mydigitaldiscount

Hey fellow hunters... my name is Doug and I work for mydigitaldiscount.com, and finally we're selling something cool that I can tell you guys about.

The Garmin Astro dog tracking system. These have come a long way, I bought my father a tracking device 2 years ago when he bought his bloodhound, it was $600 and it was a big gaudy coller and a walky talky that beeped when you were pointing it in the direction of your dog. HA!

Check this out:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/Pro...3B3-1192626750

$467.99
Estimated shipping is around $10

I've done some research and where I work is selling them for the best price on the internet, if you guys are at all interested you can either place your order on the website or give me a call toll free at 1-866-217-1800, dial 0 and you should get me.

Douglas Hare

bigalc

Great idea, but I want to talk to somebody who has one before I spend that much to replace my trusty radio system.

mustad

I have tried it. I prefer a beeper collar, but my dogs are never more than a couple hundred yards from me at any time. If you're hunting wide open areas and the dogs are ranging a half a mile or so away, this unit would be a great tool.

Here is a link to another discussion board (I assume it's ok to provide this link) that may give you some good info...

http://forum.versatiledogs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6272

Good luck

eng40sqd

The unit is good for close range dogs at this point. I know of a few coon hunters who have used it. Some really like it for pinpointing once they get close but if the dog ranges out much more than 2 miles they have a hard time with the GPS units, espically if they are in a area with a thick canopy, or deep in a big ravine. Every coon hunter that is using it is still keeping the telemetry collars on their dogs as well to be able to keep tabs on them. They also say the base of the housings were cracking so they were taping them to keep them together and the antennas were breaking off, they were still usable but they were losing range.

ON the plus side they guys who have been using them on close ranging dogs such as bird dogs have been loving them. The feature of being able to see the cookie trail of where your dogs have been when out of your sight is awsome.

Everyone that uses the collar mount antenna has had to use it on a training or dummy collar so there was a counterbalance to keep the gps collar up on top of the dog. I also have heard from friends and also read where the receivers battery life isnt the greatest, the same for the collars.

Overall it will depend on what you are going to use it for. If your using it on bird dogs and close range dogs then go for it. If you are running hounds or even rabbit beagles then hold off on getting one for a bit. The system just isnt meant for that yet. I do know that Garmin is working on making the system more hound friendly and a longer range, there are also a few other designers working on their own GPS systems so in the near future (within 5 years) someone should have a awsome all around GPS tracking system out.

Justin

idunno

I find that they work well on squirrel dogs since they typically don't range out too far. Hot-nosed hog dogs probably too