Posted: 1/31/2013 11:25:44 AM EDT
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I'm shopping for either a Garmin Astro or Garmin Alpha but can't decide if the Alpha is really worth the extra $200. As far as I can tell, the main difference is the number of dogs that can be tracked and the ability to correct your dog. As far as number of dogs go, I only have 2 so the Astro is more than sufficient.
Is the GPS unit as functional as any of the stand alone Garmin GPS units? (stand alone meaning used soley for GPS and not used for dog tracking) Ayone have experience with one or the other and mind giving some thoughts on what's useful and what's not? Thanks |
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My one hunting buddy has a Garmin on his English setter. He has gone through one already that wasn't working right. He got another one. The last time I went hunting with him a couple Fridays back, his dog was all locked up on point. So I turned to him and said, "Hey, isn't the remote supposed to be beeping or vibrating or something?" He goes "Yeah...." kinda flabbergasted at the prospect of taking another one back.
I'll email him and ask him which one he has. I have to ask though, what kind of dogs or what kind of hunting do you plan on doing with it? |
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Okay....
I emailed my buddy. I had a feeling you were going to say some sort of tracking dog like walkers or blue ticks. When I lived over in Illinois, I would hunt on these state grounds and they would put pheasants out for us. There was some retired guy who hunted every day. He must have been loaded, but that's another story. His GSP wore one of the first Garmin GPS collars. He and his buddy would limit out every day within the first hour because of that dang GPS collar. His GSP would sprint like the whole time, out of visual range, until it went on point, then the remote he wore on a lanyard around his neck would start vibrating. So I asked him about limiting out every day so quickly, he raised the GPS remote up and said, "This is what does it for me." with a gloating like look on his face. |
| I use the astro for bear and deer hunting with dogs in eastern NC. I never look for a dog anymore and love the astro for bear hunting, easy to tell when they have treed. I have not personally used the new system since all my friends have the astro and you can't track dogs between systems(one guy has a astro and the other has an alpha). Love not having to pull out my tracking box anymore... |
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Quoted:
I use the astro for bear and deer hunting with dogs in eastern NC. I never look for a dog anymore and love the astro for bear hunting, easy to tell when they have treed. I have not personally used the new system since all my friends have the astro and you can't track dogs between systems(one guy has a astro and the other has an alpha). Love not having to pull out my tracking box anymore... The guy I will be running my dogs with uses the old style tracking box with the hand held antenna. I haven't been out with him when he's used it yet, but it seems like it's pretty bulky to lug around the hills. As of now I'm thinking I'll just go with the Astro because I haven't trained a dog with an e collar before, so even that feature would be useless for me if I can't get them trained properly. Have you ever used a gps unit other than the Astro to compare how it works as a standard gps? Thanks for the input. |
| I got a reply from my buddy. He says he has the Alpha. He went on to say that he had to call the technical help line because the instruction manual sucks so bad. He had to download some updates for it too. He said it also has more features on it than he knows what to do with. |
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Quoted:
I got a reply from my buddy. He says he has the Alpha. He went on to say that he had to call the technical help line because the instruction manual sucks so bad. He had to download some updates for it too. He said it also has more features on it than he knows what to do with. That's the one I was wondering if it's worth the extra $200 for. It's an $800 unit and I'm thinking I won't use enough of the features to justify the cost. Thank you very much for checking in with your buddy and passing on the info! 
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