At ISSW I got to see the Pieps DSP avalanche rescue transciver. I also got to see a presentation about the Pieps DSP at the CAIC's CSAW meeting.
I personally haven't gotten to use this transceiver much. Most folks in Colorado go with Trackers or Ortovox transceivers. So, when I was teaching for the CAIC I didn't see many Pieps DSP transceivers. Last seaon a student did show up with one, he couldn't get it to "flag," the first found transceiver in a multiple buried transceiver exercise. At the time, I couldn't take a lot of time to figure out the problem. I told myself that I should read the Pieps manual and get some hands on time with one.
Any way, I recently pulled up the Pieps DSP manual download from the Pieps website www.pieps.com
Reading it I was distressed to read on page 9 of the manual:
"IMPORTANT: In case of multiple burials involving older analogue devices, faults may at worst occur which impair the efficiency of the digital signal separation. In such cases, you may find for a short time that more signals are displayed than actually exist."
This past weekend at Loveland Ski Area, I got off the top of Lift #2 and found two NSP friends (both VERY experienced with beacons)doing some beqacon practice. One of them had a new Pieps DSP. The buried beacons where older analog beacons. The patroller with the Pieps DSP was having lots of difficulty in trying to find the buried transcivers. So, here was firsthand evidence of the Pieps DSP's problems with mulitiple buried analogue transceivers. A shiver went up my spine......
On page 11 of the Pieps DSP manual it also says:
"IMPORTANT: When OLD BEACON MODE is selected, the count of persons buried in the desaster will no longer function properly and the MARK function, too, can only be used to a limited extent or possibly not at all (several trials required)! Use the SCAN function to return to normal SEARCH mode and the beacon will again offer the full range of services."
This whole statement scares the shit out of me.
Great, in the middle of an accident where I might or might not have buried analog transceivers; I can't depend upon my Pieps DSP transceiver working properly?
I don't really know what to tell folks about this. I think it would be VERY wise to ALWAYS ask your backcountry ski partners what kind of transceiver they have. Obviously, having a Pieps DSP transceiver with a lot of older anaolog transceivers is not ideal. In the old days we used to have problems about which transceiver worked with which transceiver because of different frequencys. It seems to me that there is a new issue of compatablity starting to happen here.
Halsted
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