Courtney releasing some pent-up powder frustration by skiing deep snow with no rocks for the first time this year.

Doc Brock rockin' out in deep pow. Go dog go!

And another of Doug Brockmeyer in mere knee deep powder. Hardly worth the effort to track it up. :)

Starting the day with a beacon showing “00″ on the power level was not very inspiring, especially on a high/extreme danger day, but it ended up working out fine for two reasons; the first was that we knew it was a dangerous day, so we skied very conservative terrain, and the second was a conversation I had with Michael Schober from Pieps a few days ago at the OR Show in regards to batteries and interference with beacons.

Ooops...

The conversation with Michael started by discussing the “E04″ error that at times shows up on beacons.  I use a custom-made chest pack, and as it turns out, placing a metalic item right next to your beacon can interfere with the power of the transmitted signal.  Items like a cell phone (regardless of whether or not they are turned on) can cause problems, but even worse is a dense chunk of metal, like a Leatherman, which is what I often carry.

The topic then turned to battery power, which is one of the main “complaints” about the Pieps DSP.  When you first load a beacon with batteries, it will read 99%, but by the end of the first day it might be down to 85% or something, which seems like it is gobbling through the power.  But, this is not really the case.  Plotted on a graph of power over time, alkaline batteries show an immediate drop in power, hold steady in the mid ranges for a long time, then taper off at the end of their life. Rather than trying to disguise this, Pieps  shows the real power of the battery, but what is not apparent is that even in the single digit ranges (or 00 in my case), per beacon regulations, a beacon needs to run for 24 hours in transmit mode and then be able to perform one hour of searching at a certain temperature.

I usually change out my batteries when they get down to about 40%, although today I skied all day with 00 power and at the end of the day we did a beacon check and it was working fine.  I hopefully won’t do that again, but it was interesting to see that it really does work and having battery power as low as the teens is nothing to panic about for a day tour. YBMV (Your Beacon May Vary)

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Help support StraightChuter.com and go deep with a Pieps DSP Smart Transmitter from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

I’ll probably get sued for saying this (like I almost did for my last beacon review…), but the top brands of modern beacons are all pretty good and as much as anything, it is a matter of personal preference.  In the right hands and with enough practice, people can get very speedy with any beacon in a search.  That said, I was psyched to see that Steve also thought my current beacon of choice was one of the top contenders.

A great thing about BeaconReviews.com is that as much as anything, it is a labor of love for Steve.  He is a software entrepreneur and presents everything you’d ever want to know about how beacons work, current reviews, known issues, history and tons of links.  It is like Consumer Reports for beacon buyers – straight up facts coupled with ratings which are unbiased by manufacturer’s advertising.

Hopefully I’ll get out MUni riding with Steve sometime soon (or better yet, skiing) as it would be fun to discuss this in person with him.  Until then, check it out.

http://beaconreviews.com/transceivers/

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Help support StraightChuter.com and get a fast, accurate Pieps DSP Smart Transmitter from Backcountry.com! Click on the photo below…

To confuse the issue, the “best” beacon will depend in part on your personality.  In the hands of a Luddite, the fanciest, feature-packed beacon will be overwhelming, but to a techo-geek, it may be a dream come true.  For me, a big consideration is durability, as I tend to be hard on my beacons.  If I’m looking at a new beacon and it doesn’t seem like it could withstand being dropped on the floor, I don’t care how many fancy features it has, I’m not going to buy it. I want a beacon which is fast, easy to use, durable and absolutely intuitive.  Complicated button sequences to change modes doesn’t cut if for me.

I had the good fortune of doing a beacon review for SKIING Magazine last year.  The premise was (this came from SKIING) that you open the box, turn the beacon on and use it without reading the instructions.  I liked this idea as it was so real-world, for better or worse.   In the hands of someone who practices often, any beacon will be fast, but in a panic situation, intuition counts for a lot.  My personal pick from the beacon litter of that era was the Pieps DSP, based in part on its tight feature set, but also because it looked like I could drop it a few times.  So far I’ve been very happy with it – your mileage may vary.

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Help support StraightChuter.com and find ‘em fast with a Pieps DSP Transciever from Backcountry.com! Click on the photo below…