Davy Gunn - 08 March 2011 08:41 AM
The pulse does seem to be prone to coming up with “457 Search Failure” if they are used daily, even with the software upgrade. This is possibly frequency drift but the units do seem to be picked up by other pulse and beacons. I’m a Tracker fan myself, but even they need a software upgrade for the T2.
That’s odd, I do use a pulse (in expert mode) a lot and I’ve never seen that message. I have seen “457 Send Failure” which seems to be associated with interference from phones and the like.
The point I was making about the software upgrade is that it’s a undocumented/badly-documented feature of group check at version 3.0 that the pulse reports frequency drift in the transmitting device if it is off frequency. To my knowledge this wasn’t the case prior to version 3.0. It’s also the case that you don’t get this check performed unless you use group check, i.e. if you check using normal receive mode it will detect any device inside the frequency range. That means that without using group check you can detect a device that has frequency drift during your safety check but actually not be able to detect the same device at distance or with altered environmental conditions. This is the real reason people should use group check, it does rather more than just using the device in receive mode.
On a related note, the self check mode on a pulse is very sophisticated and runs a whole load of checks. The upshot of that is that people should not turn the device on until they’ve stopped all other faffing around, so stick your phone in the pocket it’s going to be in, put your sack on, have the pulse harness on with the pulse in it and then finally turn the pulse on. If you’ve got a phone or other device that’s too close and is interfering with the pulse it should give a failure message. It’s also why it’s a good idea to distribute your junk in the same place each day.
On yet another related note, owners of the Pieps DSP get a free frequency analyser built in saving a useful $20,000 IIRC you need to hit the button as it powers up and it goes into a mode similar to pulse group check displaying a readout in HZ of the drift. The standard calls for a tolerance in receivers of +/- 80HZ but really anything close to that and the range is compromised.
If all that sounds a worry it probably shouldn’t be, frequency drift is only a big deal on old devices with ceramic oscillators which are pretty old now, anything more modern than crystal oscillators will be fine. But I thought the Ortovox canine collar was a ceramic oscillators which is why I guessed it was a problem of frequency drift.