Beacons vs Transceivers again
It seems that people are still confused about the difference between an emergency locator *beacon* and an avalanche *transceiver*
Tag: gear
The use of Smartphones in SAR
A discussion of various ways SAR members can use smartphones
Why you shouldn’t use Smart Phones for Backcountry Navigation
Smart phones are problematic for backcountry navigation; they are fagile, have terrible battery life, and are less accurate than a wilderness GPS unit.
Beacons and Transceivers, what’s the difference
Beacon on
On May 4th I attended the Canadian Avalanche Association’s annual spring conference and continuing professional development seminar. This year’s topic was Avalanche Search and Rescue in Canada. There were some very informative presentations, but one piece of information stood out …
Counterfeit versions of Petzl Products
Petzl is warning that they have found counterfeit versions of several of their products. They are not manufactured to the safety standards that are printed on the products, and so are very dangerous for use as climbing equipment. In the …
On Coordinates; part 2
GPS Track of helicopter flight into the Pitt River area.
In my previous post on coordinates, I stated that the best coordinate representation to use if you need to use geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) was decimal degrees (or DD). It’s preferable to use UTM, which is pretty much a …
On Coordinates
SAR Member using a map
An article about recording and transmitting geographic coordinates accurately.
Backcountry Ski rig for SAR
A description of my backcountry ski rig for SAR and reasons why I chose it.
BCA Tracker 2 firmware problem
Some versions of the Backcountry Access Tracker 2 have a firmware bug that causes them to go into a programming mode in certain circumstances. http://backcountryaccess.com/blog/?p=2718 Being a software engineer, I understand all to well problems with writing software and getting it …
GoPro Hero, first impressions
I got a GoPro Hero camera for Christmas. I figure since I do some exciting things on occasion I may as well record some of them. I have a few friends who’ve bought this camera, and almost everyone has seen …