TT15 and tag-a-long collar problems?

[not color blind]

I recently got the alpha and tt15 collars. I messed around with it a handfull of times, roading dogs from the house on the 4 wheeler etc., and they seemed to link up and track as they should. Today was the first day of training season here in Wisco, so last night I finally put the tag-a-long collars on the tt15's (216 freq.). This morning a couple of the collars were really acting up and taking FOREVER to link up. Also when they did link up and I would put them on the dogs they would lose gps and communication in the dogbox, the box has a metal wrapped roof but it is an open concept box. I've had my old DC30 collars loose reception in the box in the past on occasion but would pick up almost immediately once they came out of the box (I would run the tag-a-longs on the separate shock collar, not on the 30's themselves). I'd have to take a couple of these tt15s off the dogs and put the magnet back in the tag-a-long and shut down/restart the collar before it would (after at least a few minutes) finally pick back up again.

So I guess my question is has anyone had troubles (or not have trouble) with running the tag-a-long collars on the TT15s? Or do you think it was just one of those bad GPS days. Or I got some not so great collars? Thanks

[Redwood Coonhounds]

No, I had tons of problems with interference. I finally got tired of it and just yanked all the tag-a-longs off. Where I hunt we don't have wolves and don't have anywhere that the dogs would get that they would ever starve to death or anything like that. My dogs know the area. But I seriously got sick of every hunt loosing communication with a collar or two and never getting it back. Frozen collars. Gets old. It would always be the pup who was off trashing or was slow getting to the tree or something and was frustrating as hell. I took them off during coon season and never once had a collar freeze up or not pick back up like its supposed to. So this spring when I hit the mountains, I just left them off and crossed my fingers.

I have heard putting them on a seperate collar and facing the antenna the opposite direction helps. But I didn't buy tag-a-longs to have to run extra collars

[CRA]

I have had the same problem. When I run both GPS and telemetry collars together I have problems. But not with all the collars just a couple. The telemetry collars work fine it's the GPS that go goofy. I've put them on separately and still had crazy stuff happen.

[scrubrunner]

My telemetry collars are 217. I have 1 that will freeze up the alpha collar almost every time. Have a couple more that screws with the alphas sometimes. But have 6 more that have no problems running in conjunction with alphas.
Don't know why this is but it's a fact. I was very very frustrated with my alpha (and pizzed) until I figured it out.

[not color blind]

Thanks for the feedback, houndoggers. I'll giver a whirl in the a.m. without the tag-a-longs and see if it helps. (I sure f'n hope so).

[not color blind]

All collars tracked as they should today without the tag-a-long collars on, no issues. Still wish I could have the tag-a-longs on for back up (knock on wood) , but cant do much about that by the looks of it.

Thanks again for the feedback

[cajunl]

I run 217 wildlife collars on my dogs and never have interference. You will get interference from other hunters around. I've had problems with the garmin collars without the telemetry collars.

None of the Garmin collars are real, foolproof reliable. I never turn a dog loose without both. Learned some hard lessons and wasted a bunch of time looking for dogs.

[scrubrunner]

Not color blind, I am not advocating hunting without telemetry collars. I love my alphas and hunt my fox hounds without telemetry but they are well trained, will come when called and the road system where I hunt I can always drive within a half mile of them. But I will never turn one of my deer dogs loose without a telemetry collar. I hunt them in big woods and they can go places I can't get too. If they get by me into those places (big swamp &a river bottom) they might be 2-3 days coming out. Alpha is not reliable enough and the battery life and range is not enough.
I don't use the tagalongs, I use separate collars with antennas facing opposite directions as redwood said. Try switching collars around to see if you can come up with a combination that works.
I've had alphas freeze up a few times without telemetry collars on dogs and that gets real frustrating.

[not color blind]

Yeah I hear you guys about the Garmin concerns, theyre definitely not bullet proof. I'll probably try seeing which tag-a-longs it is that are causing the problems and just not use the ones that are. I'd like to run em on at least the proven hounds, but I'm kind of a born loser and I'm sure the tt15 to stop working would be on one of the ones without the tag-a-long on...

But since that first day with all the problems with the tag-a-longs on, I've hunted four now and not had an issue (knock on wood). Where I'm running it's good to get into the $hiteaters as quick as you can and after the first day with all the problems I was fed up.

Thanks for the feedback.