Garmin Alpha Locking up

[Bellmorekennels]

Hey guys, I looking into alpha 4 dog system, I run the 320 with dc 40 collars and tritronics on same collar. So, to anybody that was running the 320 and now has the alpha, would you buy again or prefer the 320/dc40 system??
Also does the lockup problem have anything to do with birdseye view?

anthony

[Crow]

Birdseye is not the cause of the freeze & crash. Mine has done it with & without Birdseye. As for the alpha vs. 320. Alpha does the same thing as the 320 & shocker but does it with 1 handheld, less weight, more range, tracks more dogs, can track other alpha handhelds, & uses half the chargers. It's up to you if that is worth the extra money. I wouldn't go back to the "old" way myself.

[Bellmorekennels]

Crow, thanks for response.
My buddy has the alpha.
He Very happy with it.

Anthony

[njharnde]

So after talking to garmin it seems the issue only happens when the sd card is loaded with more than around 4mb of data. It appears the 320 would run 232 JNX files. The new birds eye seems to slow the system down much more. This makes it slow to a point and then it shuts down. Sounds like no big deal rite?

Yeah try that when you are 6 miles in off a dead end dirt road and when you turn the system back on you loose all tracks and the truck location! Can you say bad day!!!! I never had an issue with the 320 and began to trust garmin had there stuff together.

The reason I chose the garmin product over the sportdog was it had the Birds eye. But if I can only load a tiny bit I might as well save the money and buy the other. This is my

I will yell you this. If you have the old birds eye backed up on your computer it will work and the system will not shut down. Also if you are willing to fumble with multiple small sd cards in the woods you can download small amounts of the new birds eye onto different cards and it will work. But if you try to just use the base map and download the location you are going to hunt the next day then garmin will keep hitting you for the $30 for a subscription each year! Kind of seems crooked to me!

Let me get this straight you messed with the system now it don't work as well as it did and it costs me an extra $30 a year. They tell us it will take a 32 gig sd card. So you go out and spend $60 on a good card just to find out the dam thing will only work with 4.5 mb on the card? NICE! I could have got one of the 8mb cards for ten bucks!

Final review, alpha is a very disappointing upgrade so far. The fact that when you call garmin they pretend you are the first person to ever complain about the issue is insane! This is no joke the 7th garmin product I own and the first big letdown! If they want to fix the issue they can either update the processor to handle the info or say oops sorry if you bought the alpha your birds eye subscription is on us for the time you own it!

I am a garmin fan I sure hope they make it rite!

[BCBeagles]

I dont have birds eye and it still shuts down up to 2 times a day, that has nothing to do with it. I use it as simplistic as possible.

It is the processor and have spoke with several running multiple dog units and it is still the same result. I have tried "stop tracking" on all my nonactive collars, makes no difference.
Something is definitely wrong, but who knows when they will fix it, one thing I have learned is that if I continue on a same hunt after shutdown I don't lose my truck location, lose tracks for dogs, but not truck.

I have a slip waiting to send my back until season is over. Gonna try another unit, we will see if it continues. Good product with a slight issue, aside from issue it is the best tool I have ever purchased for a hound.... take care and good running!

[njharnde]

do you have any mapping loaded on the sd card during this?

[BCBeagles]

No. I have it as stock as possible. Just want it for tracking my hounds at a basic level.

I run up to 5 collars on it, the more collars the more it shuts down, up to 2 times a day. Not a big deal, but I prefer it did not happen.

[beaglenutz]

I found a nice new feature with my alpha! Along with all the other shutdown issues I now have two out of three collars shut down completely shortly after connecting to hand held. After catching the dogs you can turn it back on and continue tracking. I had this happen with one collar TWICE tonight in two hours! All collars had 3/4 charge on them. It just keeps getting BETTER and BETTER!!!!!!!!!! What else can go wrong? The good thing is that they are so CHEAP you can overlook some of these small issues! Lol

[njharnde]

So we cut down the size of the files we put on the system and took it out for the weekend. 4 times the dam thing froze up! Go Garmin! nothing like the feeling in your gut when you have 4 dogs out almost a mile and look down to watch the system slowly fade out and crash! Then you turn it back on and just hope it works!

[BCBeagles]

I think I may just start shutting mine off into the hunt about 3 hours so i don't have to get upset with it....LOL.

It did not shut down last time I went....who knows??

[Crow]

The replacement unit I got has only crashed once each hunt I've used it. Strange thing is it doesn't seem to matter if I hunt 2 hours or 6 hours, still just a single crash. It's like it knows how long I'm going to run and will throw one out there before I'm done

[BCBeagles]

Sending mine back again today.

Anyone have any luck with getting one the third time around, this will be my third one, that did not lock and freeze.

I will still go forward using it, just wish this glitch did not happen...lol.

Thanks!!!

[Budd]

I was having issue's with my map screen jumping so I called buddy and told him the issue and that I didn't wish to be without until the replacement came, he said no problem and shipped a new one rite away and I sent my old one back to him later on. He played with my old one the same way it was set up when I had it, he determined they all did it when the screen was zoomed in to 60 yrds or less, and yes my new one does it. Also just sent back a collar I kept loosing gps and comm with, same thing he sent me a new one before I even sent the old one in. Nice not having to deal with garmin direct, I'm sure they would never trust me to do this.

[Crow]

That's one reason it takes so long to get the problem fixed. Folks won't talk to garmin & let them know what's going on. Garmin does have an option of giving them a credit card number & they will ship your replacement & you have 30 days to return your old unit to them.

[Rowco Beagle Kennels]

BIG QUESTION: Does anyone have an Alpha with Bird's Eye and running 5 or more dogs who does not have a problem? Would like to hear from you. We are new users and have not used enough to find problems yet.