Avy Beacon

[Foggy_Goggles]

The above points are excellent. They reinforce how important it is to only expose one person at a time to questionable slopes. Chose your safe zones wisely and do not underestimate the distance a slide can out run the end of the pitch.

[seldon]

Originally posted by SummitCo 1776
I agree 100%

Ortovox F1

I love it! It picks up signals before the digi beacons do and I have a much easier time with multivictims and distinguishing between their signals than the digital becon people did.

Of course this is all beacon drills, not a real rescue.

With only a little practice I was consistently beating the digital trackers.

The F1's also are rock solid. I have had a guide and two patrollers tell me that they have seen trackers malfunction after minor hits and there is a record of a tracker failing in an avalanche due to impact (of course this killed the wearer as well).

If you aren't gonna practice at all, you are probably better off with the digitals...

While I was at jackson last winter a guy broke his M1 in an avy when it caught on a rock. He lived, but his buddy didn't b/c he couldn't complete the search. They were skiing closed in-bounds terrain. it was a sad story

On the original topic, I've only used the tracker (i don't own a beacon) and it seemed easy enough, but I only used it once for a practice //kicks himself for not buying a beacon this season//

[Magoo]

I use the Mammut/Red unit. The thing absolutely rocks!
Everyone seems concerned/confused about the multiple settings feature of the unit. The idea is to set it up (read: configure the unit) initially, BEFORE you use it! Understand how/why you set it up a particular way, and USE it that way! Why confuse things in the middle of a high stress situation? If you configure the unit correctly to begin with, you get the best of the analog and digital features! From Coulior : "with this ability you can...
1) begin your search in analog mode to enhance range,
2) switch to digital as you follow the tangent line in to your victim(s),
3) then toggle back to classic analog mode to quickly refine where to dig."
At any rate, for my money, use and experience level, the Red is the one to buy! I do like the new Pieps unit, but I'd rather wait for some real world users, experience, and (most importantly) to see that the prodution units work as advertised!