Pieps Freeride Transceiver

[NECK 14]

So this season we will likely have a new member in our ride group.

 

All current members in our group use the 'Tracker2' digital 3 antenna transceiver. We are all very familiar with this transceiver and on how to use it.

 

The new member to our group has a 1 antenna digital transceiver, which has an elliptical receiving range of up to 40 m.

 

http://www.pieps.com/en/avalanche-transceivers/pieps-freeride

 

Now the range isn't great, but not so much less than the Tracker2 I guess.

As it has only 1 antenna, I guess the 'search' approach to the signal would be an elliptical, semi-circular approach, right? This is perhaps not as quick as the 'straight line' approach of the 3 antenna transceivers.

Also, an elliptical receiving range of up to 40 m, would only be a straight line range of around 20-25 m I am guessing....

 

I am wandering if anyone has any experience in using this transceiver?

Does anyone have one?

Has anyone used them with Tracker transceivers in a group? Maybe know of any compatibility issues?

 

I am looking for any feedback really, on how this transceiver performs and if it is any good. We are happy to welcome our buddy into our tight ride group, but just want to make sure that his gear is good for the type of riding we do.

 

Any comments, advice, feedback or experience would be greatly appreciated.

 

NECK.

[ippy 66]

The only thing you use the freeride for is your dog, very small kids who couldnt dig you out anyways, or testing you beacon finding skills by burying it. I would never ever go with someone who had that thing. Its fine if you have absolutely no intention of finding your mates within 15 minutes before they die, and its fine if you want them to find you, but you might as well be telling the people in your group that they can all go **** themselves. I advise if you carry this you also make sure you carry a plastic beach shovel, just so everyone knows you couldnt give less of a **** about their safety. Two antenna beacons are hard enough to follow without practice, i can only imagine how tough it is with one and continually inaccurate spike readings (and no directional indicator), a shit range, and requiring very advanced search skills that almost no one i know has. I know plenty of ski patrol still use single antenna stuff, but theyve been using that shit all their lives and know it inside out.

 

You could set your mind at rest and plant three beacons and give him 15 minutes to find them. If he cant get at least two of them, tell him to go buy a proper transceiver before you let him ride with you. Honestly, you can make it work, but youll have to practice a LOT with it. And if anyones picking this up i have a feeling theyre not really all that bothered with being safe outside the ropes.

 

Show this picture to your mate. If it makes sense and they know what it is then off they go.

 

[NECK 14]

yeah Ippy, basically all the reviews I have read describe this piece of equipment as being for kids. OK for a victim, but pretty much lame for searching. I have already asked him to look into getting a 3 antenna transceiver, but get the feeling that he won't stretch to it.

 

The best we can do if he doesn't get a new beacon, is to take him out on one of our early season practice sessions and see how he and his 1 antenna transceiver perform. If he can't make the grade then I guess he can't play with us until he gets the right gear....

[ippy 66]

yeah, just drill him with searches. Remind him very strongly that if an avalanche happens, theres just as much chance that he'll be the dude left to search as anyone else and he is as responsible for you as you are for him. And when that doesnt work, remind him of the dude on niseko just before new year last year who got caught in a slide, but died because even though the person he was with had a transceiver, she didnt now how to use it.

I know i always get a bit shrill about this stuff, and its everyones call about how safe they want themselves to be at the end of the day, but its not exactly beyond the realms of imagination that youre going to get caught in an accident once or twice if youre actually hiking (and not just pottering about in slack country) into avalnche terrain. Theres a reason the designation "avalanche terrain" exists after all.

 

I think you use your common sense. If youre hiking into relatively steep terrain you bring the right equipment or stay at home. If youre just popping under ropes into some relatively shallow trees then avalanches arent probably your main concern. Depends on the terrain of course, but if its avalanche terrain then you bring avalanche safety gear. You dont bring shit like the freeride (unless you are a master with it) when literally every second counts in a retrieval. You also dont bring plastic shovels to dig avi debris.

 

Actually, hang on, i posted this over at thrive. Lets see if i can bring it here.

 

Some spectacular ways you can die, kill people or seriously injure yourself or others on your snowboard that dont involve just random thunderbolts from zeus (heart attack).

 

On Piste and general resort dangers:

 

1. Hiting people because youre going too damn fast and you have a helmet on and they dont because its like their first time and you blew into them at a blind connection from your black run to their beginner baby run. Slow the **** down around beginners. Treat them like you would kids near a road chasing a balloon or some shit kids do whilst youre cruising in your SUV.

 

2. Tree wells. They exist, theyre real, and theyre pretty damn easy to spot. Is it an evergreen? Can you see the trunk? No Are the branches kinda dense and pointing in a cone shape? Then its probably best to assume its got a well in it and give it a decent berth.

 

3. This ones fun. Is the powder puking. Are you riding on your own? Are you in ungroomed terrain? Having fun? Wait, hahahah! did you just lose your balance and crash. hahahahaha! catch ya later noob!

Two people died up our end from nothing more than it being a heavy pow day and they just got stuck the wrong way round and couldnt get up. By the time anyone noticed, they were dead. If its a heavy day and you see someone stuck or struggling STOP and make sure theyre okay. Yes, its going to piss you off and yes, youre going to lose your momentum and likely have to unclip and bootpack, but it can be ****ing dangerous out there. On heavy powder days keep an eye for people struggling.

 

Off Piste/Slackcountry shenanigans:

 

4. Creek beds. We all saw the clip on sierra back in the day of the dude who was riding with his mates and suddenly vanished. Ride with mates. I know this is MASSIVE hypocrisy on my part here, but we all saw how he looked once they cleared the snow about. The image of him welded into that snow in a position he would never have gotten out of on his own should give anyone honest pause for thought.

 

5. Cliffs and other fun impacts. Sometimes, hard to believe, but ropes are there for a reason. Do you know your resort? Do you know the dangers behind those ropes? I promise you this, having once been caught with my pants round my ankles and approaching a blind drop with no available exit and going too fast to stop, i can tell you its pretty scary just how fast it happens and just how fast you can accidentally trap yourself. Lucky for me it was only a few meters drop but i didnt know that right up unti i saw the landing. it could have been a crap load worse.

 

6. Avalanches. The big one of course. I know what youre thinking... ill just 45 degree across the face. If youre in an avalanche where you can just shimmy 45 degrees across the face youre probably on a sluff slide. This means the snow is breaking off below you. A full slab release on the other hand happens ABOVE you. The slab youre on is already moving and carrying you with it before you even figure it out. Unless you are extraordinarily lucky, youll not have the time to scoot across. More than likely your board no longer has any means of traction and youre going down with it.

 

7. Do you have a beacon? Yay! well done you! First avi death last year in niseko happened like this: Two people went riding out of one of the back gates in december. Both had beacons. The more experienced rider got caught in a slide. The second one had no ****ing clue what to do with her beacon. She tried finding him but just couldnt figure it out. He died. Pretty damn tragic.

Having a beacon means shit. Practice with it. You are only ever as safe as the weakest member in your party.

 

8. So youve used your beacon and pinpointed them... you got a strike on your probe! but whats this? Nice shovel. Ever tried cutting through avi debris? This isnt like the stuff you find on your car in teh morning after a night of snowy weather. Its more like concrete. Save the plastic shovels for the beach unless you hate yoru mates and want to see them all dead. In which case i also recommend you carry the pieps freeride as your beacon of choice.

 

 

9. Great day in the slackcountry eh!

Its a nice open face, youre happy riding it, no ones below you, youre taking your turns nice and easy, its a bit sketch but youre riding sensibly... but hang on whats this!

 

Some ****ing idiot has just dropped in on your line. Yay! Guess where the snow goes if he causes a slide?

 

Thats right... on you.

 

Dont drop in on top of other people in any terain thats liable to slide. Sounds amazingly simple, but seeing lots of lines on a face gives most people an astounding sense of immortality. Try and not be that dude thats hucking cornices and dropping in on people before theyv gotten to their next anchor point (a point where if there is a slide on the face youre riding, they wont likely get caught in it). Its not groomed. Its not patrolled. consider it unstable for the most part.

 

10. Not a way to die, but something killclimbz once taught me on the forums and an important lesson. The point of a safe pit test is not to confirm that its safe, but to indicate that you havent yet found evidence its unsafe. Im sure he said it more sweetly. But its like this: Youre not loking for a green light, youre looking for red flags. No matter what the pit test says, that same slab could be ready to release regardless. You cant do enough of them to guarantee youre safe. Nevr take a pit test as confirmation youre good to go, it just doesnt work that way.

 

[Yuki-Uma 0]

Anyone have any experience with the arva evolution 3+ avie beacon

[Slippery Jim 65]

Damn good post, Ippy! :thumbsup:

[ippy 66]

ETA; was just reading teton (always nice to get in the mood by reading the horror stories on the slide zone), and learned an important lesson:

 

No beacon on your dog.

 

To summarise said lesson:

 

1. If youre searching and your dogs got a beacon on and running about, yay for multiple send signals.

2. If you have a slide where your kid/friend.wife.husband and your dog get buried and you dig out your dog and the kid/wife/friend/husband dies, well done.

3. To soften that a little, summit on teton writes:

 

NEVER PUT A 457KHZ BEACON ON A DOG.

 

Companies produce off frequency beacons for use on dogs, snowmobiles, and other itmes you might want to find in a slide, but you never want to find before a buried human. SOS and Pieps do this. Ortovox used to. You can also get a pair of old 2.2Khz beacons on ebay.

 

You always learn something reading teton.

[ippy 66]

On the arva. three antenna beacon, multiple burial system like the one i saw on pieps (marking/masking), 40m range. Its going to be more than good enough. I remember when i was first looking for beacons a couple of years back and saw a review on the evo3 that was pretty much a ringing endorsement. The review i just read on the 3+ though seemed to find its features decent, but disliked the build quality on certain key aspects of it (the straps and the on/off switch in particular). They also disliked that if you were wearing it, it had to be switched on.

 

I like the common sense send/receive slide on it though. My tracker has a very VERY nasty habit of switching back to send. If your mates are in the middle of a search then its a bit horrible suddenly realising that although you switched it onto receive, when the call comes out "can you check your beacons are all on receive, please", youre the guilty party screwing up their exercise. I took to switching it off after the first couple of times of doing it which is a massive no-no in a real situation where a second slide might end up burying the search group.

 

Tangent aside. Competent beacon, read the reviews. No reason you wouldnt pick it up if you wanted a decent three antenna beacon (and why wouldnt you, theyre super simple to use as i discovered watching the cats with their pieps dsp - 2 antenna means youre getting spikes and youre having to follow flux lines... which isnt terrible, its just something you need to practice with first to kinda get your head around). The only thing that seems to be of issue is its durability, but honestly, arva have history making beacons in europe (theyre just not quite so famous in teh US), so i cant imagine theyd be selling a piece of shit that fell apart at the slightest hint of a tumble.

That all being said, im trying to find this comparison chart that derbytownjoe on trusnow posted a while back. Its tough work. If i see it ill put it up.

[Yuki-Uma 0]

Thanks I would appreciate a decent comparison chart

I have read reviews about a few different units but most haven't used more than the unit they are reviewing so not really a comparison if you get my drift

[ippy 66]

linky checked and approved sfrom the SJ gang.

 

http://www.alpenverein.de/chameleon/outbox/public/9e52acd1-d5c2-69b7-4b58-4ee1990e09d8/20120229-Uebersichtstabelle_19406.pdf

 

Its all in german, but you can figure it out i guess. First one is range of signal strength. Second cluster is signal direction. Third one is fine searching. Fourth one is multiple burial details. (picking up signals, retaining signals and likely masking signals).

Green is great, yellow is acceptable, red is useless. Pieps freeride, hello! Test carried out by the german alpine club. (DAV).

 

They have a test from 2011 which also has an explication of their test methods:

 

http://www.ortovox.de/xfiles_a6/1295888494_124.pdf

[NECK 14]

Great link Ippy

[rider69 18]

The freeride is something you put into your bag just in case your beacon explodes or you forget it at home. It

is not a go to choice at all. I wont ride with someone that thinks it is an acceptable beacon. Never put a beacon

on your dog I would hate to find my dog and loose my friend!