BigGameHoundsmen.com

I've just got back from a week a elk hunting.. (i.e. wating my time while looking at Cat tracks all week wishing I had dogs..)

This isn't new, Looks like Steve Pretty much summed it up. I've talked to a couple guys about them in the past and the range and Battery life I don't see being much better than Garmin, (At least what I was seeing last year or two when I was looking into this stuff) I also don't see it being as user friendly as a garmin.

I didn't get a chance to read everything here but this is basially the Garmin system on a Different Frequency Like steve mentioned.. I've thought about trying to make one of these HAM type GPS things to work for dog. But I haven't had the time and I don't have the license.

Good for a Geek.. But probably not ready for a hound guy yet.

Thats Greg for weighing in And Finding this discussion !!!!

First to Some Fokes and Where and How they Hunt the Garmin Could be Perfict for "Them" Wi. and other States is mostly flat and has Plently of Grid Roads to hunt and Locate their dog from . Thus the Garmin will work for them Quite well ..

Other Parts of the Country is Much Different and Given our mountains Hunting Fast Bear the Garmin is only Good about 20% of the Time plus if More than 20 or more hounds are running the Mountain with Garmins Well your going to be tracking alot of other hounds then your own..

The Garmins only work about 75% of the time in our valleys Most of it is Rolling Hills and Creek bottoms that are deep enough to Lose Signal often ..

Just remember Your Garmin could work great where you hunt but their plenty of Others that their no more than a toy ..

I have ran my hounds with water proof 2-ways radios on "VOX" on the Hound is great you can hear everything their doing even when their out of hearing the Radio works to a Tee ..

And you can Call them right in with it no mater how far off as long as you have signal !!

Now as far as a Collar Attachable Waterproof Case .. Well their has to be an ejection molding that will fit the RedBee electronics !! Theirs tons being made ..

The Rats Tracking Collar co. has theirs Made by Ejection molding ..

MJT- I have a bunch of customers in the mountain areas of the country. Their units for the most part work better than mine do here in WI. Due to the line of sight gained by being on the mountain. Is there any collar out there that works when they go on the other side of a mountain or hill?? None that I am aware of. Launch a Garmin collar up on a rocket and see what kind of range you get!!!!

Really what you are talking about doing is trying to adapt another system that is not designed to be used on dogs to dogs. That is going to give you the same thing you already have. Does not make a whole lot of sense. I really wish someone could explain to me how range can magically be farther than what I have already explained. There is no way any radio can transmit through a mountain, or distances beyond line of sight. I find it funny that some believe a dogs collar is going to get more range than my truck radio. Don't know how that is possible. I must be missing something that others seem to know, or is it just raining again???

MJT- I am curious though as to what radios you were attaching to the dogs on vox and what the range was with them.

Steve We have Repeaters that have been set up on higher mountains for use with the 2 meter radios were using now .. So we can get over the Mountain ..

In one area theirs about 6 repeaters EMS- Rockingham Co., Shenandoah co.,Page Co., State Police, Sheriffs dept and 3 others that I don't know who they belong to ..

Majestic Tree Hound wrote:Steve We have Repeaters that have been set up on higher mountains for use with the 2 meter radios were using now .. So we can get over the Mountain ..

In one area theirs about 6 repeaters EMS- Rockingham Co., Shenandoah co.,Page Co., State Police, Sheriffs dept and 3 others that I don't know who they belong to ..

Using a repeater for GPS collars would greatly increase distance. But you'd have to get the repeater set to the collar frequencies which would require licensing. If you did it on a gamin system, you’d really mess up anybody else using the same frequencies because the repeater would send the signal out a couple hundred miles. Hence the reason why I’m pretty sure you can’t get a repeater license for MURS Frequency. But I could be wrong about that.

If you used a system like the Bee’s and ran your own frequencies that were just yours and licensed to you, you could plausibly make it happened. But as it’s already been explained you’d have to build collars for the Bee’s. Then you have to deal with the repeaters.

We have repeaters around here too. In fact my dad knows the owners of some and helps maintain them. So we could do all sorts of cool things with a repeater around here. But we really don’t have a need for it. We have no problem keeping within a couple miles from the dogs.

Their is another angle that I'am looking at, and thats for Search and Rescue Hounds that could be Free Casted to find the Lost Sole .. Mostly in areas that a Handler would be more of a Henderance to the hound then help.. Most of the time these houds would be Backed up by Choppers anyway which could have More LOS from the Air but may still be obscure from View from the Searchers . These hounds could be vested with First Aid Items and Sat Phone, and if the Victim would be unconious then the Hound would remain their untill the Search team would get their.

Caincando1 wrote: Using a repeater for GPS collars would greatly increase distance. But you'd have to get the repeater set to the collar frequencies which would require licensing.

APRS (the protocol that the BeeLine GPS modules use) is designed with repeating in mind. All users would transmit on the same frequency, and use different time offsets to guarantee that they don't stomp on the other users.

The data packets are all tagged with a unique ID, and filters on the receive end are used to ensure that you don't see more data than you need to.

-- Greg

Steve, I respect your knowledge on radios and radio waves. I am a licensed ham and I live in the southwest and I do see how more power would help with this or any other type of GPS system. Now in AZ where I live we usually aren't hunting on a single mountain with flat land all around. A lot of places are up and down up and down and twisty and up and down again. And we are talking hundreds and possibly thousands of feet in elevation change with canyon after canyon. With a normal beep beep collar this sucks as you get bounce and sometimes with higher power collars, you get more bounce. GPS type systems can turn this negative into a positive. They can use all that bounce that might make you go the wrong direction with a beep beep system and extend the range. Not that it will be going up and over or magically through the mountain, just bouncing all the heck around to the receiver. It might not work all the time, but it would help.

I use bounce all the time with my HAM and it 100% definitely will extend your radios range.

I do not see how making a collar would be that difficult to do. You can buy all sorts of electronics boxes from radio shack and a lot of other companies. They could be modified to work very well. Beeline also said that the smallest boxes they have are the size of a deck of cards. We have all seen people with two or three collars on their dogs. Don't tell me that together they aren't at least as wide as a deck of cards.

Also, maybe, depending upon the circuitry, two 9 volt batteries could be used in parallel to extend the life of the transmitter.

The collars are the least of my concern when pondering on this. It is putting the receiver together that I don't quite understand yet and using a repeater sounds to me like a pain in the a** at least for dog use. Maybe there is something I didn't understand properly.

CC- Under 95.1311 a repeater is not allowed on murs band. Does not mean it is not done though. Heck, wally world uses the channels!! Not sure what it would cost to have your own private channel used for one of these transmitters. At least from the aspect of the transmitter. It does cost a bit more for the license though. Also not sure about the repeater use on these channels. Mostly when getting private channel you are only allowed a 25 mile radius from the base station and so many mobiles. Under special circumstance you can file for and maybe get your radius expanded to 50miles. Cost though of this type of system will be far beyond what the average Joe can afford. Even using real simple repeater set up a guy is going to have close to $1000 in it. When I still used the FRS/GMRS for hunting. I had a simple repeater in my truck. Even with used equipment this still cost me about $500. Even then it did not help all that much. Since those nice little handhelds could not reach the truck. It's why we went to vhf fm radios. Now we don't really need a repeater most of the time. Would not be much use there either if the handheld could not reach the repeater either. The weak link is always the handheld.



MJT- you could do that already. You would also get a better signal by being in a hilo. Yes, there are repeaters for use on the 2M band. There are repeaters all over the world in the ham bands. In theory I could talk to you from here using a repeaters, or even by bouncing my signal off the moon to you. Of course got to have one of those nice beam antennas. Man did I love my moonraker when I played with the CB. Talked skip to the wee hours of the morning many times. I was the WORLD WIDE WILDMAN from the WOODs OF WOODRUFF WISCONSIN! Still has a nice ring to it

Really though most of the time repeaters are not practical for hunting use. The test is simple enough, but getting guys to do it is another matter. Heck, I got decent cell service where I hunt. So I tried to get my guys to all get push to talk phones. Couldnt get that done! Hard enough for some of them to find the on button. Yes, they will talk into the mic with radio off.

Really though, there is a lot of nice technology out there that can benefit a hunter. Going fully satellite is the only solution tracking problems. Even then there wil be a few problems. Can't always get a sat signal in some places. It still would be better. Right now the cost would be to high for there to be a big enough market. How many people have satellite phones now.

GA- Your right more power could help in that bounce scenario. Yet you know as well it does not change the line of sight only how well it is heard within the line of sight circle. Your also right using a repater would be a huge pain in the butt. The reciever is a bit confusing and would cost a guy a bit more, and then you are using equipment that is not designed for use in the woods. A radio that can receive packet info tethered than to a smart device is not a good thing in my mind. I'm following my dogs in the pouring rain, or on sled at 10 below. I doubt an Ipad or blackberry is going to care for that much. I might be able to do it with my barrage, but man is that screen small, and the battery drain at cold temps is crazy. Hunting and fishing is why I have a barrage and not a blackberry or droid! I can't imagine many guys wanting to spend even the couple hundred dollars on radio. Then be able to figure out how to use it. A garmin is fairly simple to use and some have trouble with those 10 buttons.

If there really was something better out there. Not only would I have it, but I would tell you!!

I do really like the fact the we are discussing all this stuff. We are educating folks to this stuff just by our banter. Perhaps if enough of us want and are willing to be a reasonable price. Someone will build what we need. If I ever win the lottery. I will build it!!

Your right Steve its great talkin it over !! Learning alot while doing it also ..

Can anyone Guess what Marshal is Pondering with their System ???

Or Johnson tracking is up to with theirs ???

Of course this is such a tiny Market sector when you think of it !!

And the Big Game hunters that are looking for more than what the Garmin can offer is even a Smaller Market ..

It says on the Marshall site a couple of years yet.

Really with any of them. It is a huge cost factor. Satellite rights, mapping rights, FCC licensing. A lot more to it the most can imagine.

Then yes, what is the market. How many people out there are willing to buy a new system again? How long is it going to take to cover the R&D and production costs. How many companies out there can stick millions of dollars into this, and afford to wait for a return on the investment.

Hi Steve,

It says on the Marshall site a couple of years yet.

Where on their site does it say that? The way I understand what they've indicated, they are working on their GPS solution, but have not indicated a target release data one way or the other.

The page has been updated. Now it says a good long while, and a few years of lost sales are a small thing to them.

Excerpts taken right from the site!!