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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Upgrade from their earlier astro (orange box style), October 24, 2009
This review is from: Garmin Astro Bundle 220 Dog Tracking GPS (Electronics)
This astro should be pointed out that its fixed many of the bugs those of us early adopters encountered (like using velcro to attach anything to a dog was mistake 1).
The early versions featured an orange "box" with a non-amplified antenna built into the top of it, plus a li-ion battery. You got a velcro harness to hold it on the dog and keep it pointing skyward. After 2-3 trips the velcro was full of hair and the antennas were being broken by anxious dogs racing through brush.
Garmin re-designed the astro and fortunately for us all we had to do was buy the upgraded collar design. The (now black) collar works the same but features an amplified antenna on top, the electronics box down below where it naturally hangs, and an improved longer antenna with better range (about 25% better in my testing)
From the top of one mountain I can now find my dog 7.48 miles away with almost full signal strength, so this really works. Getting to the dog is another matter.
The collar transmits either every 5, 10, or 30 seconds. 10 is a good value as you get about 2 days of use from the transmitter before the battery dies. 5 seconds will die in under a day (about 18 hours). These settings are made by placing the collar in close proximity to the handheld tracker and uploading them.
Finally for the radio folk the collar transmits on the MURS VHF frequencies at 2 watts digital. The frequencies are 151.82, 151.88, 151.94, 154.57 (old analog radio channel - not a good choice) and 154.6 (same as 154.57) [all in MHZ]
The 151 frequencies provide the best range near towns becuase every fast food drive through uses the 154 frequencies to talk around. These correspond to the last 2 sets of 10 channels in the Astro.
If you are wondering how they get 10 channels on one frequency, its simple - both the receiver and transmitter have GPS inside, so they know EXACTLY when a second clicks by to a great precision. They then divide a time period (1 second) into 10 parts, each 1/10 of a second long. Channel 23 for example specifies frequency 2 (151.94) and timeslot 3 - the 3rd 1/10 of a second after 0.00 seconds. Since the radio and the transmitter both know when the transmission will happen the radio tunes frequency 2 at 0.3 seconds after a second "ticks" to listen for the 1/10 second transmission from the collar.
The only problem with this is you can not put multiple collars next to each other as the receiver needs time to process the data it receives (about another 1/10 second) so if 151.94 is a good channel for you, pick dog numbers of 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29 if you have multiple dogs on one system or are hunting with another astro user. Also, you can't have the radio tune different channels at the same time, so don't pick dog A on channel 14 and dog B on channel 24 because their transmissions will be at the same time on 2 different freqencies.
Keeping those simple rules of separation in mind you can track alot of dogs a long ways with Astro.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Astro 220 DC30 collar, October 1, 2008
The updated version of the previous 220/DC20 combo improved the transmitter unit making it hang better and more durable than it's predecesor. The unit is rugged and durable and seems to handle rough use well. The range is very dicey. On flat terrain easily got one mile but in hilly country or thick forest this dropped considerably.
The GPS220 is the weak link in this system. It is an average GPS unit, good for a monopurpose unit. Maps are good but if I want to use My RINO series GPS/Radio and have my GPS in my car and need to put an e-collar on my dog, it's a lot to lug around. The dogs collar does not accomodate a e-collar reciever and the GPS transmiter without getting too bulky. The 220 does not have communication ability nor does it do text to voice driving directions hence, is not useful as a standalone GPS unit in a car So If you want a high end GPS for your car you will need a second unit. I would hope garmin would have built this in and then this would be a truly universal unit. But why not make it a RINO unit as well, one less thing to carry in the field.I actually hope garmin teams up with Tritronics or Dogtra and builds a e-collar/GPS Locator.
If you want to just locate a dog and have a rudimentary GPS this is a good unit.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very useful, December 3, 2009
This review is from: Garmin Astro Bundle 220 Dog Tracking GPS (Electronics)
This season we used the Astro 220 with six DC 30 collars for deer and hog hunting for the first time. The astro is a big improvement over radio trackers. We can determine precisely where the dogs are, which direction and how fast they are moving and recover then much more quickly. However,the range is limted. In flat terrain with heavy tree cover we found the maximum range is about one mile with the factory antenna. The unit does retain the dogs last known location so most times you can regain the lost signal by simply moving closer to that point. When I added the Garmin magnetic mount antenna I found the range is about doubled. You can also use your old radio collars as a backup. The two collars do not interfere with each other. We did have problems with the DC30 collars interfering with each other when they are in close proximity but Garmin gave us the solution with their online support. All in all we are pleased with the product and the support so far.
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