No bad options these days, but...
my friend is picking me up one of the last sos beacons available tomorrow at a local store. and i already planned on practicing with it a lot. thanks for the info.
Unless you are a winter professional i.e. avalanche pro, ski patroller, guide, etc who uses the beacon and practices daily, you will never be as fast with the analog as you can become in a couple hours with the digital. And as the folks mentioned earlier, your digital will work fine with any beacon on the 457mhz frequency.
Be sure you couple your equipment and technology with solid avalanche training. Ideally a rider will have the training first, technology second. If you find yourself needing to use the beacon, the mistake has already been made.
While I am here, here are a couple facts to remember:
Statistically, 1 in 4 avalanche victims are killed by trauma (crushed, run into trees, rocks, off cliffs, etc.) the beacon will only be effective for 3 of 4 buried victims who would otherwise die of asphyxiation. I don't know about you, but I don't like those odds.
On an avalanche accident scene the average recreationist will find buried victims alive
42% of the time by
RANDOM PROBING...think about that- RANDOM!...they will find the buried victim alive only
32% of the time with transceivers.(think probes are important to have???)
Keep in mind this is for the average recreationist or non-professional. For those folks that are pros in the field these numbers are far different(much higher percentage found sooner with transceiver)...the difference is in the user's ability and comfort level using transceivers in an emergency because of practice, practice, practice!
Didn't mean to be so long winded here...
be safe out there.