I know. I guess you guys that have them already are sick and tired of people like me asking about them. But, I'm going to anyways.
Ok. I saw on another thread where someone had a picture of the track the dogs took and it was 3-D. How do you do that?
If I'm hunting and loose signal to my hand held can I download my collar to the computer and show the track they took while I didn't have reception?
Is there such a thing as bounce with a Garmin? I was picking my dogs up on a 5 using my tracker. That means they are within 1/4 mile of me usually. They were indeed 1/4 mile from me but, the OTHER way. I was getting a bounce and this is annoying.
That is all the questions I have at the moment but, I might have more.
no bounce with the astro. the dogs are where the astro says they are (within a few yards anyways). i think we've finally weaned ourselves off of the old radio tracking collars for good. the dc20s sometimes didnt work so good but the dc30s are great. i cant wait to see what garmin comes up with for improvements in the future.
have you figured out a way to keep from frying the astros? i think i fried another one. or at least it's losing distance. i have all my radios locked on low watt. the only thing i can think of is that someone close to me keyed their mic on high or it's the mag mount antennas.
yah we have everyone run their radios on low power. doesnt matter what you do to prevent frying your astro if someone pulls up right next to you and transmits at full power. i actually bought another one this spring thinking my other one would probably go bad eventually but so far it seems to work just as good as ever.
i havent really been using the mag mount antenna at all yet this year. im getting a mile or so most times with the rubber antenna which so far has been plenty. i did buy the handheld telescoping antenna but i havent had a chance to use it yet.
i bought a longer rubber duckie antenna from steve white and also bought the garmin portable long range telescoping antenna. i would recommend either one of them. the rubber one is probable about 12 inches long and is so flexible you can tie it in a knot. doesn't put any stress on the connector. i noticed this weekend about another 100 yards of range in mine vs. the standard rubber one but i think my unit is losing range though so it's hard to tell. i bought another one for my dad to use too and his gets just over a mile and mine gets only 600 yards. mine is going in to be fixed.
I got a big duck antenna from Steve also but have not had a chance to try it. As my garman was fried on opening day of the training season. Sent it in Friday after e-mailing garman back and forth. After having it all last year it sux going with out it till they send me out another one. A couple other guys in our group have them so I can still hunt but I like having the unit in hand when dogs are near a road.
I have never got a bounced signal from a Garman but I do calibrate the compass at least every other day of hunting just to make sure it's right. The truck will throw the compass off also and you need to get away from it if you are looking for the exact direction of the Dog/s.
hey guys as far as frying the astro , I use a 2 meter truck mount antenna for the astro, my vhf radio antenna is mounted on the front left truck fender straight across from the astro antenna we operate at the 145 frequency at low to medium power we have had no problems for three years .Knock on wood. The 2 meter antenna used on the astro was cut and tuned for the 151-154 frequence. hope this helps
Hunter wrote:I know. I guess you guys that have them already are sick and tired of people like me asking about them. But, I'm going to anyways.
Ok. I saw on another thread where someone had a picture of the track the dogs took and it was 3-D. How do you do that?
If I'm hunting and loose signal to my hand held can I download my collar to the computer and show the track they took while I didn't have reception?
Is there such a thing as bounce with a Garmin? I was picking my dogs up on a 5 using my tracker. That means they are within 1/4 mile of me usually. They were indeed 1/4 mile from me but, the OTHER way. I was getting a bounce and this is annoying.
That is all the questions I have at the moment but, I might have more.
Hi,
You don't have a "bounce" as on the tracker, but what does happen very now and then is that you will have to recalibrate the compass in the Astro.
If I'm hunting and loose signal to my hand held can I download my collar to the computer and show the track they took while I didn't have reception?
No.
The handheld stores all the data so if it's not getting the collar info you can't download it. Same goes if you power off the handheld, you will have gaps in the track where the unit wasn't storing data.
If I'm hunting and loose signal to my hand held can I download my collar to the computer and show the track they took while I didn't have reception?
No.
The handheld stores all the data so if it's not getting the collar info you can't download it. Same goes if you power off the handheld, you will have gaps in the track where the unit wasn't storing data.
I don't mean to argue, but your collar stores all the data to create a "track" every three seconds while it is turned on and has GPS reception. It does not matter if your astro is turned on or off. You can download it to your Mapsourde program and view everything that your collar did even if your handheld didn't record it.
"Ok. I saw on another thread where someone had a picture of the track the dogs took and it was 3-D. How do you do that?"
**this is accomplished on the computer with the mapsource program.**
"If I'm hunting and loose signal to my hand held can I download my collar to the computer and show the track they took while I didn't have reception?"
**Absolutely, once you get home just plug the Garmin into the computer and turn the collar on that you want to download, Open your Mapsource program, go to the dog screen on the astro and select menu and then download collar, follow prompts.**
"Is there such a thing as bounce with a Garmin? I was picking my dogs up on a 5 using my tracker. That means they are within 1/4 mile of me usually. They were indeed 1/4 mile from me but, the OTHER way. I was getting a bounce and this is annoying."
**I don't know of it bouncing the signal but one time out of several hundred I had the astro telling me my dog was within 50 yards and I couldn't find her, started thinking the worst since she wasn't coming to me, I was down in a narrow rocky canyon when it happened, After spending a bunch of time looking for her I continued down the canyon and the Astro showed her up ahead. Only happened once so no clue what it was.**
Hope that helps
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Tman308
Hunt Hard, Hunt Smart, Have Fun, and take your kids with you!
The above info from tman308 is good info and i agree with all. I once had a race with 5 or 6 collars and one of the collars was about 100- 300 yards to the west of all the other collars. they were all packed together and you could hear they were all there. at one time they ran down the side of the road for at leat a 1/4 mile and the whole time it showed the one dog on the other side of the road. every trun and circle the pack made the lone collar made the same track just to the left of the main track. after charging i never had any more trouble with that collar.
on another note i hate to hear you guys are still burning them up. I have not used any kind of raido in my truck during the off season but in October I will have to start using some kind of raido and all the other hunters will also be using raidos around me. I wounder how long it will take before i am sending mine back also for loss of range.
has anyone heard anything about an aftermarket fix. I try to talk to anyone that i think could help but they either just dont know and talk all around the issue or get nasty about it. (never knew ham operators were so touchy).
I know a coon hunter that has been using Astro for about a year now he called me and told me that his was also losing reception range , he has never used it around a VHF radio. So is it the radio or does Garmin use a bad circuitry for the VHF receiver.as posted early we stay well below or above the 150-155 frequency.the VHF truck antenna used with my setup was cut to the 150- 155 so far no problems .plus I keep the radio on low power.
