Thread: WTB: Decent Beacon at Decent Price

I'm looking for a decent first beacon. Probably something like the BCA Tracker but you guys know better than I do, hoping to get some good practice in before the season.

Shovels/probes would be considered as well

BCA tracker, used, tested, works 100%.

$150.

^^^ solid price.

PM sent, thanks

Yeah. The Tracker is a good beacon, although I personally wouldn't cheap out on a beacon. The course you're going to have to take to learn how to use a 2 antenna beacon is probably more expensive than a 3 antenna one. A Tracker 2 is a fantastic 3 antenna beacon, for like 250-300$. Put down the extra 150$. You'll buddy's will be VERY thankful when you save their lives, which is more likely with the Tracker 2.

For shovel, there's one, and one only, that you should buy: The Voilé Telepro. Around 40$ new. Cheaper than most. Much better than most. I've had a couple shovels and this is REALLY not something you want to cheap out on. I would say more than 50% of the shovels out there are a guarantee you're never gonna dig out your friend.

url=http://www.backcountry.com/black-diamond-deploy-3-shovel]Stuff like this[/url] looks very fancy, but just completely sucks. 5 stars out of 64 ratings? Wow. It must be good! FUCK NO! The only reason because this thing has 5 stars, is because it's small and no one has actually ever had to use one in a real life situation. I broke one of those the first time I used it in a real test-situation (concrete-like avalanche snow) and so did my buddy, who had the same shovel.
Bottom line:
[url =http://www.backcountry.com/voile-telepro-shovel]Get the Telepro[/url]. It has a long shaft (extendable, but it doesn't break), big D-grip (which is MUCH better than T-bar) and it's big.

For a probe I would get the iProbe. Love that thing. It's about twice as expensive as most other probes, but what you get in return is amazing. The speed with which you can probe is incredible. Probing is a very time consuming thing to do. When you only have 12-14 minutes to save your buddy, the last thing you want is spending time on something stupid like probing. With the iProbe you KNOW the victim is within 50cm (1.5 feet) of the tip of your probe. Just leave the probe in and start digging. It's very easy to probe just to the side of your buddy and you will never know for sure where he is. If he's on his side, he's only a foot wide. You can probe between arm and body etc. All things you're not going to experience with the iProbe.

This is how you should see it:
Get a cheap setup for 300$
Or get the best-of-the-best that will save you literally MINUTES for 500$.

Bottom line: don't cheap out.