Hunting Garmins in rough stuff?

[Liz ODell]

So I have a question, a lot of the country/vegetation posted on different peoples threads looks very familiar and I know most of you are using Garmins.
My question is regarding DC30 set up style collars, these collars also have the DoubleU tough skin and not factory antennas on them.
So they have only been used a little so far and in that time I have had the shrink wrap torn off of all of them (the wrap that goes over the antenna and part of the chip area), sticks caught between the antenna and collar bending the antenna, and tons of mud and thorns shoved in every crevice and down the fabric tube...it almost seems uncleanable if it gets dried in there.
SO...what are you guys that hunt brush/briers/water doing to keep your collars from being torn to pieces out there? Can you post some photos of any kind of changes you have made to your collars, also how many are running stock antennas or stock DC40 collars and how well are they holding up? Thanks!

Also if you put a wrap over the entire chip area will it interfere with the collar picking up satellites?

[Unreal_tk]

The long ant is the radio freq ant, it has nothing to do with the gps sat. part but communicates with the gps in your hand. Mine are beat to crap, but still work. My best collar has one that is cracked to hell and rusted but still out does the others.



Edit: if the rubber end comes off, you can use gorilla glue with a .22 mag empty. I haven't used it but been told it works.

[al baldwin]

Liz I saw an ad the other day for a cover of some sort for the garmins. Looked thru the bloodlines magazine cannot find it. Thinking now, must have seen it on the internet under ukc coonhounds classifieds other listings. No idea if they work. Al

[to much fun]

Liz
I take and wrap mine with electrical tape up past the quik tie . Dick

[cobalt]

I use gorilla tape (like duck tape, but better).

[Liz ODell]

So then I take it covering up the chip box on the collar with a wrap does not affect satellite ability at all since it seems most of you are wrapping over the top of it with tape?

Unreal tk I use the .22 mag casings on the ends of all my telemetry collars but I crimp them on. I hadn't thought about gluing them, that might work better for sealing the water out to as I have a huge problem with my telemetry collar antenna's rusting out and breaking off. Suprisingly so far the plastic tips on the tuff skin antennas have stayed on.