EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

So, what's the deal?  Everybody's had a chance to use em for a while...

I have had the Astro system with 3 DC20 collars for over a year and added the new DC30s and the extended range receiver antenna last month.  Just got back from a hard long hog hunt. lost a dog, got it back ,etc. so I am ready to comment.  Here are my views pasted from another post:

In Louisiana, in swamp, forests, the range is only about 20% better than the old DC-20s.  That is about 1 mile to 1.5 miles max for the newer DC-30.  With Garmin's new extended range accessory antennas for your receiver, it doubles your range to about 2-3 miles on the average.  In no way can you get the range of any regular radio telemetry collars, which is 5 to 7 miles in this part of the country.  I also noticed in the hills of Mississippi, the Garmin system loses the signal immediately when the dogs go into a canyon or over a hill (that is puts solid ground between you and them) even 100 yards away, contrast that with a Wildlife Materials system with extended range collars, the signal bends around the terrain and you still get a weak but very useful signal 2-3 miles away from dogs deep in canyon bottoms.

Durabilty is better than the old DC-20, but not as good as any regular radio collar.  The Garmins use screws with rubber gaskets to water proof.  I already lost one of my old DC20's to water intrusion and a second DC20 is acting up, so I suspect it too has water issues.  Unfortunately, Garmin is still using the rubber gaskets with four screws on the DC20s.  They need to look at the other radio collars, there is a reason they imbed everything in epoxy. 

In a few years Garmin may get it right.  But for now, any other telemetry system has at least , 3 times the range, worked better in hills, makes tougher more water proof collars, and has much better battery life in the event you lose a dog.

In hind sight, instead of buying an Astro with 3 DC-20s, then 3 more DC-30s and an extended range receiver antenna, I should have bought a regular tracking system such as Marshall or Wildlife system and than bought a Garmin 60cxs GPS on the side.  Probably would have spent the same and been happier.

Goatcher,

     Thanks for posting, that is the type of feedback that Garmin should be listening too when designing their next generation collars.  I am still in that middle ground where I think the technology is neat as can be, but I am not yet confident enough to rely on their system alone.  What works great for us, is that one of our hunting buds runs Garmin on a couple dogs, and the rest run radio. The Garmin will get us to a bay quicker than the radio, but if a dog happens to get in a rare situation that it is out of the Garmin range, we have the ability to track and recover the dog.

Noah,

I've been using the Astro unti and 2 dc-30 units for two months now.  To date, I have yet to have my first issue so for now I think they are a keeper.  After a couple more months I'll be in a place to be more confident with that answer.

I can tell you this much, the technology is awesome.  No more guess work about where the dogs are, what they are doing, and if they are together.  This past weekend, both curs took off into the woods after only roading about 5 minutes from the truck.  After a bit I reached into the saddle bag and pulled out the astro unit to see what was up.  I see them at 502 yards, then 569, yards, then 655 yards, then 700 something..... I have my unit set to refresh every 5 seconds so you can tell these dogs are moving out when the yardage is changing that quick in thick cover.  And on top of that I can tell the little bmc is about 30-40 yards behind the lacy.  Just from seeing that I knew they were not chasing scent, they were chasing fur and afterburners were on.   On top of that, I couldn't hear the bay but I knew the second it happened....the yardage didn't move but 15 yards over about a 30 second period and the collars were just about on top of each other.  As soon as I saw that, we knew were in business.

Ive owned my Garmin Astro with DC-30 collars for over a month now and have had the same experiences as Cull Buck after 8 good hunts.
I have no complaints so far and am tickled to death with it! I get a real kick out of watching it all happen on the little monitor when I cant see or hear my dogs! I am also blown away with the data this unit collects one each individual dog as well as the handler.
The furthest my dogs have gotten from me on a bay so far is only 2.6 miles but in thick, thick timber and brush and I never lost comms with them. So far so good.
It has changed the way I hunt and allows me to make better decisions when my dogs separate on differnet hogs.
I will stick with it until something better comes along..................if something better comes along!
That being said just give me another month. I may not have a single thing good to say about it! lol.

i love mine havent lost too much sig yet have watched the dogs in times we wouldnt even know they were bayed up before down in creeks and stuff, its helped us alot

Junk.  Central Oklahoma rolling hills they got about 3/4 of a mile range.  Lost one dog for an hour while out of range.  Also out of 3 new dc30's only one was still working after the hunt was through.  They no longer had gps reception so they where nothing more than a blinking red light on a collar.

kevin
just curious about how long you have had your garmin, and what the wheather conditions where on your hunt?

                             craig

I got mine in Dec. or Jan. of last year.  The DC20 collars broke for th last time roughly 4~6 months later.  The dc30's used this weekend belong to Kevin Oneal.
 The weather was windy and chilly with mostly clear skies.  The clouds that were there were the high thin clouds. The Gps reception loss was something loose or not functioning correctly inside the collar.  They build the collars strong enough to withstand a dog going to retreive the newspaper and that is about it.

Kevin,

I'd be willing to buy that junky Astro unit off your hands if your looking to get rid of it.  I know a person that lost his hand held unit last weekend. :(

 I think I know of that same guy.  I'm the one that said I lost mine but I found it. 
I sold mine with one broke collar and one working collar to someone off of here for $200about 2 weeks ago.  If I would have still had it the forest I would have given it to him.  I know how it feels to lose something you need.

Got to hunt with one this weekend. Very handy. Cuts out the guesswork. Gonna trade my Tracker in on one soon hopefully. Only thing I didn't like was the collar material. Not that there is anything wrong with it. I just like the solid collars.

Love it.  We run 5 collars at one time and have had very few problems.  The only problem we have had is when the frequency #'s are too close together, one might sometimes lose signal.  We hunt in East Texas, in thick terrain and have no problems tracking our dogs.  We have tracked up to 2.6 miles, and thats the fartherest our dogs have gotten out.  This system has probably saved the lives of several of our dogs because we can get to them ASAP.

The DC 30's are the best product to hit the stores lately. We run 6-10 collars at a time and they have not faild yet. Sometimes one of them turns of after using a shock collar on the dog, but turn it back on and it runs like new. We had one dog run a hog across a hiway and he got hit by a car, and the collar had a few scuff marks on it but was still on when we found the dog and still wrks as if just was pulled out of the box. The next addition to my setup is to get the long ranged antena for the GPS unit, and some how figure out how to put the tracking collar wire into the biothane collars or a cut collar. rolleyes

like i talk with some guys from meridian the man who takes a gps colar and puts a radio tracker in it to together same size will be rich, play with your dogs on the gps and wen loose one pull out the radio tracker

I would not trade it. Run it on every hunt. I get a quick true look at the dogs when time is of an essence. I have had one collar go out. Not sure why, but took it back to the store and they gave me a new one.  I was back to hunting. Have the Extended Antenna...... put a collar on my mirror of my truck drove 7.9 miles away and it never lost me.

I've had my Astro and DC30 collars for about 3 months so far haven't had any problems with it. I did have to get a extended range antenna,without it about  3/4 mile was tops. Now I've got a little over 2 miles .I still use quik trac collars and reciever on the dogs just in case.I got the unit and the antenna mounted on my 4 wheeler so its almost non stop,sure changed the way I hunt.

Innotec out of Australia already has a GPS/Radio collar that is getting good reviews. I would like to see that product in the US.

How does it function in thick timber with a high canopy ?

i love my DC30 collars. They get about half a mile in the deep valleys where i hunt in Palo Pinto but about 3 miles in flat farm land without the extended collar

love my garmin. in the piney woods signal starts going in and out at about 3/4 mile. but you can head toward the las place it got signal and by the time you get there it will pick up again. thats without the extended antena. theres no stopping and looking to see if you are still goin the right way. got mine on ebay for 550 shiped with the handheld gps, dc-30 and dc-20

Out here in the thorny brush of south texas it works great. The only thing I would like to see changed is how the charger gets hooked in. I have to constantly pull out leaves and mud before I can charge. Also would like to see them come out with smaller collar for the smaller dogs. I have one dog when she comes to checking I have to constantly adjust it and now she starts checking in more often and one last things the need to be more durable for the hog hunters. But besides that I think they are the best collar out on the market.

THEY ARE GREAT I DID NOT GET THE GARMIN UNTILL THEY CAME OUT WITH THE DC 30S I DIDNT WANT 2 WASTE TIME OR MONEY ON THEM 20S. BUT I LOVE THESE DC30 COLLARS THEY WORK GREAT ;D

I like mine just wish they made diffrent charger for it other than that i happy with it

I have ran the Garmin since it came out years ago. I loved the dc20s and love the dc30s. I havent seen much difference between the 2 other than the dc30s have a little longer battery life. I wouldnt change systems for anything or until a real GPS tracking system comes out. RF tracking system is good but very limited in distance. The Garmin has saved many of my dogs lives by allowing me to walk straight to them when they are hurt. I loved this system when everyone was dogging it and I still love it as everyone relizes how great it really is. I do agree that there is room for improvement on range and battery life but it works great for me and I have learned to get around a few of its quirks.

You lost me here...What do you mean a Radio system is very limited in distance?


If I recall correctly, you had to modify your Dc-20's by using electrical tape and stretching out the antennas.  Have you had to make any of those mods to your DC-30's?

No Garmen did what I did with the antena. They are build a little better than the 20s. I run 8 dc30s but all of my 20s work just as good.

I had a boar rip off the attena the other night, also i have ruined one battery already. Guess i have to buy some new collars cause i can't find any replacement parts.

Garmin should replace it for $50. I had one run over by a truck and garmin replaced it no questions asked.

I've replaced several of the antenna's on mine already.  Look on Ebay...lots of sellers there.  Cheapest I found was $12 a piece, but I can't find right off hand where I wrote the sellers info down.

They're pretty easy to change out.

Thaks for the info I will check into it.

Gun Dog Supply has every replacement part you need. I haven't price checked them though. The batteries are replaceable too. If you cab find a supplier that stores the refrigerated that would be the best option. Also, the newest manufacture you can find the better. These batteries build up an internal resistance as soon as they are manufactured and that process speeds up in the heat. The cheapest I found them online is $32, but I don't have any info on the date of manufacture or how they store them.
Sean

(http://)

Best prices are found at Erwin Computers.com

I now have 10 DC 30s and three DC 20s and two Astro recievers.  And two long-range antennas and a magentic base car roof antenna I put on the roll bar of my side-by-side.

I find the way the chargers hook in frustrating as they note above.  I have a small wire brush I use to clean the ports out for the charger plugs.

Garmin service totally replaced two DC 20s and one DC 30, no questions asked, under warranty at around 10-11 months post purchase.  The DC 20s stopped because I got water in them, one because I let wet loctitie get on the base screws which was like acid to the plastic.  Garmin could have stuck me for that, but did not.  The DC 30 was damaged by a boar biting it, and they still covered it under warranty.

Plastic is soft, the collar webbing material breaks down real fast, usually at the buckles. 

I have swam or waded with mine with no issues, but made the mistake of going to the dogs across a large bayou with the rubber on the antenna damaged and water got in from the antenna connection.  That unit already had a really scratched up screen anyway - the dog icons would "dissappear" under one really bad scuffed area on the screen.  They charge a flat fee of $150 for out of warranty Astro receiver rebuilds and sent me a reconditioned unit you could not tell from the brand new ones.  This time I got some of that protective film from I-Phones touch screens and put it on both units to prevent scratches.

The best thing about them is I can tell, when I cannot hear them, when my dogs bay, run, and catch.  Way to cool.  I save all my hunts in my computer with the free MapSource software they include with the Astros.  Then I can analyze my hunts and each dogs efforts.  You can even view all your marks and track lines in Google Earth and Google maps.  I use the the PrtScrn key to capture the image and paste it into a graphics program like Power Point to add labels, arrows, text, then save it as a low file size .jpg file to email to my hunting friends.   I can really tell which dogs are hustling, and which are messing around.

My son took his 15 month plott gyps out and they went over 20 miles.  I verified it by uploading the Garmin Astro data, it was actually 26 miles and they ran the hog for 9 hrs.  They lost the big one in a bird colony and then took their frustration out on a poor 40 pounder.

I have been using 5 x  DC 30s for about a year hunting here in New Zealand .We don't only have huge hills here but mountains with snow on top near to where we hunt .The radio signal is by far the weak link with this gear ,but we replace the rubber aerial on the reciever with a cable aerial that doubles the range over the factory one ( not as good as the long range aerial but you don't have to carry that around when out in the field)and replace the aerials on the collars with cable aerials that gives another up 30% range .We also srink rap the collars for add protection.

I have been thinking about getting one of these for some time now. I have been running a F&L Electronics for years with out any problems at all. I was wondering if the Garmin collars were as tough. My F&L collars have holes punched in them from boar hogs and still work fine. Are the Garmins that tough?

Have had mine for a while and while the range is no where near 7mi, i like the pin point accuracy and mapping ability. would like to see better collar material and charger, but other than that, their great.

We have one that quit working and need it working/fixed/replaced asap. Anny suggestions of where to replace or have it fixed? thanks

I got one that is taking forever to update i dont know what to do, but besides trash it and get a new one any sugestions.

I have had the DC-30's for a year now. The only problem with them is when a dog gets in thick brush or deep water, such as a  tank or creek. Just last night I lost me number one strike dog in a flooded creek and the collar broke down. I have yet to find her or the collar. THe battery life could also be extended, but as far as I am concerened I would not trade them for any other type.


RIP Lulu

 i bought a garmin an five collars about nine months ago and i didnt keep it for about 2 weeks it didnt work worth a chit. i reasonly bought a nother one and it works great i am using mine in some real thick ruff country and have not had a problem with this one at all i have picked up dogs with mine 2.5 miles

My gps doesn't updat like it is supposed to what should I do.