Garmin Astro Bundle 220 Dog Tracking GPS |  | Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: $599.99
Buy New: $474.99
as of 7/28/2010 20:50 CDT details
You Save: $125.00 (21%)
New (36) from $474.99
Seller: NotJustGPS
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 5291
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries: 2
Native Resolution: 160 x 240
Includes MP3 Player: 0
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 2.3 x 1.3 x 6.3
Legal Disclaimer: We do not in any way represent that any part we sell is legal to possess in your jurisdiction. Check with you local authorities to ensure it is legal for you to possess before buying!
MPN: ASTRO BUNDLE
Model: ASTRO BUNDLE
UPC: 753759080150
EAN: 0753759080150
ASIN: B001BYFLXA
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | See Current Location and a Trail of Where Your Dog Been on the Map Page of Your Handheld | | • | Search for Over 6 Million Points of Interest | | • | Create a Route on Roads with Exact Turn by Turn Directions |
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Tired of searching for your hunting dog in tall grass or dense cover? Now you can leave the hunting entirely to him. Introducing Astro, the first high sensitivity GPS-enabled dog tracking system for hunters and sportsmen. This unique system pinpoints your dog's position and shows you exactly where he is, even when you can't see or hear him. Attach Collar and Go The Astro system includes a bright color-screen handheld GPS device and the rugged, all-weather DC 30 collar. The collar has an integrated GPS transmitter and is specially weighted so the antenna will always point to the sky for optimum signal. To get started, just take Astro outdoors and turn on the handheld and transmitter to acquire GPS satellite signals. Then attach the DC 30 to your dog. Now you're ready to turn him loose ? no other setup required. Track Dogs in Dense Cover As often as every five seconds, your dog's DC 30 transmits his position to your handheld, and you can see his current location and a trail of where he's been on the Map page of your handheld. Switch over to the Dog Tracker page to view a compass pointing to your dog's location as well as his current status: whether he's running, sitting, on point or treeing quarry. Astro can also sound an alarm to let you know instantly when your dog goes on point. Astro boasts a high-sensitivity GPS receiver that can track your dog's position even in the densest cover. You can track up to ten dogs at one time with Astro, at a distance of up to seven miles away (depending on terrain). The system transmits information by line-of-sight, so it reaches farthest in flat, open territory. Count Your Coveys After you've captured your quarry, mark the exact spot with Astro's Covey Counter; a special waypoint that tells you the exact location, time of day and elevation where you found your prey, as well as the number of birds you flushed and took from that location.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 An Upgrade from their earlier astro (orange box style) October 24, 2009
HMMWV (santa clara, CA USA)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This astro should be pointed out that its fixed many of the bugs those of us early adopters encountered (like using velcro to attach anything to a dog was mistake 1).
The early versions featured an orange "box" with a non-amplified antenna built into the top of it, plus a li-ion battery. You got a velcro harness to hold it on the dog and keep it pointing skyward. After 2-3 trips the velcro was full of hair and the antennas were being broken by anxious dogs racing through brush.
Garmin re-designed the astro and fortunately for us all we had to do was buy the upgraded collar design. The (now black) collar works the same but features an amplified antenna on top, the electronics box down below where it naturally hangs, and an improved longer antenna with better range (about 25% better in my testing)
From the top of one mountain I can now find my dog 7.48 miles away with almost full signal strength, so this really works. Getting to the dog is another matter.
The collar transmits either every 5, 10, or 30 seconds. 10 is a good value as you get about 2 days of use from the transmitter before the battery dies. 5 seconds will die in under a day (about 18 hours). These settings are made by placing the collar in close proximity to the handheld tracker and uploading them.
Finally for the radio folk the collar transmits on the MURS VHF frequencies at 2 watts digital. The frequencies are 151.82, 151.88, 151.94, 154.57 (old analog radio channel - not a good choice) and 154.6 (same as 154.57) [all in MHZ]
The 151 frequencies provide the best range near towns becuase every fast food drive through uses the 154 frequencies to talk around. These correspond to the last 2 sets of 10 channels in the Astro.
If you are wondering how they get 10 channels on one frequency, its simple - both the receiver and transmitter have GPS inside, so they know EXACTLY when a second clicks by to a great precision. They then divide a time period (1 second) into 10 parts, each 1/10 of a second long. Channel 23 for example specifies frequency 2 (151.94) and timeslot 3 - the 3rd 1/10 of a second after 0.00 seconds. Since the radio and the transmitter both know when the transmission will happen the radio tunes frequency 2 at 0.3 seconds after a second "ticks" to listen for the 1/10 second transmission from the collar.
The only problem with this is you can not put multiple collars next to each other as the receiver needs time to process the data it receives (about another 1/10 second) so if 151.94 is a good channel for you, pick dog numbers of 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29 if you have multiple dogs on one system or are hunting with another astro user. Also, you can't have the radio tune different channels at the same time, so don't pick dog A on channel 14 and dog B on channel 24 because their transmissions will be at the same time on 2 different freqencies.
Keeping those simple rules of separation in mind you can track alot of dogs a long ways with Astro.
 Astro 220 DC30 collar October 1, 2008
Paul Dobrovolskis (Ancaster, Canada)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
The updated version of the previous 220/DC20 combo improved the transmitter unit making it hang better and more durable than it's predecesor. The unit is rugged and durable and seems to handle rough use well. The range is very dicey. On flat terrain easily got one mile but in hilly country or thick forest this dropped considerably.
The GPS220 is the weak link in this system. It is an average GPS unit, good for a monopurpose unit. Maps are good but if I want to use My RINO series GPS/Radio and have my GPS in my car and need to put an e-collar on my dog, it's a lot to lug around. The dogs collar does not accomodate a e-collar reciever and the GPS transmiter without getting too bulky. The 220 does not have communication ability nor does it do text to voice driving directions hence, is not useful as a standalone GPS unit in a car So If you want a high end GPS for your car you will need a second unit. I would hope garmin would have built this in and then this would be a truly universal unit. But why not make it a RINO unit as well, one less thing to carry in the field.I actually hope garmin teams up with Tritronics or Dogtra and builds a e-collar/GPS Locator.
If you want to just locate a dog and have a rudimentary GPS this is a good unit.
I can't recommend this highly enough! December 26, 2009
Noodles (Boston, MA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I purchased the Astro 220/DC30 in May of 2009 for my Samoyed who if you have ever owned a sled dog (Samoyeds, Huskies, etc), you know all too well their fondness for roaming, chasing, and running all the while forgetting to listen (ignoring is more like it!) for you calling them!
I now feel extremely comfortable when my dog is off leash on hikes, as the Astro 220 does as advertised. I know whether my dog is on the move, treeing some sort of critter, or resting. I also know what direction she is located and approximately how far away she is. It's also come in handy finding my way back to the car a couple of times.
On the occasions that I have had to retrieve her the GPS/compass has been 100% on the mark each time. It saves me a lot of time wandering through the woods aimlessly calling her with that slightly panicked edge to my voice!
So far the collar has withstood several swims, miles of terrain, lots of digging into boroughs, and rough-housing with other dogs.
As someone else mentioned, make sure the units sync up before you release your dog. I sync them off the dog, then put the collar on her. Carry spare AA batteries with you. I get about 24 hours out of a set on the Astro. You don't want to be DOA when you are looking for your pup. The collar however gives me about 15 hours on a recharge with the 5 second refresh.
Aside from all that, if your dog is a hard-running type, you will be amazed at how much ground they can cover in an amazingly short time.
If there was a wish-list for this product I would say some sort of rechargeable battery for the handset would for me make it perfect. A second-tier wish would be to make it slightly smaller.
I am sure I will buy whatever the next-gen of this product is as it can only go from Very Good to Excellent, I think.
 Very useful December 3, 2009
Sandfly (Florida, USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This season we used the Astro 220 with six DC 30 collars for deer and hog hunting for the first time. The astro is a big improvement over radio trackers. We can determine precisely where the dogs are, which direction and how fast they are moving and recover then much more quickly. However,the range is limted. In flat terrain with heavy tree cover we found the maximum range is about one mile with the factory antenna. The unit does retain the dogs last known location so most times you can regain the lost signal by simply moving closer to that point. When I added the Garmin magnetic mount antenna I found the range is about doubled. You can also use your old radio collars as a backup. The two collars do not interfere with each other. We did have problems with the DC30 collars interfering with each other when they are in close proximity but Garmin gave us the solution with their online support. All in all we are pleased with the product and the support so far.
One trick pony, but it is a pretty good trick July 19, 2009
J. Schockett
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
Nowadays when you can see your mailbox from space on google earth, basic cell phones have gps and mp3 players and you can buy 16gb usb flash drives for less than the cost of a tank of gas, technology products come with high expectations, especially ones with $500 price tags. The Garmin Astro meets expectations, but stops there rather abruptly. Okay, that may be a bit critical. The technology is pretty amazing. When you first get it out of the box, work through the quick start guide, and put it on your dog, it is impressive. Once our Schipperke, Lucy, was more than about 15 yards away the handheld unit clearly and accurately showed her position on a simple color map and the dog tracker pointed at her approximate location while correctly tracking her distance. My wife walked across our neighborhood with Lucy and from our home, I could easily follow their entire walk(500 yards away). But the glow wore off quickly. When you start to examine the features of the device, you'll realize that there isn't much more too it. Outside of the one (admittedly cool) feature, the GPS is basically a run of the mill GPS from 5 or 10 years ago. The included map shows highways, but not surface roads (it costs another $100 to download detailed maps). It has a compass, a barometric altimeter and some gps games that I'll probably never play. The collar (despite being an improvement from previous versions) is also a bit big and bulky for a small dog, though seeing Lucy run with that antenna sticking up fromm her collar is awful cute. In total, we love being able to let Lucy run free in the forest without those moments of panic when we don't know where she is, so I'm glad I own the Garmin Astro. I was on the fence between 3 and 4 stars and price pushed me to 3. At $500, I'm still not sure it's worth it. Fundamentally, this is a GPS unit that communicates with another GPS unit via radio. I can't see any reason why this shouldn't be half the price. Give it two years and I anticipate that it will be. For now, this appears to be among the best gps dog trackers available, but that it isn't saying very much.
|
|
|
