BigGameHoundsmen.com

I said it in another thread about the Astro and I will say it again....

You never want to be among the first to try out a brand new product unless special consideration (trials, discounts, trade-ins, etc) was made between you and the company; buying the first generation is usually a bad idea.

For you guys considering the purchase of the Astro, I STRONGLY encourage you to wait until the second generation is released. Gen 2's are usually released shortly after the first generation, and usually incorporate only fixes to the issues that the Gen One owners (aka "guinea pigs") have reported to the company. In the software industry, we call it a maintenance release that is meant to fix the previously unknown bugs in the software.

Garmin pretty much ignored us houndsmen and catered the Astro to the duck hunters...we all know that it won't handle everything our dogs and our game throw at it, and soon they will, too.

My advice...hold your horses, guys.

your behind in times rifleman, there gen.2 is already in production and hitting the shelfs in the next week......and it looks like they catered to the houndsmen pretty well on it to me....

Gen 2 is going to hit the shelves on the first of Aug, the gen 1 product did need some changes and garmin listened and made them. the gen was originally designed for the dry land bird hunters not the duck hunters. with the old design i was still happy with collars and receiver it was nice to know exactly where the hounds were or heading, especially if you have some young dogs that dont make the tree or have trouble keeping up. I think the new design will be much better and geared toward the hound hunter. I will be upgrading my collars for sure.

kevin burgess

I just spoke to Lion Country Supply about the new collars. They told me Garmin is offering a 50 dollar rebate for owners of the first gen collars.

DesertDweller,

No, not really. I am aware of the pending release of the Gen2 collar, but some guys can't seem to wait until the fall and seem bound and determined to buy the Gen1.

Rifleman,

I understand your reasoning, but if everybody took your advice, the gen 2 would be no better than the gen one. In fact, the gen 2 would never happen because the gen 1 would not sell and products that don't sell don't get improved, they get discontinued.

I bought 2 of the gen 1 collars when they first came out and they have already paid for them selves in saving me time and fuel, plus, because I bought the gen 1's, I am getting $100 rebate on the two gen 2's I ordered. Having said all that, I would certainly not buy a gen 1 now with the gen 2's so close to shipping.

By the way, I was told my gen 2 collars would ship in mid to late august.

Bill

will the gen 2 collars work with the original receiver unit

Yes

Bill

I agree totally, I am very happy with the gen 1 collars i ordered gen 2 and they told me from lion country they would be shipping out 22nd og aug, I love the time it saves me searching for dogs. We have such a diverse terrain that I can loose dogs quick and it saves me alot of seaching time. I use with my marshall collars still, because of the short battery life. My marshalls have a tendency to get alot of bounce off canyon walls.

kevin

Billy,

...if everybody took your advice, the gen 2 would be no better than the gen one. In fact, the gen 2 would never happen because the gen 1 would not sell and products that don't sell don't get improved, they get discontinued.

It is not that clear cut. Any company with a decent product management/product development entity will typically have beta customers, pilot programs, and no shortage of eager consumers who willingly or unwittingly becomes their guinea pig...no need to be among 'em.

I bought 2 of the gen 1 collars when they first came out and they have already paid for them selves in saving me time and fuel...

For every fortunate experience such as yours, there are more with negative experiences. It is my understanding that the RMA rate (returned units) for the Astro was almost 1:2 or 1:3 for units sold.

Having said all that, I would certainly not buy a gen 1 now with the gen 2's so close to shipping.

No, that would definitely be foolish. I personally will be waiting until Tracker releases their GPS solution this fall. Theirs is modeled after the GPS system that their parent company, Pointer Solutions, markets to European hunters...if it will be anything like the Pointer system, it will beat the pants off of the Astro.
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Trackers gps system won't be worth the price of the plastic its made out of in the area I hunt. Trackers gps system is based off of smart phones and gms cell service, theres no cell service where I hunt, it would be useless......

did garmin improved the range on the new collars? If so what will the range be?

Vance M.

Garmin claims that they have extended the range by 2 miles, so you should theoretically get 7. Expect about half that in a real world situation.

Rifleman

The trouble with the pointer solutions system is that it relies on digital cell service, over which they have absolutely no control. As Desertdweller said, that makes them entirely worthless for huge chunks of the western US. If you only hunt in one spot, and you know that spot has cell service, they are better than the garmin, but if you ever travel to hunt and end up in an area with no cell service, then you are basically turning your dogs loose with no tracking at all.

Bill

Does anyone know where to get the plastic extender "nut" cover that Garmin uses on the female RG 58 SMA cable connector on their roof mount magnetic anttennas and portable long range handheld anttennas? They (the plastic cover) make it easy to screw the SMA cable connector on and off the Astro hand held receiver.

I got mine a few weeks ago. I have one dc 30 and 3 dc 20's. I wasn't sure how to get all that stuff on my dogs. Heres my question. How do you guys get 3 collars on your dogs. I have one big male that handles it but the other 3 I don't think their necks are long enough. I won't turn loose without a regular tracking collar and generally have e collars on all my dogs. If it came down to it though, they'd have a garmin collar instead of an ecollar. The magnetic mount antenna seems to help here. I was getting about 1-1 1/2 miles in mountainous terrain. The dogs were on the other side of a small mountain. I hooked up the magnetic mount antenna and got up to 2.68 miles and never lost reception. It may have gone alot more, who knows. There is something relaxing about knowing exactly what your dogs are doing and where they are going even though they are out of hearing. By the way. The dc20 doesn't ever stay on top on any of my dogs but it still seems to work good. Its usually pointed off to the side.