I went to a trapping seminar the other day just to learn about what traps my dog might encounter if we're so unlucky. One of the trappers there told me that he has caught three dogs so far. He said one was pretty sad; the dog was wearing a radio collar but landed in his trap in a spot where the collar had no reception. By the time the dog was found (by the trapper) his foot had to be amputated due to frostbite. I'm sure the beeper collars are great, but at least with the Garmin you can see on the screen where your dog's signal was lost and have a better chance at finding him by just following the track lines.

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i own one and LOVE IT

Do you all think Garmin will improve the system by the next kill season comes around(NOVEMBER for me)...Like improve the range and attenas?

i ordered my garmin astro 2 dog system monday night along with sportdog shockers.they will be here friday.will post results.I live in souther maryland and there is nuthin but thick bryers swamps and old timberded woods that have grown back up the last 20 to 30 years and are nuthin but small saplins everwhere.so if it picks up good here thats sayin somthing.

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thrill of the chase!!!!!!!

Like alot of you we have been having problems with the unit hanging down below the dog, giving us reception problems. We've been running this opposite the old-school unit on our original tracking collars, but still the GPS unit ends up hanging down. I did a little searching and found that the little coaxial antennae connector is called and SMA connector. If you do a quick google search you can easily find these. I've used a right angle (90 degree) male/female SMA connector (or adapter) and put that directly on the dog GPS unit. We then made an extension wire, using about 6 inches of RG174 coaxial wire and put female connectors on either end. This will require some soldering. Attach this wire to the 90 degree adapter. Attach the antennae to the other end of the wire. When the radio tracking unit ends up on top of the dog, it's antennae points down. I looped this back up and zip tied it. We use wildlife Materials collars, which have a nice heavy, long cable antennae. Have that 90 degree fitting pointed to the same side as the cable antennae. Now you can run the two antennaes side by side and heat shrink or black tape them together. The idea is to leave as little as possible of that wire exposed so it doesn't get yanked out by brush and what-not. If anyone has any questions put em' up and I'll see if I can help.

To counter the rotating collar, some use the 90 degree BNC, others use a counter balance like an e-collar. I was wondering if anyone tried mounting it on a body collar. My house dog wears one and it has a strap on top that the Astro would fit on.

cityboy..did you get ne more signal doing that just curiuos

One guy we know mounted it on a harness. It would seem to me that this would leave the unit rigidly mounted on top of the dog, right where it can take a beating from barbed wire fences, low branches, etc.

We thought about the body collar but sticks, brush etc will get between the hound and the straps. Don't want to create more problems while solving another. Also the antenna thing you folks are talking about will counter the radio signal but not the GPS signal when the collar rotates. We've gotten the radio signal when the hounds GPS collar rotates down and not the GPS signal. Sometimes you get a question mark that moves if the signal is weak and sometimes you get a stationary question mark if the signal is less than weak, but the reason it's showing up on your GPS unit is because your still getting a radio signal. Bottom line is Garmin needs to make a collar that has a radio antenna coming up one side of hte collar and a GPS antenna coming up the other side of the collar or both on one side if they will not interfere with each other. I strap my Wildlife Materials collar on and don't worry at all about losing a signal, losing an antenna, where the collar rotates to etc etc. You shouldn't have to shanty rig, reinforce, piggyback on another collar, etc, etc. etc. Garmin needs to fix the plate that attaches the unit to the collar, and both antennas so the unit can ride like a conventional tracking collar, underneath the hound. It should be turn it on, make sure it works and don't worry about it again until your home to charge it. That's another thing- you should have the option of changable batteries as well. I think when the engineering meetings were going on at Garmin someone should have looked around the room and realized everyone that hunted in that room wore eddie bauer and LL Beane out in the field and added some of the carhartt jacket crowd. (made me smile cause it's a jab but it's probabley true as well) They targeted and designed it for the bird hunting folks and I just wonder what percentage of customers are now hound guys. Bet it's higher than they thought (or didn't think) for that matter. Garmin are ya listenin to us??? You can get the same critiques from hundreds of folks. So 1 you need to fix it and two you need to take care of the folks that have the origanal collar units in some way. I heard a rumor (here or somewhere else) that Valley Creek (I think) was making mods (though only for the radio signal and at a cost of 40 bucks) for the collar unit. That ain't my idea of taking care of your customers. Tracker made a 99 buck mod (overpriced- yes) so you could attach a yagi to your Maxima. That took a well designed product and allowed you an enhanced option. Garmin would be taking a flawed product and fixing one of the flaws. You shouldn't have to pay for that. Paul Conway.

I'm now a staunch supporter of the Garmin tracker after an experience I had the other day, but I agree that there are things that need to change. One flaw that I've experienced is the actual collar mount. If you don't screw it in real tight the unit will immediately slide down the collar and hang underneath the dog. So, I screwed it real tight and the plastic mount broke, leaving me to crawl through the thorny brush to retrieve the unit. When I lose reception it's always brief, and my dog's collar does turn so the unit is hanging sideways, but I haven't been worried. I've never used another tracker and only know what they even look like because i've seen pictures, so these other faults about signals and things that I don't even know what they're talking about are faults that I can't comment on.

ok i got mine today,i couldnt get none of my buddies to go out tonight with me so i could only take one dog.i had to use the harness because my shockers didnt come in today. anyways the male went awall when i put the harness on him jumpin and flipin tryin to bite it.lol but calmed down in a bit.we hit the woods turned em on and had full signal wich is better than my old hand held did. turned him out and he struck a trail and got 125 yards from me and slowley brought it right by me and went in circle's for a bit b4 we finally called it a night on acount of hard winds and rain startin up.not a huge fan of the harness all thow it staid up right it looked uncomfortable and just wierd. seem to make it hard to walk with his nose on the ground as well. we will see how the e- collars do for a counterbalance nextweek. another thing was that it said he was treed way to fast if he stopped to sniff for about 5 or more seconds it beeped and said he was treed.all in all good so far.

Southern Maryland Boy,
It's not supposed to say "treed" after five seconds. When the dog first becomes still it's supposed to stay "on point" and "treed" when the dog hasn't moved more than a yard or two in any direction after a minute. You might want to look at your settings, maybe something got switched. You can de-activate "on point" and other settings, I never did just because even though I don't exactly expect my hound to suddenly point it gives me a little more knowledge about what he's doing so I don't care what the Astro says. You might want to check your settings though. I spent an hour at home just messing with everything and learning what I can do with the gizmo before I headed out into the field so I wouldn't suddenly be surprised with a feature popping up out in the woods.
Since it only takes a minute for "treed" to pop-up, sometimes it says my dog is treed when he isn't; I just wait another minute then if it still says treed I go check.

well i am down one antena already!it doesnt look like it broke off it looks like it just un screwed off.i will check them from now on.other than that they did perdy well the farthest i have got was 1.06 miles and didnt loose her.I still havent went to the bad woods yet maybe this weekend i will post.got my e-collars in and tonight im gona mountem on to the collers with the aluminum plates i made trying to eleminate as much plastic as possible.will let you know, but so far great buy.

All of yall need to log on to garmin and let em know what kind of problems you have.... Thats the only way we will get anything done.. It needs a better collar doubt... Needs to be more durable and a different way to charge it... Sure enough needs to be an under the neck style collar... Alittle more range would be good also.I've yet to get much over a mile here in the hills of north ga!!!! I still love mine but my dogs dont get cut loose without a regular tracking collar on...I called garmin about my range problem and they said 1 mile was average...I dont see how these other folks get so much...I've tested mine beside other units and they all lose them at the same range... When do make some improvements it will be the best tracking devise made!!!!!

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I've hunted almost everyday of my life.The rest have been wasted!

ive had mine about 3 months now using it in southern WV it is AWSOME Saves me a lot of walking I still use my marshall collar for extreme long range does go out of range if he goes over a mountain but its fine over hills and hollars got a range of 2 miles out of mine from top of a mountain. Tells me exactly where he is I highly recomend the things I dont like is the collar is bulky and the part that connects to the collar has broken twice but I fixed the problem with 2 zip ties for extra support

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MILLS'S ROCK HOUSE RANDY
KEEPIN THE TRADITION ALIVE!!!!!!!!!