Pieps DSP Smart Transmitter

I have used Barryvox, Ortovox, & Pieps doing ski patrol... yes this has all the bells & whistles but its only as good as the capabilities of the user. Take an Avalanche I or II class if you really want to use this to its full potential! http://utahavalanchecenter.org/education/classes

This is the best beacon I have used. The BCA tracker is the better VALUE so I recommend that one to my poor college buddies. However, if you have the extra money to blow this is the beacon for you! It is insanely easy to use. I really do not think you need the upgraded version (Advanced) of this beacon unless you do more talking about how cool your gear is in the bar than BC skiing.

I recently had an opportunity to do some beacon practice with the Pieps, Ortovox, and Tracker and the Pieps was far and away my favorite and what I ultimately decided to buy. It is great for multiple burials, very intuitive and easy to use. Hopefully you have a chance to try several brands before you buy one, but if not this is a very solid choice.

I just signed up to add one little thing to this...your local dealer does not upgrade your beacon for free. It's a paid service and why would they upgrade it for free if you didn't purchase it from them?! Support your local shop....you should expect to pay for service like that.

All of the beacons made are good. They transmit and they receive the same signal. It is in the industry standards that everyone must transmit the same, but what they do with the signal once they receive it is very different. "flagging" is an excellent way to find 1 transmitting beacon and move on to the next, but to ignore the signal is not correct. While I found this beacon good and easy to use I thought it lacked significantly in the area of multiple burials. It's 3 antenna digital technology is great (at the min. all beacons should have 3 antennas for the fine search) but the quoted range is off and it is still following the flux line in like most beacons. Of course your faster with 3 antennas then just 1 (ortovox m2), unless you practices with your beacon until your skills are solid. Again this beacon can be worn while turned off, a big deal when you go into the BC and you make some turns in avi arenas only to find you skied all day with your partner, but they forgot to turn it on, the what if factor left me thinking hard about a beacon even more fool proof, like an Ortovox Patroller.

I've used Barryvox, Ortovox, Pieps and Tracker beacons over the last 15 years and liked them all without developing an attachment to any particular brand. Last year I had an opportunity to review the top six brands of beacons for Skiing Magazine under the assumption that they would be tested as a "normal" user uses them, ie; take them out of the package, turn them on and use them with little to no reading of the manual. Fortunately, I was in the market for a new beacon, so I had a personal interest in the results. I tested range, speed of a single search, ease of a multiple search, ease of use and how the harness fit. I didn't know what to expect, but I definitely didn't aniticipate the Pieps DSP to be such a clear winner in almost every category! It had by far and away the longest range (70 meters) and somehow eliminated the flux line arc which takes the searcher on a tangent before honing in on the victim. Instead, it was a direct bee-line to the victim. Single searches were no problem (as they are on most modern digital beacons) and the multiple search was very intuitive and accurate. I use a custom beacon harness, so I don't have any comment on the fit of the Pieps harness. Of the two Pieps models, I chose this one as it is the most basic - I want simplicity and durability out of a beacon and get temps and altitude from my watch.

Yup. For multi burials, I'm much faster with this one than with my Ortovox M2. Will tell you how many tranceivers are out there, and will "ignore" a signal so that you can focus on one at a time. Not much faster or slower than a Tracker for a single beacon search as far as I can tell. But they really flubbed the strap system. You wear this thing in a pouch, crappily strapped to your chest and it is connected to the pouch via a tether when you have it out. Meh.

WOW. Not sure how you could not love this beacon. It will still take some practice, like any other beacon to nail down the multiple burials, but it's so cool that it can display the number of signals in a given distance, and the upgradeable software is prime. I bought mine last year before a couple upgrades came out and had the software updated, no problem. The included CD that explains how the DSP works more accurately , especially as you get into your pin point search is great too. The only thing i miss from my last ortovox M2 beacon was that the ortovox automatically turned on anytime you strapped it on which was a really nice feature, but as long as you and your buddies are in the habit of checking each other's beacons (and you should be every time you go out) then it shouldn't be an issue. Also, i think the ortovox M2 was easier access being worn closer to the waist where you could easily reach up and under your jacket without having to unzip your jacket to get your beacon and put it in search mode, but again, just practice with the DSP, i think the other features of the DSP far outweigh those two criticisms.