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Homing in on elusive standards for beacons
Tests reveal inconsistent performance of avalanche transceivers, but not durability.

By Bill Curran

As avalanche survivor Tony Piva lay buried beneath as much as five feet of snow from a slide Dec. 19, he thought of his beacon as a link to life.

Knowing he was wearing his Ortovox F1 avalanche transceiver, Piva had faith his friends would dig him from the slide he triggered in the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort backcountry.

"I was thinking, 'I've got my transceiver on, they have their transceivers, they'll find me,'" Piva recalled in an interview last week. "That was one reassurance that I had."

Piva's ski party initiated a search for their buried friend and, using their beacons, found and uncovered him in 12 minutes. Piva's transceiver likely saved his life.

It never occurred to the experienced backcountry skier that his link to life might have been rendered useless by impact during the slide.

Piva said his perception of beacons as durable survival gear was turned on its head when he learned of the standards ­ or in the U.S., the lack thereof ­ that govern the industry. "What good are they if they can't take a hit?" Piva asked.

That lesson crashed into the consciousness of the Jackson Hole skiing community when the death of skier Steve Haas in an avalanche Feb. 10 triggered questions about the durability of beacons, and the forces they are built to withstand. Tom Burlingame, Haas' final ski partner, survived the Feb. 10 slide in a closed area at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, but his Ortovox M2 transceiver did not. Burlingame lost precious minutes probing in vain for Haas until a third skier with a functional beacon joined the search.

Burlingame turned over his transceiver to Marcus Peterson, general manager of Ortovox USA, who confirmed last week the device is not functioning properly. It does not transmit and receives to a range of only about 15 meters, he said.

Peterson sent the beacon to Ortovox engineers in Europe so they can determine the malfunction. Peterson, and independent industry experts, were not surprised the massive impact caused by Burlingame's slide damaged his transceiver.

The France-based European Telecommunications Standards Institute states beacons must function after being dropped six times on a hard wooden surface from a height of one meter, a test designed to mirror everyday handling, not the impacts generated by a massive snow slide. Avalanche professionals question the adequacy of that standard and say most beacon manufacturers build a sturdier product than is necessary to pass the drop test.

While there are no U.S. standards for beacon durability, a representative from Consumer Products Safety Commission said Friday that, as retail products, beacons fall under his federal organization's jurisdiction. The commission, which is reactive in its policy-making, could issue a standard governing beacons. But industry representatives say such regulation would be counterproductive, and companies operating in the U.S. should continue to meet European rules.

A smattering of institutes, mostly European, have tested beacons in the last five years for performance as well as comparison as digital technology was introduced into the marketplace. Tests did not measure durability, though they did raise questions about compatibility and range of different brands.

Finally, a retrospective study found beacons aid professionals, such as ski patrollers, in finding victims, but provide no statistical benefit to recreational backcountry enthusiasts. Technology introduced since that 1998 study may date that finding.

Mark Ross, spokesman for Consumer Products Safety Commission, said Friday his agency, based outside of Washington, D.C., has the authority to create standards for beacons. Ross said he does not believe the safety commission has yet studied the devices. "But it is something we would be interested in."

Ross forwarded the News&Guide report of Feb. 19, "Death starts beacon query," to the commission's Hazards and Compliance group for further consideration.

The commission has the power to recall products that it finds to be a danger to consumers, as well as to set minimum safety standards for industry groups. "If there's an across-the-board problem with beacons, that's something we would considering issuing a voluntary standard for," he said.

Ross said Hazards and Compliance will determine whether beacons require his organization's oversight.

Companies usually comply with voluntary standards, he said. "But even voluntary standards have the power of a recall behind them."

The safety group largely relies on consumer complaints and company reports for its information, Ross said. An onslaught of consumer interest spurs the commission to action.

While frequently dealing with household goods, such as dangerous toys, the commission took part in the recall of a climbing harness in 1998. The group also conducted a comprehensive analysis of the benefits of ski helmets in 1999 and produced the standard that governs bicycle helmets sold in the U.S.

The commission is prohibited by law from doing pre-sales testing, Ross said, and is focused on safety, not performance.

By contrast, European Telecommunications Standards Institute is a technology group. The institute works toward worldwide standardization in telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology.

The safety standards for other alpine survival gear, such as climbing ropes, are set by International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (known as the UIAA after its French name), an organization dedicated to alpine issues and safety.

Ortovox representative Peterson criticized adding further regulation to the beacon industry. "You put an oversight committee on this, then they start talking about putting unrealistic standards on these things," he said.

Peterson said high-trauma incidents, such as the slide that broke Burlingame's beacon, usually are fatal. "If I'm going to get into an avalanche and I'm going to get slapped into a rock band, 99 times out of a 100 it's not going to matter because I'm going to be dead," he said. "So why engineer a standard in there that's going to cost money for a standard that doesn't make a lot of sense?"

Trauma is the cause of death for one-third of those killed in avalanches.

Peterson said research and development funding would be better spent on making transceivers more intuitive to use and to increase the distance in which they can detect signals. (See graphic to learn how transceivers work.)

Dale Atkins, longtime forecaster with Colorado Avalanche Information Center, agreed ramping up U.S. beacon regulations would be a mistake. "The market is so incredibly small in United States and North America, that [increased oversight] would probably stifle innovation and it would probably increase the costs," he said Monday.

The burden of added paperwork and regulation might be too much for the small American market to bear, he said.

Rather, European regulations should be revisited and tightened, and U.S. companies should continue to follow those standards, he said.

And while Atkins would prefer a "stouter test of the durability," he said sturdier beacons might become cumbersome or more pricey, discouraging use. "If it gets too expensive, too big, people won't use it."

Edgerly estimates worldwide annual beacon sales at 70,000 units. He said North American sales represents 25 percent of the total or about 17,500.

Packaging engineering Mike Macy, a backcountry skier who lives in Salt Lake City and worked for a year testing the durability of Zip drives, a computer accessory, said the current drop test of one meter onto hardwood should be combined with a defunct standard, in which a beacon was dropped two meters onto sand. Macy said the sand drop is a useful measure because sand would lengthen the impact of shock on the electronic components. Sustained shock can be more damaging than a quicker impact, as would occur with wood or concrete.

Macy also said a "flat" drop, as is done in the testing, generates forces more powerful than might be apparent to a lay person. After a beacon is dropped, one surface will strike the ground first. The beacon will bounce slightly upon contact, but the internal electronics will still be travelling downward. The result to the components is an impact many times the force of gravity, he said.

Peterson worries that focusing on the characteristics of beacons could distract backcountry travelers from more important issues. "I think the real emphasis needs to be on using good judgement," Peterson said. "That's where the debate needs to be."

Avalanche professionals universally agree the best way to survive an avalanche is to avoid one by sagely selecting terrain. Atkins added beacons often become more of an aid to rescue teams than to victims.

"An avalanche beacon is never a guaranteed survival," Atkins said. "All too often, it's sad to say, it has been a recovery tool." Beacons make it easier for search-and-rescue teams to find and extricate bodies from slide debris. The devices make searches faster and hence safer for rescuers.

Atkins published a study in 1998 that considered the effectiveness of beacons in helping searches save buried skiers.

The study found "few recreationists can use transceivers fast enough to save a life." Out of 60 burials in the United States between 1977 and 1998, ski parties rescued 28 victims using beacons. The other 32 were found dead.

Atkins warns that his statistic of 28 saves by beacons in 21 years could be a low estimate. All deaths are reported and investigated but successful saves with beacons are not.

Whether the search parties were comprised of professionals, such as ski patrol, or recreational skiers, proved a deciding factor in survival rates.

Professionals, who likely practice more with transceivers, found and uncovered victims in an average of 18.3 minutes and rescued 59 percent of those buried. Recreationists required 32.3 minutes to locate and dig out victims, resulting in a survival rate of 32 percent.

In an earlier study, Atkins determined that searchers without transceivers found 42 percent of victims alive by probing randomly with a probe pole.

However, Atkins' study does not contemplate the impact of digital beacons, dubbed user-friendly, on search times. The study used historical data and was published in 1998, just as digital beacons were hitting the market.

Digital beacons use a microprocessor to translate signals into distance estimates, which are displayed as numbers on a screen. Some digital beacons also have indicators that point to the transmitting beacon.

Older beacons, called analog, indicate distance to a transmitting beacon by the volume of a "beep" emitted by the receiving speaker. Louder beeps indicate that the receiving beacon is drawing closer to the one that is transmitting. Analog beacons also can use lights to indicate the direction of a transmission.

Atkins said he expects the new, digital beacons to improve the effectiveness of searches conducted by amateurs. "I think they actually have made a difference," he said. "The success might increase to one in two, but that's still incredibly poor odds on which to risk your life."

Backcountry Access Inc., a Boulder, Colo. company, changed the beacon industry when it introduced its Tracker DTS, the first digital transceiver, in 1997. The German company Ortovox and Swiss manufacturer Barryvox since have produced beacons that use digital technology. Those three companies, along with Pieps, an analog beacon, constitute the major players in the beacon industry.

Innovation in the beacon market, relatively stagnant for years, spurred a serious of comparison tests for performance but not durability.

Francois Sivardiere, director of the French avalanche institute ANENA, stated in a 2001 paper Ortovox beacons transmitted their radio signals outside of the range permitted by European Telecommunications Standards Institute. That group, as well as the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S., require beacons transmit at a frequency of 457 kHz.

The ETSI permits a range of 80 hertz above or below the standard, but at extremely cold temperatures ­ minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit ­ two Ortovox beacons out of four tested transmitted at 105 to 117 hertz below the standard.

The study also found Ortovox receivers displayed diminished sensitivity to frequencies ranging from between 50 to 100 hertz below 457 kHz. No standards exist to govern receiver bandwidth.

Ortovox representative Peterson dismissed the study.

"The deviation from the tolerance is really very small," Peterson said. "We're talking about numbers that are really inconsequential to the performance of the beacon and their compatibility with other beacons."

Peterson touted the range of Ortovox beacons, saying they receive signals up to 80 meters. Increased range allows searchers to cover more area in less time when they are first looking for a signal.

But Bruce Edgerly, co-owner of Backcountry Access, said long range and wide bandwidth are mutually exclusive. Tracker beacons offer wide bandwidth instead of long range, he said. As such, they ensure reception of other "sick" beacons whose signals may have strayed from the norm.

"By allowing a wider assortment of signals into the beacon, we have to clean out more noise," which means less range, he said.

Atkins, in his study, called range a "red herring." It helps professionals search large areas quickly but can actually confuse amateurs who are challenged to follow a weaker signal for a longer distance.

A December 1998 study by the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research determined the Ortovox had an average range of 30 meters versus 20 meters for the Tracker. The Tracker produced the fastest search times in the field study, but the Ortovox was named a better transceiver overall, in part because Ortovox uses a combination of analog and digital technology for searching.

The study, which compared digital transceivers to analog, recommended backcountry enthusiasts continue to use analog models, such as the Pieps Opti 4, while manufactures work to correct some imperfections with their new technology.

A 1999 field test, by Dr. F. Michael Swangard of the International Commission of Alpine Rescue, found the Ortovox M1 to be the best transceiver. Twenty-one of 25 Canadian ski patrollers preferred the Ortovox while three picked the Tracker. The M1 is the predecessor to the M2, Burlingame's transceiver.

They praised the Ortovox for ease of use while criticizing the Tracker for its "difficult" on/off switch. Swangard also wrote the face of the Tracker seemed "vulnerable," but no durability tests were performed.

Backcountry Access funds independent testing by TUV, a private company in Germany that tests more than 4,000 products. Volker Kron, product service agent, said TUV tests the standards set by European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Tracker met the standards.

"Most of [the companies] say they meet the standards, but they don't have a certification body involved," Kron said. "On the other hand, it's okay as long as they work. Testing is pretty expensive."

Peterson said Ortovox does not pay for external testing. The company employees three electrical engineer who uphold European and internal standards.

And Peterson says Ortovox beacons are durable. He said he tested a transceiver by dropping it from two meters onto concrete and it worked afterward.

"We save a lot of people every year with beacons that don't fail," he said. "That never gets written about."

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