Tych333 Mine came with a harness

Joe S Sure he said it has a range of up to 50M

That all depends on the orientation of the buried transmit beacon and the receiving beacon, their battery power, the ambient noise level and other factors, but generally with all things in your favor then your maximum range will be about 50 meters (or yards). This is adequate for almost all human-triggered avalanches.

The beacon has a setting that if you are in search mode for more than 5 mins or you don't move for 1 minute it will automatically revert to transmit mode in case of a secondary slide. If you buy this particular model you will have to activate that function every time you turn on the beacon

Not if you were in auto-revert mode. If you turn this on then it will revert back to transmit mode after five minutes in search mode. If you have Tracker3, it might revert back even sooner: it has a motion sensor that will put the unit back in transmit mode if you've stopped moving for one minute. Please see our KZfaq video called "Transceiver auto-revert mode."

Personal locator beacons use the satellite network to notify first responders anywhere in the world. So someone that is lost or incapacitated in the wilderness can hit the SOS button and have SAR dispatched to them. Avalanche beacons (new models are more accurately called transceivers because they send and receive signals rather than only send) transmit a lower strength signal so that someone else with an avalanche transceiver in the close area can search the debris field and find your signal under the surface to a very accurate point. PLBs are only accurate to something like 100m. Avalanche transceivers are meant to be much more accurate and allow for MUCH more expedient rescues than a PLB because a person trapped in an avalanche can be suffering from traumatic mechanical injuries or at a serious danger of suffocation being encapsulated in snow.

It suppresses that first signal long enough for you to get closer to the next victim....the point is that after the location of the first victim is determined you can then suppress their signal and follow the next strongest signal....within that minute hopefully you can get closer to the second victim than you are to the first victim and continue to follow that now stronger signal, if not you can signal suppress again and continue until you are confident you are following the signal of the second victim. When signal suppression ends after a minute it doesn't necessarily lock onto the original signal - it will simply lock onto whatever signal is strongest based on its current location. Depending on how the victims are positioned relative to each other this might be enough to find all of them. However, certain burial layouts can still be problematic as you suggest, and in that case you can use the 'big picture mode' as described in the video to get a general idea of where any remaining victims are and signal suppress to further narrow down each one individually. But if that still isn't effective enough then as each victim is dug up you can turn off their beacon, allowing you to focus on the victims yet to be found, though this isn't nearly as expedient as properly utilizing big picture mode.

@@cameronhopper260 Cameron Hopper Thanks for replying. I understand the system of searching, but actually it doesn't really work well on guide exams, where you don't dig up the "victims" and all the beacons are turned on. I tried to use big picture mode but it's still a bit confusing. And there is one more problem, the beacon restarts really often, so you lose several seconds and then it confuses you. My question is what is the advantage of this kind of system to the others, where you can mark all the victims and you don't have to think more about them?

never ridden a snowmobile to access ski terrain? Huh.