garmin alpha

[JODakota]

Anybody ever use a Garmin Alpha? Is it worth the extra 200 over the Astro? My Britt is getting to the age where he is ranging further and we hunt the hills and the thick stuff as well. What are the pros and cons. Just want to be sure before I drop 700.00 on a collar. Thanks for your help.

[JJB11B]

There pretty good but I hear sailors have a hard time using them. I know an old retired grunt that you should ask. Hit him up Jesse you know where he is. Ill be up at camp tomorrow so save a few cold ones for me.

[Stilly bay]

I was anti alpha until I realized how little I actually use my E collar in the field. Now I am thinking an Alpha might be just the thing.
Does it have a tone function?

[AspenBud]

You can not use an Alpha in a field trial or hunt test. You can use an Astro. If one part of the Alpha fails you are SOL if you need to send it in for repairs.

I use a Dogtra 3502 Super X and the Astro. I have two Astro collars, a DC30 and a DC40, if one fails, I can still run a dog. If both fail I still have a beeper and e-collar.

All that said, $200.00 extra is less than the cost of an e-collar and Astro.

But I like redundancy and the new Astro DC50 has some features that the Alpha does not.

[HighCountryHunter88]

I will post a full write up on the alpha tomorrow. It's what I use

[Bmcox86]

I have an astro and love it, the ecollar i use is a sport dog 1825, i like the idea of the alpha but the extra security of the two units. for instance yesterday deep in the grouse woods my astro wasnt getting signal from the dogs collar because he was deep in cover but the ecollar still worked when he busted some deer and attempted to follow

[Stilly bay]

But I like redundancy and the new Astro DC50 has some features that the Alpha does not.

I have DC50 due to show up at my door this afternoon, I am hoping it works better out of the box than My DC40 did.

[AspenBud]

for instance yesterday deep in the grouse woods my astro wasnt getting signal from the dogs collar because he was deep in cover but the ecollar still worked when he busted some deer and attempted to follow

If you are using DC30/40 collars and the Astro 220/320 buy/use these....

http://www.dusupply.com/factory-320-extended-range-antenna-will-work-on-220.html

http://www.gundogsupply.com/supra-tuff-antenna-for-garmin-dc30-dc40-orange.html

The original antennas that came with the things are junk.

[AspenBud]

But I like redundancy and the new Astro DC50 has some features that the Alpha does not.

I have DC50 due to show up at my door this afternoon, I am hoping it works better out of the box than My DC40 did.

The DC40 seems to have a spotty track record. Lots of guys had problems with them when they came out. Myself, I never had a problem with mine. I did have to send in my 220 handheld and Garmin ultimately had to replace it last year.

[HighCountryHunter88]

the Garmin Alpha is a great system that will be a great tracking collar as well as great e collar. if your buying new i would not consider the dc40 with the dc50 now available. the dc40s were and are by far the least of my favorite tracking collars. they are inconsistent and prone to problems. upland hunters have less problems for the most part due to hunting in more open terrain.

ill break up what i like about the alpha and what i like about the DC50/320 system and then attach a couple links so you can read up on some more info. (i have ran both of these systems a good amount and i will say for pure tracking they are pretty comparable and each has attributes i like.)

in addition to being a great tracking collar the alpha's e-collar side is awesome. as far as you can pick up your dog you can shock or Tone him/her. each dog can be pre set to tone or what ever stimulation level you desire, the dogs training icons/buttons appear at the top of your map screen and compass screen so you can keep an eye on where they are at or possibly what you are doing the whole time. something i really value with this system is being able to change update rates on the fly, you can change from 2.5 sec all the way to 120 sec updates while the dog is in the field. (the astro can not) another cool feature is the geo fence where you can make a fence on your map screen, say along a road or property line, when the dog crosses the "fence" you made you will receive an alert.

the alpha also has rescue mode which is where the collar will automatically switch to 120 second updates when 75% of the battery is gone. example: i get about 40-42 hrs with 10 sec updates and rescue mode.

The Astro 320 with DC50 has some of the same features as the alpha like rescue mode and overall the same tracking technology as the alpha TT10. The DC50 also uses GLONASS which roughly double the amount of satellites in the sky for it to connect to. i have found that this really only comes into play is in very steep box canyons and the like. the other thing that the DC50 has that the Alpha TT10 does not is the bark detection mode. this is where you can set up a minimum bark per minute rate for each dog 20 40 60 80. when the dog barks over what you set it to the astro will notify you. ( i dont think this is something that benefits upland guys too much  )

(an astro 220 will not track a DC50, Also if you already have a 320 you will need to run a software update before you can track a DC50, its free and takes 30 seconds)

i prefer the Alpha for what and how i hunt. the DC50 Combo is Very good as well.

you can read up more on both here:
Alpha Review
DC50 Review
 
If any of you have any questions on any of your Garmin Tracking Units go ahead and ask and i can do my best to get you the answers

[AspenBud]

the Garmin Alpha is a great system that will be a great tracking collar as well as great e collar. if your buying new i would not consider the dc40 with the dc50 now available. the dc40s were and are by far the least of my favorite tracking collars. they are inconsistent and prone to problems. upland hunters have less problems for the most part due to hunting in more open terrain.

ill break up what i like about the alpha and what i like about the DC50/320 system and then attach a couple links so you can read up on some more info. (i have ran both of these systems a good amount and i will say for pure tracking they are pretty comparable and each has attributes i like.)

in addition to being a great tracking collar the alpha's e-collar side is awesome. as far as you can pick up your dog you can shock or Tone him/her. each dog can be pre set to tone or what ever stimulation level you desire, the dogs training icons/buttons appear at the top of your map screen and compass screen so you can keep an eye on where they are at or possibly what you are doing the whole time. something i really value with this system is being able to change update rates on the fly, you can change from 2.5 sec all the way to 120 sec updates while the dog is in the field. (the astro can not) another cool feature is the geo fence where you can make a fence on your map screen, say along a road or property line, when the dog crosses the "fence" you made you will receive an alert.

the alpha also has rescue mode which is where the collar will automatically switch to 120 second updates when 75% of the battery is gone. example: i get about 40-42 hrs with 10 sec updates and rescue mode.

The Astro 320 with DC50 has some of the same features as the alpha like rescue mode and overall the same tracking technology as the alpha TT10. The DC50 also uses GLONASS which roughly double the amount of satellites in the sky for it to connect to. i have found that this really only comes into play is in very steep box canyons and the like. the other thing that the DC50 has that the Alpha TT10 does not is the bark detection mode. this is where you can set up a minimum bark per minute rate for each dog 20 40 60 80. when the dog barks over what you set it to the astro will notify you. ( i dont think this is something that benefits upland guys too much  )

(an astro 220 will not track a DC50, Also if you already have a 320 you will need to run a software update before you can track a DC50, its free and takes 30 seconds)

i prefer the Alpha for what and how i hunt. the DC50 Combo is Very good as well.

you can read up more on both here:
Alpha Review
DC50 Review
 
If any of you have any questions on any of your Garmin Tracking Units go ahead and ask and i can do my best to get you the answers

I have a question.

The DC30 and DC40 collars worked by line of sight with the 220 and 320 handhelds as I understand it. As in, only the handheld talked to satelites, not the collars. But your post seems to indicate the DC50 talks to them as well now. Did I read that correctly? If that's so a lot of lost communication issues should be resolved.

[Stilly bay]

even on the original units the signal went from the collar to the satellite to the handheld. If it were only line of sight the only detail it would be able to give to the hunter is direction and distance of the dog in a straight line, not the dogs trail... or am I totally off base?

Tri tronics E collars were alway line of sight.

got my new DC 50 a couple minutes ago... even came with an extra antennae.

[AspenBud]

even on the original units the signal went from the collar to the satellite to the handheld. If it were only line of sight the only detail it would be able to give to the hunter is direction and distance of the dog in a straight line, not the dogs trail... or am I totally off base?

Tri tronics E collars were alway line of sight.

got my new DC 50 a couple minutes ago... even came with an extra antennae.

When I bought my setup it was the 220 with the DC30 collar. The manual that comes with it has a section that talks about line of site communication between the two and how you can and will lose communication with the collar on your dog if that is lost. They even have a drawing of a hill blocking the signal trying to explain that. I always assumed that mean the collar in no way talks to the satellite, particularly when longer range antennas have been sold for years now to enhance communication between the two.

Things might have changed with the 320 and the DC40, I have no experience with the 320, only the DC40 and the 220.

As I read something like this....

http://www.gundogsupply.com/garmin-astro-15.html

LOS was how the two always talked to each other. The satellites only told you where you were and the radio signal told you where the dog was relative to your position.

If the DC50 now talks to satellites, that's potentially huge, especially to grouse and chukar hunters and their dogs.

[wildweeds]

It's totally line of sight based stilly, I've gotten the question mark a bunch of times when the dog is over a ridge above me.It goes Satelite,handheld,collar and then does the  trig math to give a distance, in other words it's a pinging signal from the collar to the handheld............. just like old school telemetry as on a tracker/wildlife materials/marshall unit. The plus of the old school is the batteries last a long long time,the downside is it doesn't give a distance,direction is deciphered with a signal meter,learning to evaluate the signal bounce is through using it.

even on the original units the signal went from the collar to the satellite to the handheld. If it were only line of sight the only detail it would be able to give to the hunter is direction and distance of the dog in a straight line, not the dogs trail... or am I totally off base?

Tri tronics E collars were alway line of sight.

got my new DC 50 a couple minutes ago... even came with an extra antennae.

[HighCountryHunter88]

Here is a general run down of how the Astro/Alpha units.

Basically there are three types of communications going on.  The collars have GPS, The Handheld has GPS, and then the Collar and Handheld have radio communication beween them.

The collars send their location over a MURS Band radio.. (Basically think VHF radio)

The Handhelds  Are also stand alone GPS units and they receive the collar VHF signals to find out where the Collar are located.   Then they show the Dog collar on the mapping screen.

So when something goes wrong and you see the ? for the dog or you are not tracking the dog  it's almost always caused by 1 of 3 things.
1.   Either the Dog lost it's GPS fix,   
   a.  Collar will single blink when it does not have GPS fix (NO GPS FIX)
   b.   Collar will double Blink when it have at least 4 satelites linked up  (GOOD GPS FIX)
  c.   Collar will Triple blink when it is tracking at least 7 satellites.   (BEST GPS FIX)

2.   Second issue is the Dog and HandHeld are too far apart or something is causing the VHF Signal problems, (common problems are the Black antenna on the collar breaking)

3. Lastly The HandHeld can loose the GPS fix and it's not able to calculate how far the Collar is from it. (It will still show the dog on the map).

I always ask folks which Error they get when they loose the dogs,  Did the screen say, dog Lost GPS,  Or Lost communication.  Because that is key to figuring out what is going on with them.

The Alpha is a bit different in that it still uses the Same MURS frequency, however it's a bit different in how the data is handled,  one is the Bursts are smaller so that you have have more dogs,  and secondly both the Unit and the Collar are both sending and receiving information unlike the Astros where only the Collars are sending information.. 

On the alpha units, The collar sends it's location in a short burst, and then listening for "commands"   from the handheld,    ie,  if the user wants to Shock, Tone, Change updates ect.  ect on the collar.   

In the End all of the data transferred on both the ASTRO and the ALPHA is always done over a 2 watt VHF radio,  Specifically on the MURS band.

Hopefully this helps