The American Beagler Forum

That thing is pretty slick. One of my collars must just be messed up, the other one works great. It's nice to know the distance the dogs are from me. Now I just got to hook my Tracker up to the gps collar or the shock collar as a back up and I'll be in good shape. Glad I didn't give up on the unit after the first time I used it

DIXIEDOG,

My Garmin Astro DC30 collar is back at Garmin right now hopefully getting repaired. It constantly looses communication with the hand held. Hopefully they resolve the issue promptly. I have become so dependent on this thing that yesterday when my best dog took a hare out of hearing in the Adirondack mountains, I got a little nervous. It was almost an hour before they decided to head back to the start of the chase, where I ended it with a dose of #6 shot.

These units are awsome when they're working correctly & total junk when they're not.

As far as range goes I've gotten as far as 2.4 miles & as little as 500yrds. I have'nt tried the long range anntena yet. It's supposed to about double the range.

Anyone tried this antenna? http://www.conkeysoutdoors.com/cgi/disp ... num=Fold-1

i have tried the antenna and does increase the range. i rarely ever use it but i have got almosst 6 miles with it . its nice if a dog get out of range with the regurlar antenna just screw on the long range antena & you will most likely pick him back up. i live in se ohio where the appalacian mountains start so i have plenty of hills to deal with.

Bootjack wrote:DIXIEDOG,

My Garmin Astro DC30 collar is back at Garmin right now hopefully getting repaired. It constantly looses communication with the hand held. Hopefully they resolve the issue promptly. I have become so dependent on this thing that yesterday when my best dog took a hare out of hearing in the Adirondack mountains, I got a little nervous. It was almost an hour before they decided to head back to the start of the chase, where I ended it with a dose of #6 shot.

These units are awsome when they're working correctly & total junk when they're not.

As far as range goes I've gotten as far as 2.4 miles & as little as 500yrds. I have'nt tried the long range anntena yet. It's supposed to about double the range.

I lucked out because this collar was crap right out of the box, I took it back today and got another one. I'm glad to not have to deal with Garmin's customer service department. I tried calling tech support but after 15 minutes of waiting for the next available person I decided to just bring it back to Cabelas where I bought it and swap it out.

The funniest thing about when that bad collar was losing communication it was when the dog was in the wide open and in plain sight, in the fir thickets it still worked. Heck if I know what was wrong with it.

DIXIEDOG,

Unfoutunately I didn't luck out like you did, cause mine worked flawlessly since last spring when I bought it up until a few weeks ago. You might know it, just my luck, it crapped out right before I start hunting for the season. I absolutely loved this thing. What a useful tool for training & hunting as well as keeping track of your hounds. When my young dogs are on a check I move the pointer on the topo map to their location, then I'll go to that exact spot & try to aggressivly "work" them at the point of loss. This doesn't work all the time but you can certainly get those dogs back to the point of loss.

As for dealing with Garmins customer service, believe everything you read about them on this board. It can be very frustrating.