Garmin 220 & 320 Problems

[jdmart]

Anyone had problems losing signal with these units lately. I have seen this for over a month or more. There was three of us were running last night and none had signal at 200 yds.. Two individuals have had new antennas installed on their collars within the last 6 months. Some where DC 30's and some where 40's. Makes no sense. It happens it 3 different spots I run. I understand if it was really thick cover and happened once or twice. It is consistent. I am not a Garmin guru but it seems like it's a satellite signal problem. Just wondering if any of the dealers knew if garmin had changed to a weaker satellite for these untis. Thanks!

[steve w]

6 months on a antenna can be a long time from what I have found. I finally got some I like and believe they will last from these guy's http://www.dusupply.com/stainless-tuffskin-antenna.html

[pztrailman]

From what I have read 200 yds. tell you that it is antenna problem. When your the problem occurs push the dog button and click on the collar that has the problem. You will see the collar page that shows detail of the collar. It will show battery, GPS, and communication. You will be able to tell what your handheld isn't receiving by looking at the bars. It could also be a problem with the handheld antenna. The 220 had problems with a wire breaking inside.

[cutthroat beagler]

I recently had one of my alpha collars start acting funny. It would be working and then suddenly no dog on the display. The dog status screen showed not tracking and didn't have any of the batter info or other stats. It appeared to not be communicating. However, I was still able to send tone, tracker light, and training commands to the collar. It all started happening after a hunting trip with my buddies and I programmed their collars into my unit. At one point I was notified by the handheld that I needed to change my dogs ID number due to interference on another collar of my buddies. So instead of having the dog in hand I told it to go ahead and change it while my dog was out in the field. Anyway it locked up right in the middle of changing the collar id and when I got it back I noticed that after removing the collar when I tried to add it back to the list it kept complaining that the collar was already added, but it was not. I eventually go it to add but noticed I had 2 button screens for the same collar. This is when I started having crazy stuff happening for 2 weeks it acted goofy. 2 days ago I performed a true hard reset of the handheld, flashed it to the latest firmware and it wiped everything. After reprogramming my collars it has been perfect ever since. You might try doing a hard reset of the handheld. Might take care of the issue.

[jdmart]

I have owned these units for years and am very aware about antennas. Just as I thought it might be. Someone in the satellite gods has been playing games. Same guys, same collars over 400 yds. away all units had good signal and kept it for the 30 min. they were that far away. I think the signal was weak for a few weeks and know is back to normal. Don't ask me why. But companies do play games to get your money. Look at the recent ATT scandal.