I often run transceiver skills practice sessions for the club and am looking for donations of old digital transceivers. If you have an old digital transceiver that you are willing to donate (I can mark it "practice use only" with an indelible marker) that would be great. Contact me via the BCMC website.
- Winifred
Still looking for donations. Last Sunday's transceiver skills and rescue training went very well but a couple of extra transceivers would have been very welcome as we had a rental transceiver fail (could not even use it for burial).
- Winifred
May I suggest to rent them at MEC and request the club for reimbursement. The session is paid and part (ideally all) of the proceeds should be used as intended - to support and promote its purpose.
Thanks for the suggestion. There is a conflict between participants needing to rent transceivers and the instructors also needing to rent "for burial only" transceivers. There has been a few times where participants are unable to rent transceivers as all available transceivers were already rented.
In the past, the club used to offer beacons for rent - I wonder what happened to that program.
Those transceivers were the old analog transceivers and retired from use. They were seldom rented possibly due to the ease of renting an easier to use digital transceiver from MEC.
With the older transceivers there is concern of frequency drift. I have also had a newer digital transceiver during a partner check flag an issue with an old analog: signal beep length and pause between beeps too long (I believe the digital doesn't get enough data fast enough to give the searcher directional information and so you will "overrun" the digital transceiver's ability to process). [This is a good reason to upgrade to a new transceiver: so that your partners with their fancy new digital transceivers can find YOU.]
I currently have my old Tracker that I have retired from active use but really do need additional transceivers for a two burial practice without having live people on a snow slope without transceivers and be able to have extras in case of transceiver failure (had a rental unit fail this past Sunday; several years ago a participant had their brand new transceiver broken by a probe/shovel strike).
- W
I have never had problems renting a beacon at MEC by reserving one in advance, yet another suggestion could be that two paid sessions can raise enough cash to get a new one. Even more general (and much more practical and effective) proposal for any course/practice could be that organizer gets all her expenses reimbursed by the club, using proceeds from the fees it charges for the event - if that was in effect, you could just buy it yourself (and keep it) for the course. Become involved in this idea or suggest another, there are people who are willing to know.
I think the idea of the club owning one Avi Transceiver for scheduled courses and practices is a good idea. As far as I know these devices should last at least 5yrs so I see it as a long-term club investment aimed at providing a resource for organizers teaching skills to members. I'll ask Rob and Marlaina for their feedback and bring it up at the next Club Volunteers meeting... Tuesday Feb 2nd. Thank you for suggesting it. Paul :-)
Paul: Thank you. If you will, suggest for the purchase of two transceivers.
Serguei: Please continue your discussion in the topic already set up for that: https://bcmc.ca/forum/topic/Supporting-and-Retaining-Instructors-Leaders-.htm
Everyone else: If you know of or come across any transceivers for donation, please let me know. More burial transceivers would be great. It works really well to have people practicing wearing their own transceiver under their outer layers (as they would in a real situation) instead of having to take it off/put it back on as happens in partner practice. While this is acceptable when practicing on a snowy field (and not in a slide path), it is unacceptable to do this when this is not the case.
- Winifred
Win, I think this is a good suggestion. Paul, I agree with the specific lifetime you suggested. They could probably last even longer, too. Ideally we would specify that the beacons would be only for practice only, ie. if they get beaten up during the process we wouldn't have to worry about them being used in actual avy terrain.
I will follow up with MEC again, it would be cool to get a whole bunch of their out of commission ones specifically for this purpose.
This is a great idea! Thanks for bringing it up, guys :) I'll make sure it gets on the agenda for the Feb 2 exec meeting.
Thanks Rob and Marlaina!
All this talk of transceiovers and knowing that several people are renting, I wonder if there is interest from the membership in a group buy of transceivers.
Just an update here... I've got a couple of leads on some old transceivers. Will keep you updated on my progress!