Product Description

Garmin Astro Combo Unit GPS Based Dog Tracking System. Garmin International is pleased to announce, the Astro GPS enabled dog tracking system. Astro is the ultimate solution for the hunter who has spent many wasted hours searching for his four legged friends. Now you can release the hounds and know what they are up to. There are two components to the Astro system: a handheld receiver /Astro 220/ and a dog collar transmitter /DC 20/. The DC 20 is a transmitter that relays the dogs position to the Astro 220. It is mounted in the included, lightweight neoprene harness. The harness straps to the dogs collar, wraps around the chest, and behind the front legs. Users may also choose to fasten the DC 20 to an existing e collar by using the included collar attachment plate. Astro can track up to ten dogs at once and has the ability to update the dogs position every five seconds. In flat, unobstructed terrain, the Astro system can reach up to five miles. This system requires very little configuration out of the box. Once the transmitter and receiver acquire a GPS signal, the receiver will automatically display the location of the dog. For your outdoor adventures when your dog is not by your side whether it be hiking, camping or bike riding, the Astro 220 serves as a full featured handheld GPS unit. It contains top notch features such as a high sensitivity GPS receiver, long battery life, a bright sunlight readable color display and a rugged IPX7 waterproof exterior. This unit also offers automatic routing with turn by turn directions. The Astro 220 has a micro SD card slot so you can add preprogrammed data cards with detailed maps such as TOPO, Inland Lakes, BlueChart and City Navigator.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14758 in Consumer Electronics
• Size: Garmin Part #010-00596-00
• Brand: Garmin
• Model: Astro Combo Unit
• Platform: Not Machine Specific
• Dimensions: 6.20" h x 2.40" w x 2.60" l, 6.01 pounds
• Native resolution: 160 x 240
• Display size: 3

Features

• GPS Receiver:
• Barometric Altimeter And Brand New 3-Axis Electronic Compass
• Scratch Resistant Lens On The 2.6-Inch Color Tft Display With Backlit Display & Keypad
• Resolution: 240 X 160 Pixels
• Weight: 6.4 Ounces Without Batteries

Amazon.com Product Description
The Garmin Astro GPS Dog Tracking System lets hunters and sportsmen spend their time looking for game, rather than looking for their dog. This unique dog-tracking system pinpoints your dog's position and shows you exactly where he is, even when you can't see or hear him.

This system includes a bright, color-screen handheld Astro 220 GPS device and a wireless transmitter, called the DC 20. Simple and easy to use, you just take the Astro outdoors and turn on both units to acquire a GPS satellite signal, then attach the DC 20 to your dog, either via the included neoprene harness or by threading it onto an existing 1-inch e-collar, and you're ready to go.

The Astro system features a bright color-screen handheld GPS device and a wireless transmitter. View larger.

View the Astro minisite

Tired of searching for your hunting dog in tall grass or dense cover? The Astro is the answer. View larger.

The DC 20 transmits your dog's position to your handheld every five seconds, showing current location as well as where he's been on the Map page. The Dog Tracker page shows you a compass that points to your dog's location, and lets you see your dog's current status, such as running, sitting, on point or treeing quarry. The Garmin Astro can even sound an alarm to let you know instantly when your dog goes on point.

The Astro 220's high-sensitivity GPS receiver can track your dog's position even in the densest cover, and lets you track up to 10 dogs at one time, up to five miles away in open territory. The Astro features a Covey Counter, which lets you place 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 flushed and taken from that location. The Astro also lets you save other important waypoints, such as Truck and Lodge, and choose special icons to represent food plots, tree stands and other hunting-related items.

The full-featured Astro handheld has all the same functions as Garmin's top-line handheld outdoor devices, including a barometric altimeter, a microSD card slot for maps, celestial information and an area calculator, as well as optional detailed city street maps, over 6 million points of interest, and exact turn-by-turn directions. This unit has an extremely rugged construction, with an IPX7 waterproof exterior that can withstand full immersion in water up to 1-meter deep for up to 30 minutes, and a revolutionary 3-axis compass that works no matter how the handheld is oriented.

Each dog's collar transmits his exact location to you.

A variety of bright and colorful icons and markers are available.

Check sun and moon cycles for your location.

Special waypoint icons to represent food plots, tree stands, and other hunting-related points.

What's in the Box
Garmin Astro 220 handheld with VHF antenna and DC 20 wireless transmitter with VHF antenna, a neoprene harness, a collar attachment plate, a carrying case, a lithium-ion battery pack for the DC 20 transmitter, a vehicle power adapter and AC adapter for the DC 20 transmitter, a trip and waypoint manager CD, a USB cable, a wrist strap, a belt clip, an owner's manual and a quick reference guide.

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Customer Reviews

Well thought out with a few rough edges you should know about
Double UPDATE - Garmin has now introduced the DC 30 dog collar + gps transmitter. It fixes many of the bugs in the old design. It uses a metal backplate behind the gps instead of plastic. The gps is black instead of orange. The antenna is longer and more flexible allowing for better range and less breakage. And since the GPS hangs DOWN by default, the new dc-30 puts a tiny GPS antenna into the dog collar itself that faces UP towards the sky. Overall it works better, in the country it adds about 2 miles to your trackign range if you are using the car mounted antenna. Those 2 miles could mean finding your dog. The new kit is sold with the DC 30 and costs about $60 more than the old model (this one) which will most likely be discontinued as my dog has broken one antenna and two plastic mounting plates. Note however that the new collar has no rings for attaching tags or leashes. This means your dog will wear 2 collars when being tracked, but gone are the days of broken parts and tracking down your GPS unit without the dog attached.

Update - I ordered the car mount antenna and found the range boost phenominal. In CITY range went from .7 miles to 1.7 miles, almost the full 2 mile rating. In Country range went over 4 miles. It is the best $25 spent plus amazon's price on the accessory is heavily discounted over garmin's. If you think you may have to use your 4WD to find your dogs, start using the external antenna accessory option from the beginning.

I got my Astro about a month ago and from the start the 2 mile range wasn't there (more like .33 miles maximum). I checked it with a pulse wattmeter from HP/agilent and it was outputting only 0.45 watts for .38 seconds, not the 2W rating (and the battery lasted alot longer than it was supposed to for some reason!). I shipped it to garmin, got it back and it was now putting out 2.2 watts. Range was still disappointing at 0.6 miles (city - granted - but my rino's do far better and they aren't digital!)

Next, I found that there are 5 channels Astro can use of which 2 of them are used by every jobcom radio in construction etc (154.57 and 154.600 are the worst and are in use all over the place) - my unit was on one of those channels which was almost always in use, so using another RF tool (spectrum analyzer) - I found a much better channel and suddenly the in city range went up to 1.5 miles which wasn't bad.

Mounting -

You get 2 mounting options - a screw bracket that will mount the transmitter to the dog collar which works really well, or a velcro pocket to put the transmitter in, strap it around the dog's breast and put a tab under the dog collar to keep it upright. I tried the vest option first and when the dog came back, the whole assembly was swinging around the dog's neck (and velcro fills up with hair if your dog sheds - the gripping effectiveness goes to zero).

The collar I thought would be better because the tags are always at the ground, but now the heavy part is up high. My guess was to put a lightweight fishing sinker in the dogtag strap which would keep it verticale - without that weight the dog comes back with the collar rotated sideways and the antenna horizontal, which hurts your range again.

Once factory adjusted to full power, put on a clean freqency, and mounted with a counterweight it works really well - 1.5 mile range in the city and 2.0 mile range or better in the country are not uncommon. I found my dog had gone on a 5 mile chase one time from the truck.

There is a problem in the few bits that garmin uses for "dog status" like "treed" or "quarry", etc - when the gps has moved a bit they are meaningless so I ignore that and leave it on the doggie detail page which tells you how far away your dog is, where it is, and the battery level/gps coverage in the dog's GPS, along with the radio signal you are getting. I would have preferred "moving" or "stable", which you can get from the map if the signal reaches.

You can get a nice VHF (marine type) antenna if you become car bound and unscrew the garmin antenna and connect the outdoor antenna which more than doubles range or better right away - great for end of the day searches for the dog. Both the dog and user antennas are SMA and removable unlike the rino which by law must have a permanently attached antenna unless you are good at soldering on external jacks yourself, which allows you big outdoor antennas and high power amplifiers on one radio.