Stupid helmet question ...

"Mike Clark" wrote in message
.uk...
In message
Ace wrote:

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:49:44 GMT, Mike Clark
wrote:


Whilst I wouldn't always wear my transceiver, I do generally try and get
into the habit of putting it on most days I go skiing.

For me it's part of getting dressed in the morning.

Same here. The transceiver, googles, hats and gloves are normally
sitting together with my rucksack which also contains probe and shovel.
They all get collected together.


I put in a fresh set of batteries at the beginning of each of my
trips and they then last more than the one or two weeks of use.
After the trip the partially used batteries are transferred to less
critical use.

I'm surprised. I find that one set of batteries lasts me a whole
season, of ~50 days' use. Of course, I'll check the power levels
frequently and carry a spare set, but I've never had to change them
mid-season.

I'm not saying that the batteries wouldn't last, it's just that I prefer
to start each trip with a fresh set and the partially used ones are
perfectly OK for things such as powering domestic appliances.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"



. The transceiver, googles, hats and gloves are normally
sitting together with my rucksack which also contains probe and shovel.
They all get collected together.


Whats your take on people who wear an active beep but are not carrying probe
and/or shovel - Are they saying 'you can find and dig me out - but I can't
dig you out?'

Jon.

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 04:59:42 GMT, "jonathan"
wrote:


Whats your take on people who wear an active beep but are not carrying probe
and/or shovel - Are they saying 'you can find and dig me out - but I can't
dig you out?'

Something like that, yes. But OTOH I'd still prefer that someone could
find my approximate location rather than not at all.

In Ski Club groups, we always take a spare "backmarker" rucksack with
shovel, probe and first-aid kit and give it to one of the group to
ensure that at least one other person is suitably equipped. As we've
been encouraging members to do this for a few years, it's now
increasingly common that those turning up for off-piste skiing will
all be properly equipped anyway.

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

In message
"jonathan" wrote:

[snip]

Whats your take on people who wear an active beep but are not carrying
probe and/or shovel - Are they saying 'you can find and dig me out -
but I can't dig you out?'

Jon.



My take is that I'd prefer to ski in a group where everyone at least had
a shovel and a transceiver. All of my friends who I tour with have their
own kit (including probes) and also regularly practice with it, but some
of those who I ski with off-piste in resorts don't. We then try to
borrow kit to hand around but the key problem is then that you can't
rely on them all being competent in its use, particularly with
transceivers. What we then tend to do is to spread the experience out in
the party, i.e. put the two most experienced people at opposite ends of
the group and not have both of them exposed at the same time. That way
you at least have a chance of somebody who is reasonably competent
taking charge of a rescue situation. In particular somebody who knows
how to search with a transceiver can look for locations of victims, mark
them and then leave the digging to the less experienced members of the
group whilst they move on to locate the next victim.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

"Mike Clark" wrote in message
.uk...
In message
"jonathan" wrote:

[snip]

Whats your take on people who wear an active beep but are not carrying
probe and/or shovel - Are they saying 'you can find and dig me out -
but I can't dig you out?'

Jon.



My take is that I'd prefer to ski in a group where everyone at least had
a shovel and a transceiver. All of my friends who I tour with have their
own kit (including probes) and also regularly practice with it, but some
of those who I ski with off-piste in resorts don't. We then try to
borrow kit to hand around but the key problem is then that you can't
rely on them all being competent in its use, particularly with
transceivers. What we then tend to do is to spread the experience out in
the party, i.e. put the two most experienced people at opposite ends of
the group and not have both of them exposed at the same time. That way
you at least have a chance of somebody who is reasonably competent
taking charge of a rescue situation. In particular somebody who knows
how to search with a transceiver can look for locations of victims, mark
them and then leave the digging to the less experienced members of the
group whilst they move on to locate the next victim.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"


Mike,
Sound logic but - the "mark many then search" approach means being able to
locate multiple signals and finding a 2nd beep while beep#1 is still active
I find very hard?

J.

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:17:26 GMT, "jonathan"
wrote:


"Mike Clark" wrote in message
c.uk...

snip

In particular somebody who knows
how to search with a transceiver can look for locations of victims, mark
them and then leave the digging to the less experienced members of the
group whilst they move on to locate the next victim.

snip sig

Sound logic but - the "mark many then search" approach means being able to
locate multiple signals and finding a 2nd beep while beep#1 is still active
I find very hard?

You need to practice ;-) Seriously though, it's a lot easier with some
models of transceiver than others, but in any case you should work out
the best approach for the one you carry and practice it as often as
possible.

By the way, it makes threads a lot easier to read if you could learn
to snip content and sigs from the post to which you're replying ( like
I've done above and marked with snip. Ta.

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

In message
"jonathan" wrote:

[snip]

Mike,
Sound logic but - the "mark many then search" approach means being
able to locate multiple signals and finding a 2nd beep while beep#1
is still active I find very hard?

J.

Then the answer is to spend time practicing.

Some of the newer and more expensive digital transceivers can make
identifying multiple burials easier for the less experienced users.
However I've seen experienced users with older analogue kit perform just
as well, often better. I had a friend who served in the Chamonix
mountain rescue services (Sadly he died in an avalanche himself when out
skiing with a group of his friends. All were experienced local French
skiers from the Chamonix area) who could switch on his analogue
transceiver to recieve and then simply by listening for a few seconds
he could tell how many individuals in the group had a transceiver
switched on, which model transceivers they were wearing, and also if
they needed a battery change. He'd gained that ability by practicing
regularly as well as undertaking real rescues.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:05:43 GMT, Mike Clark
wrote:

I had a friend who served in the Chamonix
mountain rescue services (Sadly he died in an avalanche himself when out
skiing with a group of his friends. All were experienced local French
skiers from the Chamonix area) who could switch on his analogue
transceiver to recieve and then simply by listening for a few seconds
he could tell how many individuals in the group had a transceiver
switched on, which model transceivers they were wearing, and also if
they needed a battery change. He'd gained that ability by practicing
regularly as well as undertaking real rescues.

I suspect he was winding you up.
--
Champ

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:10:11 +0000, Champ wrote:

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:05:43 GMT, Mike Clark
wrote:

I had a friend who served in the Chamonix
mountain rescue services (Sadly he died in an avalanche himself when out
skiing with a group of his friends. All were experienced local French
skiers from the Chamonix area) who could switch on his analogue
transceiver to recieve and then simply by listening for a few seconds
he could tell how many individuals in the group had a transceiver
switched on, which model transceivers they were wearing, and also if
they needed a battery change. He'd gained that ability by practicing
regularly as well as undertaking real rescues.

I suspect he was winding you up.

Why? It's true that different transmitters have a slightly different
sound, and certainly when I've done multiple searches one can hear
this, bit in the pitch and the repeat frequency of the beeps.

The battery change I'm not so sure about. A wear signal would surely
just read as being further away?
--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

In message
Ace wrote:

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:10:11 +0000, Champ wrote:

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:05:43 GMT, Mike Clark
wrote:

I had a friend who served in the Chamonix mountain rescue services
(Sadly he died in an avalanche himself when out skiing with a group
of his friends. All were experienced local French skiers from the
Chamonix area) who could switch on his analogue transceiver to
recieve and then simply by listening for a few seconds he could
tell how many individuals in the group had a transceiver switched
on, which model transceivers they were wearing, and also if they
needed a battery change. He'd gained that ability by practicing
regularly as well as undertaking real rescues.

I suspect he was winding you up.

Why? It's true that different transmitters have a slightly different
sound, and certainly when I've done multiple searches one can hear
this, bit in the pitch and the repeat frequency of the beeps.

Yes it is very obvious. I can certainly hear the difference between the
different models but I'm not familiar enough to be able to say which is
which.


The battery change I'm not so sure about. A wear signal would surely
just read as being further away?

That's what he was working on. He was familiar with the expected range
for a device with good batteries so if the signal was a lot fainter than
he would expect for the distance you were standing from him he would
suggest you check the batteries. He grew up near Grenoble, was a junior
race champion and then did national service with the Chamonix mountain
corps as a ski instructor and member of the mountain rescue. The sport
he loved most was extreme skiing and he spent a lot of time in the
mountains and had a lot of experience of using his equipment.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:46:13 GMT, Mike Clark
wrote:

In message
Ace wrote:

The battery change I'm not so sure about. A wear signal would surely
just read as being further away?

That's what he was working on. He was familiar with the expected range
for a device with good batteries so if the signal was a lot fainter than
he would expect for the distance you were standing from him he would
suggest you check the batteries.

Ahh, you confused things, allowing the reader to think that he could
do this with the transmitter out of sight. Clearly the scenario you
describe would hold true.

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.