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As i wait for this season to start here in the Northeast, i have plenty of time to stay current with gear updates and giveaways.

I'm sure many of you have seen the latest reports of beacons and gopros not mixing when you switch the beacon to receive. I "like" most of the beacon companies on Facebook and they have bombarded their fans with this new evil and how unsafe operating both devices can be.

Why aren't they taking the responsibility to update their beacons. I think its the beacon companies that need to make it safe for us as we record our crazy gnar, cause we're not gonna stop recording.

What do you think?

I think if you knowingly risk your own or your partner's life to capture some media you have some messed up priorities. That said, it's been going on for years before beacon interference was ever an issue.

I think beacon companies first a foremost have a responsibility to create simple easy to use devices with basic fail-safes, universal signal standards and backwards compatibility. Since gopros aren't going away any time soon, I think both gopro manufacturers and beacon manufacturers would do well to investigate the nature of the interference and explore options to minimize or eliminate the interference. The gopro isn't on the the "must-have" list to travel in the BC though and the beacon is. Hopefully people will make some smart choices.

It's not really a software/updateable issue. It's certainly not specific to gopros/contour video cameras.

Electronic devices don't play nice with transceivers due to electrical interference. This has been known for years but is becoming an increasing issue as we carry more electronic gadgetry with us into avy terrain.

I attended the ISSW talk that sparked some of the media/manufacturer response and it was good but really not anything radically new. This issue has been known for a long time. It will be interesting to see what happens with efforts to measure the critical distances resulting in interference.

BCA has a summary of an ISSW paper/presentation on their website and some of their own thoughts:

http://www.backcountryaccess.com/2012/1 ... erference/

Mammut has a summary and their own thoughts as well:

http://www.mammutavalanchesafety.com/20 ... ilure.html

If you choose to bring electronic gadgets into the BC (and I certainly do) it makes sense to keep them as far away from your beacon as possible and turn them off if your technology addiction allows.

Its not often i get schooled by a dishwasher but i certainly appreciate the lesson Dave. Two !!

So what they show is that electronic devices interfere with a beacon in receive.
That mean it is not a problem if you have a GoPro or other electronic device and get caught in an avalanche.
Instead the problem is when you are searching for somebody and you have the GoPro (or whatever) on you, closer that 40cm/15in.

So you your buddy gets caught, just turn your shit of and there is no problem.

I dont understand how a Go-Pro or contour will interfere with a beacon, They don't transmit anything do they? thiws doesn't make any sence to me

They do not have to "transmit" anything. Even an iPod, like the ISSW paper showed, will interfere because electronic devices all do transmit something.