe journey or an effective rescue, your brain, a probe and shovel. A beacon alone will just allow your rescuers to locate not extracate. The reasons you use them are to make sure you can be found in case of an emergency or find a victim of an avalanche whether a member of your party or not. It is like a rope, you have it because it is cheap life insurance and it will give closure to your loved ones in case a tragedy were to occur.

2 You learn about avalanches, safe travel techniques, rescue procedures, because these skills will help you make the right decision, not the range of an analog vs. digital, or your calculation of your income vs tranceiver price gouging. Most successful rescues occured because the people involved recognized the situation, and used the skills they practiced and were safe and efficient in pinpointing and extracting the victim, whether it was an avalung, a search dog or transceiver.

The bottom line is respect your playground and playmates and play fair by learning as much as you can before you leave the parking lot.

[brukb]

I had the unfortunate experience of spending a beautiful winter afternoon in the mountains doing a probe search for what turned out to be a dead body. This was a large avalanche during a period of "low/moderate" avalanche hazard. The victim was not wearing a transceiver. Total time from avalanche to body recovery was about 90 minutes. Autopsy revealed cause of death to be suffocation.

 

Had the victim been wearing a transceiver would he still be alive? I don't know, but his odds would have been better. Before this incident I had taken a couple avy courses but didn't take it very seriously. Since then I have taken several more courses, usually at least one/year, and take it very seriously. Someone who is not willing to carry a transceiver because of the cost or time involved needed to learn how to use one will not be in my party. Even if the transceiver is used only for body recovery, the time that is saved using transceivers vs. using only probes is time that the rescuers are NOT spending in the avy zone.

If I see you get caught in avalanche I would immediately start a search. I may be able to find you in 5-10 minutes with a transceiver, or 90 minutes with probing. That is all time spent in a zone of proven objective hazard and should be absolutely minimized.

 

I have a Tracker and two old Ortovoxes. I too have found that beginners do better with Trackers, but the Tracker had only close to half of the range of the old Ortovox. In group practices it was repeatedly obvious that the analog units would pick up a signal long before the digital units. We would home in close enough for the digital units to pick up the signal and then "point and shoot" with the Tracker.

 

It really is all about practice though. Given the greater range, I have never been beaten to a "victim" in practice doing a tangential search with an analog transceiver as compared to a digital one.

 

All that being said, I absolutely agree that knowing how to accurately assess avalanche hazard is the key to survival. An acceptable level of risk is impossible to determine accurately if you don't know what the hell the danger is. You can't know too much, avalanche hazard assessment is at best an educated guess, always!

 

Getting on the email list (for a small donation)for NWAC is one of the best ways to learn about avy assessment and danger. Keeping track of environmental conditions and events throughout the season (starting now) is crucial to help predict hazard when you plan a backcountry trip later in the season. I don't think it is sufficient to just check the avy report Friday night before heading out Saturday morning, you may miss out on vital info that isn't included in the most recent report.

You should also be able to predict to some degree what the hazard will be before ever leaving home. You should be able to check conditions, weather patterns and history, and use a topo map to pick the safest route, before you even pack your gear.

 

It's crazy how many times I've been in avy terrain and run into someone there who is completely oblivious to the hazard. Now that it is hip to go snowshoeing and backcountry skiing/boarding, I see a lot of people who go to REI, buy the "snowshoe package", and head into the mountains with no clue about avy hazard.

 

It's all fun and games until someone gets an eye poked out.

 

Bruk

[Beck]

Remember, the avalanche never knows if your're an expert!

 

But, absolutely, snow science and the practice of avalanche avoidance are ESSENTIAL tools for winter backcountry travel. Sadly,true, however, that the proliferation of fastforward winter sports puts many, MANY people in the danger zone without knowing it.

 

Beacons, PRACTICE,

Rutschblocks, DO THEM.

Hasty pits, DIG THEM.

 

observe snow conditions, teammates, and weather throughout tour.

[Dru]

"the only way to escape an avalanche is to BE an avalanche" - John Baldwin

[iain]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dru:

"the only way to escape an avalanche is to BE an avalanche" - John Baldwin

---

I think living in Bermuda would help your odds.

[Dru]

lives under the snow in burrows, avalanche goes overhead.....

 

goat cant burrow, avalanche hits it...

 

Moral?

[snoboy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by terrible ted:

If I heard even ONE account of a person in the PNW being recovered ALIVE from a burial avalanche, I might reconsider.

---

How about this one: DTS Tracker brag sheet Select User Group: Skiers

 

And I know someone who was fully buried on Robson (not PNW I know), recovered because of his beacon.

 

I bet almost all avy deaths are reported, whereas maybe all recoveries aren't.

 

[ 11-25-2002, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: snoboy ]

[snoboy]

Not sounding too good for the X-1

 

From TelemarkTips :

As you can probably tell, I am very disappointed with the X-1. Testing one briefly in a store will not give you an accurate representation of how this beacon will work in the field. Personally, I feel that the Ortovox F-1 focus is a better product than the X-1 and that the BCA Tracker is better still. DO NOT buy an X-1 thinking that it will be as easy to use as the Tracker, have the range of the F-1, or represent the latest in beacon technology. The X-1 is very disappointing given the technology that is available today. My wife summed it up very well when she said, “I don’t want anybody searching for me with this beacon.”

 

Heres the link to the discussion thread: X-1 discussion

[salbrecher]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dru:

"the only way to escape an avalanche is to BE an avalanche" - John Baldwin

---

I don't know exactly what he means but that is a damn fine quote

[snoboy]

If you look at last year's incidents on the csac site in Washington, there are a number where people were completely buried (or very nearly so, with a hand sticking up, or in one case, a tiny piece of binding showing), and recovered successfully.

 

"or very nearly so" = not completely buried

 

This isn't specific to the PNW (ie terrible ted's ?), but applicable to the whole question I think.

brief article on survival rates comparing with and without beacons

 

So, the numbers say about 2-1/2 times better chance of living? Sounds worth it to me. Still bad odds though

 

[klenke]

Just thinking outside the box here:

What's the accuracy of a GPS device these days? Within 10 meters?

(Please don't imply that I'm thinking you could use a GPS in lieu of a beacon. I'm just thinking of a possible future invention that would be an amalgamation of GPS and beacon technologies.)

[Off_White]

"All the experts are dead" Ed LaChappelle's reply when referred to as an expert. Ed is the author of ABC of Avalanche Safety.

 

I knew one person who survived burial on a climbing trip, but his fingertips showed. I knew two others who didn't make it. Beacons were not used, and the terrain was suitable for steep skiing.

[iain]

The GPS signal is quite accurate and with a little cash you can get millimeter accuracy. The typical recreational device is around 10m w/ open skies.