Garmin Astro 220
When we hunted duck one season I can vividly remember the dogs being at the forefront of all the activity. And not because they were onto the prey, it was because we were always fearful in that tall brush we were going to lose them or they would lose us. We didn’t do so well that year and I blame it all on the fact we weren’t letting the dogs do their job.
Well, I was excited when I learned that Garmin put the effort into making a unit that would withstand our dogs going through the brush and making it back with the harness intact. The other part that made my day was that the Garmin Astro 220 was sensitive enough to allow us to hunt and not have to worry about the unit failing. We had used another GPS system with the dogs and honestly it was mess in the field. I had given up on GPS systems on the dogs for hunting.
Did you know that the DC 30, the collar that the dog wears, is the only waterproof GPS collar that I know of? The dogs can be seven miles away and we still get a signal. Plus if something should happen, it’s good to know that the batteries will last overnight. I’ve never had to do that.
One handheld, according to Garmin, will track up to 10 dogs. I am not sure if I could handle that on one of those handheld units. A couple is already a handful. But you can squelch out the other units and track by frequency until you get locked on the dog you want to track.
And if you think that the Garmin Astro 220 is going to be just one more item to lug around, well, so did I. But it isn’t. You can incorporate all of your normal GPS functions with the Garmin handheld, like waypoints with cool icons. So you can get back to where you captured your quarry and then back to the truck with all the dogs and all your prey. Pretty sweet.
Unfortunately you can’t operate the Garmin Astro 200 in Canada, but you can in the USA and enjoy the barometric altimeter, electric compass, microSD card slot for more maps, detailed street maps and more. I hear you can download Europe to these things and I’m sure the dog collar will work find there.
The Garmin Astro 220 is available all over the web, but I would only deal with vendors who can guarantee you the unit for at least six months. And make sure you can get help when you need it. Garmin itself offers all sorts of technical assistance on their website including how can you change the color of the dogs on the compass page of the Astro 220 to how to track a second dog with your Astro. Get a phone number so you can call and open a good line of communication with someone there. And lastly, see if the vendor offers free shipping on your unit. You will be happy with this unit and so will the dogs.
Tags:Astro, Batteries, Card Slot, Compass, Cool Icons, Dc 30, Detailed Street Maps, Dogs, Garmin, Garmin Astro 220, Gps Functions, Gps System, Gps Systems, Handheld Units, Hunting, Prey, Quarry, Seven Miles, waterproof gps collar, Waypoints