Electronics

Garmin Astro GPS Dog Tracking System 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.
Customer Review: Was very impressed — until it got wet
I bought this Garmin setup after looking for a GPS based dog tracking for a long time. Competing models either require monthly subscription (through cellular phone system) or were dog tracking *only*. The Garmin handheld unit is useful as a standalone GPS device, with the benefit of communicating with the dog GPS unit.

I don’t hunt, but rather intended to use this to allow my dog to run free while walking him. He loves to track rabbits and deer and for that purpose this Astro worked great. In the area I walk there is much vegetation and he can easily be out of site as little as 20 yards away. After a very watchful eye the first time I used it, I found that it worked far beyond my expectations … GPS always gave me a distance and position on the map, and the compass always pointed right at him. Occasionally it would lose either GPS reception or RF communcation, but it would always come back in 10-15 seconds. I tried both the backpack and the collar, and actually had better results with the collar even though it would often swing to the side or bottom of his neck. More counterweight would probably help, but he’s usually got his head down to the ground and it could easily be a nuisance for him.

Although the dog unit is supposed to be waterproof, I did encounter severe problems when he decided to cross a small river. He doesn’t swim so I didn’t expect this to ever be a problem, but this time it was shallow enough for him to cross and it seems to have gotten the collar unit wet enough to be a problem. I can’t determine if the GPS reception was affected or the RF communication with the handheld unit, but it started indicating that he was 100-200 yards away, even though he still was within eyesight. Eventually it crept up to reporting him as 600 and even 900 yards away (I could still see him)! The compass indicator started pointing in what appeared to be random directions. It took awhile (maybe 15 minutes) but after it dried out again, the reporting went back to normal and was right on. I intend to investigate what was going on, and maybe I just have a defective unit. My dog never broke an antenna like others are reporting … come to think of it however, maybe it *is* broken and it’s just not visible to me.

Aside from the dog collar issues, I love the handheld unit. I’m still finding features that I didn’t know it had, and it is far beyond my previous model (GPS 12).

Customer Review: Two thumbs up
I purchased the astro primarily for hiking with my dog in the wooded dunes of West Michigan. It surpassed my expectations. My dog will be chasing something 200 yards away, well out of sight and hearing range, and it works great. All of the stress and worry of not knowing where the dog is is gone. Because my dog doesn’t stray for more than 200-300 yards, I haven’t had a chance to test the full range, but within those yards and in very hilly terrain it’s tracked flawlessly.

Tags: gps reviews, gps systems, gps, gps navigation, portable gps