Garmin range average

[dirtydan]

I was just curious as to what kind of range you get in your areas and with what collars and antennas. With a stock antenna in normal cover with a dc 30 it is rare I get more than 400 yards. At the sports fields I went well over 500 yards and ran out of ground to walk. I have gotten readings of .6 and .7 of a mile in open flat country with stock antenna. With a long range extending antenna I can get about a mile in normal cover and more in open country. With the truck mount I have seen it read over 3 miles in normal cover but this is not the norm. I never really see anything over about a mile and a half. The dc 30 is fully updated but range has stayed the same as before. It just gets signal quicker than before. What about you guys and gals?

[dwalton]

I get about the same on flat ground. Line of site up to 3+ miles across canyons. To me that is the biggest problem with them is limited range. Can anyone tell me why the do not get better range? Dewey

[South Texan]

Dirtydan & Mr. Dewey,
Loosing signal at 400 to 500 yds consistantly and not getting signal back doesn't sound right. Out of the 10 DC 30's that I have, I have already had to replace antenna's on 9 of them. I have cut thru the rubber housing of the bad DC 30 antennas and have found a little thread like steel wire(coil) that runs up thru the antenna. At some point this steel wire would be broken into, thus causing the problem.

A friend of mine that hunts in Mexico came up the other day. Three of his DC30's were down, wouldn't get any range. I put new antennas on them and solved the problem. Hung all three collars in a tree and drove away from the house with the astro, at .9 of a mile we turned around and come back, never lost signal with the collars.

If you have a spare antenna or a dc30 that does get good signal, pull the antenna off of the good dc30 and put it on the bad dc30 and then check the range. If you get good range then (on bad dc30) you will know it is the antenna. Hope this might help. Robbie