Post your Garmin Astro 220 review

[DesertDweller]

Does anyone know if there is an adaptor for the Astro 220 that can plug into your vehicle instead of running off the batteries? Or if they make a battery pack?

Yes it plugs into where the usb cable goes then to your cigarette lighter

[Darvin Ecklund]

Thank you very much! This will be a big help.

[bluedogs249]

Yes.
use your computer cable or use a mini usb power supply foe cell phone

[Darvin Ecklund]

Does a person have to purchase this thru Garmin?

[bluedogs249]

I purchased a cell phone charger from Walmart for $9 and it works fine.
The charger was for a Motorola phone.

[DesertDweller]

Theres multiple ways to do it, one of which bluedogs said. Also garmins, but cheapest way is to buy a usb cigarette adapter and use your usb cable that came with the unit. Basically like this to give ya an idea, http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-Car-Cigarette-Plug-Adapter-Charger-DC-For-MP3-PDA_W0QQitemZ370133770446QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item370133770446&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50 Walmart sells these things to give ya a place to look

[Eric Muff]

Garmin does make a lighter plug cord for the Astro 220 it plugs into the computer port at the back.

[BIG J]

so far so good as far as gps goes. only had a month. i put on topo 2008 and city nav on from map source. awsome. like having a gazetter in your hand. city nav u can put any adress in u.s and can gat turn by turn directions right to the spot. or quickest way back to town if your hunting in an area that u arnt familiar with. i have only used the collar around the house so i dont have to much info on that. i have a motorola phone cig lighter adaptor 2 works great.

[tnthunting]

Best way to go. You have to get the 1:24000 maps for it.

[not color blind]

Does anyone know if there is a cheaper way to get the topo maps than getting the $100 ones from Garmin?

[hound_hunter]

Man I wish I were still in the hound buisness. 4 more years and I can buy back in though !!
anyways, I'm just curious, does this device track the path the hounds took? Does it show how they got from one spot to the other or does it just show where they are at the the time the signal sends (whether it be 5, 10 or 30 seconds).

If this device does not show the path they took, is there a device out there that kinda keeps track with a red line or something on the gps where the dogs have been? I just thought this would be kinda cool to be able to see, and who knows, could even help out finding lost dogs if they went way back somewhere. I dunno, Just a curiosity question. Thanks

[Darvin Ecklund]

Yes to all your questions. I lost a dog a couple weeks ago- She went over a ridge and into some wilderness country. Because of the rocky terrian, my signal on my wildlife box gave off a lot of bounce. I had my gps on her but it was not fully charge because I had used it earlier, but what I did have left on the battery helped me find what direction she went in and the last drainage she crossed before my battery died. I walked into the last spot that located on the gps and found dog and bobcat tracks, so then I used my wildlife box . It took me five days to get her back, but I least I knew the direction to look in. If the collar had been fully charge, I could have saw which drainage she was going to come out in or if need be, walk to her. Luckly, the weather warmed up a bit and she was in fine shape when I found her.

[FullCryHounds]

There are two main pages that are very useful to the houndsman. The first page is a compass with an arrow that always points in the direction of the dog and also shows the exact distance in feet or tenths of a mile. The other page is a topo map that shows the path (track) the dog is taking from when you turned on the collar to his current position. Your path is also displayed. Then when you get home, you can down load all this info on your computer with the larger screen to see what kind of a mess you were really in that day!

[tman308]

[quote="hound_hunter"]does this device track the path the hounds took? Does it show how they got from one spot to the other or does it just show where they are at the the time the signal sends (whether it be 5, 10 or 30 seconds).


Yes it does show you a path of where the dogs were at. Each dog on the unit, up to 10, will be a different color line and the name, that you assign, will appear on the dog icon on the map screen. The only issue I have had with the track is for the dogs it will only record up to 620 track logs. What this means is that if you have it set to the 5 second upload and you travel a long ways with the collars on then it will automatically overwrite the oldest track point. The only time I have this problem is when I am free casting off horseback and the collars were set to the 5 seconds.

Hope that helped.

[vann0060]

I ran into the track length issue as well. Is there anyway to get around it without changing the update length? If my math is right, even at the 30 second update it is only 5 hours of track length. I know I have hunted for over five hours. Overall I really like the system. It would be nice to be able to get a full day of hunting downloaded to the computer.