Tag: avy beacon

Review: BCA’s Tracker 3 avalanche transceiver

  In case you hadn’t noticed, there hasn’t been any earth shattering news in the world of avalanche transceivers lately. By and large, the revolution in digital processing and multiple antenna technology begot by Backcountry Access’ original Tracker DTS appears to have run its course. In the last five years, most of the improvements to …

Keep making backcountry turns

Redux: Ortovox recalls S1+ (again!)

While cruising the recent Outdoor Retailer Summer trade show, Ortovox reps asked me to remind S1+ users to observe the ongoing recall and the need to send their beacon in to be fixed. Based on results so far, very few actual customers have returned their S1+ beacons to be fixed. All the S1+ beacons pending …

Keep making backcountry turns

Beacon Review: Arva’s Neo v2.0

  When you consider what the most important criteria are in an avalanche rescue, keeping it simple has to be one of the most important. There are plenty of things going on and you don’t need complications when you’re already facing the most serious one possible. To that end Arva’s Neo is undeniably one of …

Keep making backcountry turns

Review: Pieps DSP Pro v2.0

  Pieps has upgraded their DSP beacon with a new case, improved harness, better marking for multiple victims, and a few new special functions in the Pro model. Range Although Pieps is no longer king of hill for max range they’re not shabby either, with a solid 52+ meter range whether oriented parallel or crosswise. …

Keep making backcountry turns

Technique: Range set up for testing avy beacons

  How do I test avy beacons, more properly known as avalanche transceivers? What follows is my range set up, some notes and illustrations for newbies to understand basic terminology and concepts, and my general procedures. From an overall perspective, I’m just going through some predefined motions to test limits. In terms of the real …

Keep making backcountry turns

Beacon Review: Arva’s Neo

Arva Neo shown with 2 victims

To be honest it has been awhile since I’ve been impressed with an Arva avalanche transceiver. They were the first European company to agree digital processing could improve search times and they obliged with the Arva 9000 – a single antenna transceiver that used digital processing to calculate and display distance, along with a series …

Keep making backcountry turns

Review: Ortovox 3+ avalanche beacon

3+ avalanche transceiver display when searching for a signal

The 3+ from Ortovox is a fresh breath of simplicity in the beacon world. It doesn’t go overboard with brainiac features, at least, not overtly. It doesn’t provide the directional clues of the S1, but it can still separate the various signals, only without getting confused like the first gen S1.