davidof wrote:

I was reasonably clear about what you meant in your original post Peter
but many people conventionally think of SAR as external search and
rescue by recognised professional or volunteer bodies. As Booker says,
even in Europe they are often involved in body recovery.

Almost exclusively in Scotland with our very wet snow. We call the
formal teams MRT rather than SAR.

Your post lacks some consistency. On the one hand you advocate investing
considerable money in an expensive beacon but then you advocate skimping
on probes which are small and relatively inexpensive pieces of kit to
carry.

I don't do *any* such thing. Please read it again.

I very specifically said I recommend that people carry probes and
shovels. What I said was not the case is that a pinger without a probe
and shovel was necessarily "ineffective".

Back to my problem with a form of words, why not say something more like
"if everyone in a party doesn't have their own probe and shovel then the
overall safety of the group will be reduced". That should send a very
big warning to anyone who really cares and doesn't give anyone an excuse
to ignore it by being an obvious overstatement.

Everyone says "hey but a
digital beacon is great for someone who doesn't do any practise". I
don't want someone who has never done any practise searching for me.

Nor do I, but we have to appreciate that a lot of people don't really
have the time to spend as much time practising as they'd like. I only
get so much snow every year, if I spent all the time really getting up
to maximum speed with a pinger that I really need to make a bigger
difference than the interface allows then I'd never get a chance to go
skiing!
Even our local MRT have changed to digital after quite a bit of product
assessment. I can't see they'd bother if it hindered more than helped
them, and they spend some of their time practising. Almost certainly
more than I do, and more than I imagine most recreational skiers do, at
least those with UK snow levels.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/