'Snow Beacon' Avalanche Transmitter - No Receive, No Point?

I don`t see a point for using such device. Imagine what`s gonna happen if a group of a few skiers go for a side/backcountry for a few hours or few days and everyone is using that device. Nobody is really protected because you can be found, but nobody can search for you...

I think this is some sort of selfish cheap "safety" device, I wouldn`t go out using one of this and watch a friend die because I can`t search for him... Don`t think this would be used by anyone that really go out on avalanche terrain, and I don`t think this would ever be suggested by any instructor or experienced backcountry skier/guide

I don't care about you, but I'd really like you to rescue me.   I guess if you have one of those it also saves you the trouble and expense of having to buy and carry a probe and shovel.

Makes sense for dogs. But I think they already have that and they are on a different frequency.

Makes sense for dogs, for sleds, and for training.  

AFAICT, having devices like this makes search + probe + recovery training more affordable and likelier to happen.    This is a very good thing.

I don't want to ski with you or your full service AT if you haven't trained with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xela 

I'm not sure how much money is saved by removing the receive function.  Seems like a bad cost-benefit play.

 

Considering you could also remove the incoming signal strength testers and most of the user interface, possibly a fair bit.      

Transmit-only can be nothing more than a plastic box, a button, and a timer going 'bleep' on the radio - it's not like the mfg. needs to buy an AT ASIC.

Seems a really good way for a club to buy 4-5 of these and practice multiple-burial, multiple-signal searching scenarios.        If you lose one in the snow/leaves/mud - no biggie.

+1million

read first, then reconsider your actions and if you jumped to conclusions and how you feel about yourself, maybe not here, but a lot of the other posts were out for blood.

Thanks Richard.  Your thoughts are well-considered and considerate of the product, but in the end I think you conclusion the developer of this product misses the backcountry ethic is true.

I followed this for no real reason except that it's almost June and I've done a small bit of backcountry. The relevant comment IMO is this from "when blogger's attack" (my underline):

"So who is at fault here? The blogger for not speaking to the inventor and posting his opinion based on a piece of public marketing collateral, a website, or the startup inventor for not being bang on absolutely clear in the tag line and home page and employing a website writer to get that message across?"

When I visited the product's web site before the brohaha, there was no, zilch, nada indication that this was an inbounds product aimed at children. I understand that now it's been hastily revised to state it's for inbounds, still mentions how cheap, but still no emphasis on children. 

So sorry, but this does not come across like a struggling start up that wasn't "absolutely clear" about wording. It appears to be just another attempt to target as broad an audience as possible to pay for the start up costs, followed by a partial retreat under pressure. Not all start ups are cool noble guys in their garages, folks. Even when they're making (gasp) skiing gear. Most are just people with an idea for a market niche. Who may or may not be very good at thinking through how the product will be received. 

As far as the actual criticisms, meh. Yes, they're all fairly valid. We do not need a bunch of spurious signals going off during a search, and as Cirque notes, the entire ethos is about having each other's back. No free rides. And the inventor is flat naive (or disingenuous) if he assumes a bit of tech meant for one purpose won't end up being used for other purposes. Like actual backcountry, by actual adults. Not even clear why it would be a good thing for kids inbounds; they'd be long dead by the time someone with a receiver finds them in a tree well, which would seem the major safety claim, not the rare inbounds avalanche. 

OTOH obviously some of these bloggers have gotten waaay too wrapped up in their own brand of backcountry macho. But that's a different issue than how a particular product is being marketed.

If it was small enough and light enough and cheap enough, then you could attach one to each ski to replace powder cords, but then you would need a receiver to find your ski and you would need a different frequency. I think there are some products on the market now that do what i have just described but they don't work all that well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanoT 

If it was small enough and light enough and cheap enough, then you could attach one to each ski to replace powder cords, but then you would need a receiver to find your ski and you would need a different frequency. I think there are some products on the market now that do what i have just described but they don't work all that well.

There is a reason we don't want transmitters attached to equipment (skis, snowmobiles etc) or for that matter dogs...In the event of a rescue scenario, the rescuers need to focus their efforts in a very brief window of opportunity on saving the life of a person who is buried.  Any thing that interferes with that, will cost time and lives.  Never put transceivers on equipment, animals etc.  Also, anyone using a device must at least know to shut it off or switch to search mode in the event of a burial.  Transceivers need to be worn securely against the body where they cannot become separated in an avalanche.   The idea of a bunch of cheap receivers on untrained people at a scene is a nightmare to someone who actually hopes to effect a rescue.

FYI there are some passive transmitters that use a different frequency from rescue transceivers that are purpose built for equipment and animal recovery.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirquerider 

 

There is a reason we don't want transmitters attached to equipment (skis, snowmobiles etc) or for that matter dogs...In the event of a rescue scenario, the rescuers need to focus their efforts in a very brief window of opportunity on saving the life of a person who is buried.  Any thing that interferes with that, will cost time and lives.  Never put transceivers on equipment, animals etc.  Also, anyone using a device must at least know to shut it off or switch to search mode in the event of a burial.  Transceivers need to be worn securely against the body where they cannot become separated in an avalanche.   The idea of a bunch of cheap receivers on untrained people at a scene is a nightmare to someone who actually hopes to effect a rescue.

 

FYI there are some passive transmitters that use a different frequency from rescue transceivers that are purpose built for equipment and animal recovery.

Cirquerider, your points are well taken, but if you reread my post you will notice that i did say that you would need a different frequency for ski recovery use.

Maybe this product is targeted at giant ski area conglomerate companies to provide to their employees at a lower cost than the transmit and receive beacons.  Searching costs a lot more money and overtime expenses than recovery does..

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanoT 

Cirquerider, your points are well taken, but if you reread my post you will notice that i did say that you would need a different frequency for ski recovery use.

I think just as the blog/marketting post showed, here we go again falling into the same boat with your idea.  

One may have a good idea.  But say it's a 95% baked idea, and maybe 5% isn't fully baked, and entirely clear or needs but it could be tweaked or worked around; If you market it wrong and it goes viral and your reputation could gets ripped to shreds for the 5% you didn't take into account, and the 95% good idea gets thrown out with the bathwater.

I think that's the true lesson to be learned from this.   Internet giveth popularity and it taketh away.  Often they aren't neutral where they will honestly say you have 95% of a good idea there, but you got to fix that last 5%.

The truth is, that avalanche safety is a life or death issue, and the marketing of this product, at the outset at least, didn't show sufficient consideration for the seriousness of this issue. Instead there was an emphasis toward the economy of the product, and not toward the limitations of it's intended use, or how it cannot not be considered a replacement for an avalanche transceiver.

The tone of the initial website text was misleading, and the fallout is the responsibility of the one who published this material; if it had been more conscientiously presented, the response would not have been nearly so adverse. However, since there is lack of a means of securing the device to the users' bodies, even the intended use is inadequately served by the device, unless the intended use was simply to allow some parents a false sense of security, in which case, the intent would be specifically to mislead potential customers.

speaking narrowly to the issue of inbounds avalanche, if there are patrol (or well informed skiers), checking in, what response would you prefer from knowledgable, beacon equipped public skiers when you have a brand new slide sight with possible multiple burials, at least one confirmed burial (skier missed by buddy in this location)?  Include what sort of resources and number of patrol present a patrol team has to have at a resort to handle a typical inbounds event, say 50 - 150 feet across, 400 - 600 feet in length, 16 inch crown.

Ski patrol could generally gather that kind of team in a couple minutes. Their strategy is to always have patrol at high points on the mountain, so they also arrive quickly, again a couple  minutes. Not in every situation, naturally.

So what then is the part of a well equipped public?  I don't think that self-reliance as a survival tactic is generally practical or productive in the resort avalanche setting. Tree wells and sluffs, you're going to be on your own, but that doesn't take teams or gear, just having an alert buddy higher on the pitch than you are, hmmmm.

If your buried group is isolated or cut off, then it's more like backcountry, and that happening in a resort, just your bad luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xela 

I think we're getting a bit off the topic of the Snow-Be, but...

 

It seems to me that the key variable is how long it takes patrol to learn about the slide.  Some ski areas are rather vast and not all aspects are easily visible.  That guy at Winter Park died in a treed area from a slide 40' wide and 30' long, magnified by a terrain trap.  Nobody came rushing.

 

Seems to me best to ski in groups of 3 or more.  One gets buried, one starts the search/rescue, one summons help.  Can't always rely on a cell phone.

3 is good, but if you only have 2, have a whistle (my (non-skiing specific) backpack has one built into the left strap).

One point is: what is the point of a full featured three antenna beacon for resort inbounds skiing, so somewhat on point still.

partly because I bought the Pieps Freeride and trusted it for the resort for high quality and dependability due to the brand, minimum search feature, compact, and fairly inexpensive.  (I do not see the need for something dirt cheap, and a new brand that may or may not be of high quality, as in un-proven.)

A group of three would have to have almost as much luck as never being caught to begin with to be able to rescue one of their own, if the event is taking place in deep fresh snow. Everyone would have to be in perfect position when it happened. I know it can be done, and is sometimes done, but it's really difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davluri 

Ski patrol could generally gather that kind of team in a couple minutes. Their strategy is to always have patrol at high points on the mountain, so they also arrive quickly, again a couple  minutes. Not in every situation, naturally.

 

So what then is the part of a well equipped public?  I don't think that self-reliance as a survival tactic is generally practical or productive in the resort avalanche setting. Tree wells and sluffs, you're going to be on your own, but that doesn't take teams or gear, just having an alert buddy higher on the pitch than you are, hmmmm.

 

If your buried group is isolated or cut off, then it's more like backcountry, and that happening in a resort, just your bad luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xela 

I think we're getting a bit off the topic of the Snow-Be, but...

 

It seems to me that the key variable is how long it takes patrol to learn about the slide.  Some ski areas are rather vast and not all aspects are easily visible.  That guy at Winter Park died in a treed area from a slide 40' wide and 30' long, magnified by a terrain trap.  Nobody came rushing.

 

Seems to me best to ski in groups of 3 or more.  One gets buried, one starts the search/rescue, one summons help.  Can't always rely on a cell phone.