yeah I've always heard skiers call an aviy beacon a pieps

goggled pieps.com , its sez BD is the north American distributor for the product

its been awhile but i read the artical in outside mag when it came out, as i remember the 2 were seperate, Patagonnia was worth hundreds of millions a year, but Chouinard equipment was < 10 million...

I am pretty sure i read that as a result of Chouinard committing ch 11, Black Diamond fights all lawsuits ?