Pete
Forgive me for a taking a few days to come back to, you, the beginning of winter is always a busy time for me and this year busier than ever before!
I have used many avalanche transceivers and on my last trip to the Alps a few months ago, visiting one of the French PGHM teams, I was introduced to a new product they were evaluating, which is now available to the general public and I recently bought one.
CP raises a good point about apps which rely upon satnav, both the limitation of pinpoint accuracy required for finding casualties and signal penetration; I too doubt if the signal will transmit deep into the snow pack – it would be interesting to test if this is actually the case this winter and I can already see a dusting of snow on the hill near my house.
I also agree with Callum, the risk of using different models is that when an avalanche happens and you are searching for buried casualties. In an emergency, the last thing you need to be doing is working out how to use your avalanche transceiver; you should be 100% familiar and confident in its use, which is why I would recommend you buy two.
The transceiver is from the German firm Ortovox, who have many years of avalanche transceiver manufacturing experience, producing reliable and robust pieces of kit.
Their new model is the ZOOM+, which is packed with innovative technology and by far the easiest transceiver to use in my experience.
Their market blurb is an accurate description of the product:
“The ZOOM+ combines the simplest handling with the latest technology and the most advanced design. Reduced to two functional buttons, the ZOOM+ concentrates on intuitive usability. The focus on the clearly designed LED-display is on the on / off switches and the switch between transmitting and searching. Distances, directional arrows and information about several avalanche victims guide you in the fastest way to the refined search area, with the intuitive search acoustics making victims easier to locate. Equipped with the patented SMART-ANTENNA-TECHNOLOGY, avalanche victims are found much better with the ZOOM+. The device analyses its position in the avalanche and automatically switches to the best transmission antenna. The latest digital 3-antenna technology is taken for granted at ORTOVOX just as much as the automatic switch over in case of a follow-up avalanche”.
I particularly like the:
+ 10 day continuous transmission delivered from just one battery
+ Big display meters from the other transceiver and the very simple direction of travel indicator
+ It gets a fix at 40m
+ A gird appears reminding you to perform a grid search.
+ The beeps increase when you are 20m from the other transceiver reminding you to slow down your search to be precise now you are in close proximity. The beeps also increase in intensity at 10m and 5m
+ At 2m the direction lights go out as you now are doing a pinpoint search (sweeping left to right across the ground as you slowly advance forward)
+ At 0.5m the unit indicates find for you to start digging, unlike some other models which try to zero, which is a waste of time as average accuracy is 0.3m
+ Cost new £170 which is low compared to inferior models offered by the likes of Mammut (Element Barryvox @ £250)
Flaws
- The buttons at the top which you slide apart to initiate the units search function is clumsy with gloves on.
- An accessory that comes with it, the elastic cord to secure it to your person, is neither long enough nor strong enough and I replaced mine with 550 paracord.