It was Gecko Supply GmbH of Zurich here in Switzerland, I think I logged an issue via the BCA website . I’d been over screwing the screw on the door day in, day out for a season or two and the screw finally pushed through the door. I think as there were no spare parts I just returned the one I’d broke and got another within 5 day or so.

Edge - 22 December 2009 05:36 AM

Between digital beacons, however, there were only differences on the order of seconds.

I was surprised to see this and agree that differences are insignificant. What is clear is that a novice should practise both beacon searches and shovelling.

Did you have a comment on what the Ikar seem to be saying about probing, or not probing?

http://pistehors.com/news/forums/viewthread/401/

As we all know, beacons always work better when you just keep moving.

I’m doing a training session for my club group at the new year and think I might look at the three circles method for multiple burials. We always emphasise single burial searches for beginners but we had three big incidents involving ski touring groups last season so multiple burials may be back on the agenda

http://pistehors.com/news/ski/comments/0975-avalanche-accidents-france-2009/

There was an interesting incident in the Massif Central where one skier was buried directly above another skier which caused a lot of confusion for searchers who thought their sophisticated digital beacons were misfunctioning.

Anyway glad to hear the Tracker 2 is ready for prime time.

davidof - 23 December 2009 09:47 AM

… we had three big incidents involving ski touring groups last season so multiple burials may be back on the agenda

Makes sense for the training session agenda.

But “three big incidents” sounds like it ought to trigger something special on the club’s leadership committee agenda: something like reading McCammon’s article on Human Factors and asking if some things about how the club organizes tours might be adding to the “human factors” dimension of avalanche risk.

My experience is that organized ski clubs are some of the most persistent violators of the implications of the avalanche human factors findings.

But I doubt if most clubs will seriously alter their approach to organizing tours - (though perhaps they could at least try to make it easier for any individual tour leader who wishes to implement safer human-factors practices on his/her tours).

In the mean time, more practice on multi-beacon searches sounds like a sensible course.

Ken

Ian, when you have used your Pulse have you found a processing slow down after marking the 1st, 2nd… etc victim? Someone has told me the Pulse has to devote a lot of processing resources to the identification and masking of victims and this causes delays in searching.

I’ve rarely tried it beyond 3 victims, between 1 and 3 that’s not something I’ve really noticed at all. I’d not really think personally it’s too hard to code this well either.

Do you have any additional info (ie a web link or report) about that incident in the Massif Central where the “sophisticated” multiple-burial function might have confused the search? Sounds like it must have been a problem with overlapping pulses ( see http://backcountryaccess.com/english/research/Signal_Overlap.php ).

Regarding the use of probes in shallow burials, I would probably agree that a probe isn’t necessary if you are shoveling alone, as probing will cost time that could be spent shoveling. But if you have more than one shoveler, I would have one person probe as the other starts digging.