Black Diamond for everything climbing and skiing.    Dynafit -- Speed Up!    Tracker beacons, Stash packs, shovels, more more more.    Terrific deals on randonnee AT rando backcountry skiing gear.    K2 has the skis that stay true to earning your turns.    Garmont boots -- excellent choice for backcountry skiing.

Ortovox 3+ Avalanche Beacon Preview

Bookmark and Share            By Jonathan

Ortovox already offers by far the most comprehensive line of avalanche beacons:
- F1 (firmly enrolled in Old School), Patroller (formerly X1, with automated switchover from single antenna mode to dual-antenna directional mode).
- D3 (keep-it-simple multiple-antenna with directional indicators)
- S1 (max technology).
- And until this season, Ortovox also offered the M2 (single antenna and hence no directional indicators, but digital processing for signal strength and flux line interpretation).

For the 2010-11 season, the Patroller and D3 will both be discontinued, replaced by the Digital Patroller, which will essentially be the D3 but with the all-strap harness systems of the Patroller and F1 (instead of the D3’s tethered pouch system).

The big news though is the new 3+ beacon. Like the competition from the Pieps DSP, Barryvox Pulse, ARVA 3 Axes, ARVA Link (if it ever comes on the U.S. market), and Ortovox’s own S1, the 3+ will offer signal separation technology (for marking/masking/flagging to allow a focus on just one beacon at a time in a multiple-burial scenario), a third antenna (to eliminate nulls and spikes in the final search phase), and upgradable firmware.

The 3+ will differ from the S1 with a more traditional housing shape (unlike the S1’s flip-phone clamshell design), which will also be rubberized. The LCD screen will feature seven directional indicators. All of this will somehow be powered by a single AA battery. (The Pieps Freeride also uses a single AA battery, but that beacon has a lot less going on than compared to the 3+.)

The 3+ will be the third beacon model to offer a unique feature to try to enhance the survival of its user, as opposed to the more typical goal of enhancing the effectiveness of its user as a searcher.

Barryvox Pulse was first with survival tech, utilizing a secondary frequency to transmit data indicative of a victim who is still alive. But this feature works only for a searcher also using a Pulse beacon (or possibly the new ARVA Link). The most recent firmware of the Pieps DSP periodically shifts the transmit pattern in an attempt to avoid signal overlap with an adjacent victim. But this can cause the mark/mask on a DSP to become undone if the pattern shift is misinterpreted as yet another victim coming onto the scene.

So what does the 3+ beacon do that’s so unique? First, as background, a typical multiple antenna beacon has two relatively large antennas for directional interpretation when searching, along with a very small third antenna for resolving vertical issues (which become important during the final search phase). However, all beacons transmit on a single antenna. Until now.

If the Ortovox 3+ senses that the user has come to a rest, and hence might be buried (functions that both the S1 and Pulse currently perform), the 3+ will also assess, based on the vertical orientation of the beacon, which of the two main antennas will allow searchers in the horizontal plane to maximum their initial acquisition range of the 3+’s signal. In other words, the 3+ will switch transmit antennas in an attempt to maximize how far away searchers will first pick up the 3+ victim’s signal.

Now for the really surprising part (as if the preceding paragraph weren’t enough already): the retail will be only $349, far less than the comparable competition.

Ortovox will unveil the 3+ at the Winter Outdoor Retailer Show January 21-24 in Salt Lake City. I’ll have a one-week demo of the 3+ in February and report back in more detail then. The 3+ is scheduled to arrive at retail markets on September of this year.

As always, the beacon market continues innovating at a furious pace. Keep your eyes on this page for more!

Posted by Jonathan on January 11, 2010 | Filed Under Avalanche Beacon Reviews, Backcountry Skiing, Jonathan Shefftz, Your Guest Blogs 

previous post: WildSnow EU 2010 – Day 1
next post: WildSnow EU Day 2 — Wow, it snowed!

Comments

8 Responses to “Ortovox 3+ Avalanche Beacon Preview”

  1. Aaron January 11th, 2010 6:26 pm

    It’s brilliant, shifting the transmitting antenna. I fully expect a firmware update to let the S1 do this as well.

  2. Colin in CA January 11th, 2010 8:12 pm

    That price is a most-welcome surprise. It would be fantastic to get a three-antenna transceiver on the market with a retail of ~$350. It’d probably buy it. :-)

  3. WanaBe January 11th, 2010 10:47 pm

    I gotta say, I am not a fan at all of the beacons offering any sort of data about which victim is alive or not. There simply isn’t a reliable enough system to measure HR or what have you. I fear it will result in improper triage of avalanche victims. Get to whomever is the closest, probe, dig like hell, move on.

  4. Lou January 12th, 2010 12:15 am

    What WanaBe said. And figure if you’re ever in a multiple burial situation, you’re going to be digging up dead people. Don’t let it happen.

  5. Stano January 12th, 2010 3:27 pm

    Great article Jonathan.

    I met ARVA representative last month and I am meeting an Ortovox rep this week. Then I will attempt to either compare or at least describe the two technologies in a post on my site.

    And BTW, Arva beacons are coming to North America and very soon ;)

  6. Bryan Johnson January 27th, 2010 10:59 pm

    I’m excited to see how this beacon works! Could be an impressive improvement in beacon tech.

    I have the Pulse beacon and agree that doing triage based on a computer isn’t a good idea. However it is one more piece of information that may at least be considered when you are the only one doing a multiple search.

    Be smart!

  7. Jonathan Shefftz March 19th, 2010 11:43 am

    Had a demo today – very impressive.
    I’ll have my unit into Monday, and writing up my WildSnow.com review over the weekend, so if anyone has any specific questions about the 3+, just let me know, and I’ll try to incorporate the answers into my review.

  8. John Minier April 2nd, 2010 2:31 pm

    Super stoked! Glad to hear that there is finally a beacon that re-orients its transmitting signal to more closely align with a searching beacon. I teach a lot of AIARE 1 students companion rescue, and by far the hardest concepts that they struggle with are flux lines and long axis orientation. it would be great to have a beacon that takes some of the guesswork out of it.

    However, on another note, I would also be really interested in practicing with the 3+ in many different multiple and close proximity burial scenarios to see if it has attempted to resolve the classic downfalls of all 3 antenna signal separating beacons (ghosting, marking/flagging problems, SLOW processing, freezing up). the technology is great in concept, but still flawed in it’s practical application. If the 3+ 100% resolves these issue, than for $350.00 we might have the holy grail of beacon technology. However, I am still skeptical. Until I get my hands on one, I think that the simplicity and reliability of a Tracker 2 like beacon with this new transmitting signal re-orientation would be the bees knees.

    But like Lou and Wanabe said, we shouldn’t be getting into multiples in the first place. And indeed, a tiny percentage of backcountry skiers actually do. But if it does happen, you will more than likely be digging out dead bodies – I don’t care what kind of fancy, space-age beacon you have. What we really need is fancy, space-age shovels.

Got something to say?





Anti-Spam Quiz:

:alien: :angel: :angry: :blink: :blush: :cheerful: :cool: :cwy: :devil: :dizzy: :ermm: :face: :getlost: :biggrin: :happy: :heart: :kissing: :lol: :ninja: :pinch: :pouty: :sad: :shocked: :sick: :sideways: :silly: :sleeping: :smile: :tongue: :unsure: :w00t: :wassat: :whistle: :wink: :wub:

Due to comment spam we moderate most comments. Please do not submit your comment twice -- it will appear shortly after we approve it. Once you've had one comment published, your comments will be pre-approved and appear immediately if you're using the same computer and not blocking browser cookies. NOTE however that ALL comments with one or more links in the text will be held for moderation no matter what, again for spam prevention.
Welcome to Louis (Lou) Dawson's backcountry skiing information and opinion website. Lou's passion for the past forty years has been alpinism, climbing, mountaineering and skiing -- along with all manner of outdoor recreation. He has authored numerous books and articles about backcountry skiing and is well known as the first person to ski down all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, otherwise known as the Fourteeners! Books and free back country information here, and tons of Randonnee rando telemark info.

All material on this website is copyrighted. Permission required for reproduction, electronic or otherwise. That includes publication and display on other websites by whatever means. PLEASE SEE OUR COPYRIGHT INFORMATION.

Backcountry skiing is a dangerous sport. You may be killed or severely injured if you do any form of randone, randonnee and randonnée skiing. The information on this website is intended only as general information. While the authors and editors of the information on this website make every effort to present useful information, due to human error the information, text and images contained within this website may be inaccurate, false, or out-of-date. By using, reading or viewing the information provided on this website, you agree to absolve the owners of Wild Snow as well as content contributors of any liability for injuries or losses incurred while using such information. Furthermore, you agree to use any of this website's information, maps, photos, or binding mounting instructions or templates at your own risk, and waive Wild Snow its owners and contributors of any liability for use of said items for backcountry skiing or any other use.