Alpha reviews

[cwhite_25]

I have looking at getting the alpha and wanted to get an up to date review if anyone who uses them can give me the pros and cons. I have been reading past post on here but couldnt find anything recent. I have the garmin 220 and works good but like the all in one collar on the alpha.

A few questions and any info u can add
Range on collars?
Collars easy to charge and can u charge reciever to?
Is the receiver user friendly and durable?
Do collar lights work?
Instead of socking can the collars also make a sound or is that just the receiver set at a certain distance on dog? Confused on that on from reading info.

Thanks for the help.

[hogdog05]

I went from a 220/dc30's-long range antennea's on collars and handheld to the stock alpha.  It it neat in what it can do. I am using the regular antennea's it comes with which are suposed to be long range. I am not real happy with the range that i am getting. 1.2 is just about the best it will do, normally .8 is where it starts to really lose reception. If you can track the collar then the shock collar will work. The collars will beep. The shock and Beep part works fairly well for being an integrated unit. The collars do light up and you can see them very well. The Birds eye satillite image is pretty sweet. Easy to charge collars and unit. The only complaint i have is every now and then mine just turns itself off. When i turn it on it comes right back up and tracks collars. It is my fault for not calling garmin or sending unit back in, but it is very aggervating when i pull it out to correct a dog and its off. All in all a good unit. If your not going to use shock collar on a normal basis i say stick with the 220. I use the alpha beep on my cow dogs as a recall. It is very nice when their bayed on the wrong set of cattle in the wrong pasture 

[cwhite_25]

Thanks for the info...I like the concept of training off the beep.