Never without my beacon!

Le Point magazine
24 January 2003
Henry Salamone

Accessible to the masses, these items can save lives in case of avalanche

Avalanche beacons are one of the most misunderstood pieces of equipment in the realm of mountaineering. However, a beacon is not just one more gadget on the long list of technological flops, rather it is an indispensible piece of safety equipment. Previously reserved exclusively for alpinists, this tool has been available in France since the 1980's. Today, although they're still somewhat expensive, mountain professionals strongly recommend them for all who travel in the backcountry, whether on skis or snowboard, or on snowshoes or climbing skins.

What is an avalanche beacon? It's an electronic transmitter and receiver worn under your clothing. During a backcountry tour, it is in transmit mode. In the event of an avalanche, the rescuers immediately begin the search by switching into search mode. There are two types: analog and digital. The first provides a beeping sound to the rescuer that gets louder as he or she gets closer to the transmitting beacon; the second provides distance and directional information with lights on a built-in display. In case of an accident, the beacon of each party member must be compatible with each other. This is why all beacons available in Europe send (and receive) on the same frequency: 457 kHz.

How should you choose a beacon? The first important consideration is the useful range, or the distance at which it first captures a signal between the transmitter and receiver. The second consideration is ease-of-use in the secondary search, the step that ends in pinpointing the victim's exact location.

Some say that the perfect avalanche beacon does not exist. But the five we tested this season showed some consistency: while none are perfect, frankly none are bad. The exercises we used to evaluate the beacons was to measure the time it took to locate a backpack buried under the snow in a field measuring 50 x 70 meters. The stopwatch was stopped the instant the searcher struck the backpack with a probe. For each unit, each accompanied by a professional mountain guide, searches were performed in four separate fields, each with 60 searches, for a total of 240 measurements.

The result? The most difficult beacon to use was the Ortovox F1 Focus. In general, this model had the longest search times, averaging 3 minutes, 38 seconds. Furthermore, it is the most difficult to handle, especially when wearing gloves! We found the SOS F1-ND similar. While it has an unsophisticated search system and a very weak signal at the edge of its receive range, it nevertheless had an average time of 3 minutes, 17 seconds.

To its credit, the Arva Evolution, delivered with an instructional CD and whose simplicity was impressive, averaged a time of 2 minutes, 21 seconds. One small drawback, however: we repeatedly had brief interruptions of the signal that were quite distracting. As for the Barryvox Mammut, it performed fairly well, with an average time of 2 minutes, 16 seconds. We liked the ease of use of the secondary search and its capability to run through an auto test when you turn it on.

Finally, the laurels go to the Tracker DTS 2001, which got the highest grade of 16 points out of a possible 20. Its search time averaged 1 minute, 46 seconds, mainly resulting from its speed in pinpointing. On the other hand, the display was difficult to see in bright sunlight. The carrying system also could use some refinement. Finally, for your information, note that all the products tested are available at major sport shops and in certain specialty retail stores.