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What kind of range are we going to get with the e collar part?

Jason, It's about the same as the Tracking portion. It uses the same radio that is used to track
the collars.
Buddy

That will be nice. If guy can track em, you can zap em.

I still have issues with how many dogs show up on the screen. I read another article that said it shows up to 3 dogs on the dog/map screen. Every picture I've seen shows 3 dogs. Can anybody definitely say it will show 20 dogs "on" the map screen? Not that I want to see 20 dogs, I think that would be a cluster f@*#.

First shipment of Alpha Combo's are on the way, I'll get almost enough to clear out the previous orders for the Combo's.

Should be able to ship out any combo orders placed today Next week.

Buddy

Any word on when they will ship out? Online I was seeing 8/22 and now the day seems bumped back to 8/24 or 8/27

Any word yet? Lion country claims to have them in stock now.

I haven't used my alpha to track/train dogs yet but I've been using it elk hunting and this GPS is pretty darn slick. MUCH easier to use and mess around with than the astro. I don't mind spending the money on something that I can use for other types of hunting, as well.

I've been out hunting several days and and put at least a 100 miles in search of a few bobcats, I can say it's definitely a nice system.

Collars are coming in this week for those folks that are waiting for extra collars, Plenty of combo's ready to go.

I finally got to put some serious miles on this new system.

I'll work on a Write up, but it's a Solid system, 7 dogs, and I don't think there was one problem tracking a dog and we hit allot of rough country and tall timber. Tracking distance is about the Same as a Astro, Shocking is much better distance. The collars I would rate Slightly better than a DC30 and they keep the satellite signal very well.

I'm not a salesman, so you'll have decide if you want to part with the money or not, but I think I can say that it will track well, and train well if you do decide to buy it.

My only complaints:

I have a couple Annoyances with the Messages, The Tree alerts and other messages were annoyingly in the way a few times when I was trying to pick up a Dog before a Logging truck Mushed her into the ground. So That was annoying trying to clear messages.

Another Hiccup was with the Training but I think it was a Software glitch that will be fixed so I'm not too worried about it. It was either that or a sticky Button. It was just one moment that made me go Hmm.. Did that button stick or not? But because it was regarding Training, I took it very serious. I'm not too worried about it, because if it was a problem I'm positive that Garmin will be quick to fix that issue, because that could spell bad publicity for them.

But All in all it's definitely a Well built system. Does it warrant the Extra money, well that's going to be a personal decision. If you don't have an astro, 100% go with the Alpha, If you are loaded up on the ASTRO and happy, if you don't want to take the hit to upgrade, You will still be able to track your dog's just fine with the Astro.

For the battery life, I left 2 collars running since yesterday both on 10 second update, Since 6am they were running 10 second update, right now both are still working, one has changed to the 2 minute update and I expect the other to switch over any hour now. It's been 33 hours and they both show 2 of 4 bars and they are still in the green on battery life. So I think it's better then the DC30's and 40's, but I've never done a side by side comparison.

So I think its a better system than the ASTRO, But I completely am cautious to the fact that money is tight right now also and don't want to be that salesman that promotes something to someone that can't afford a few of the Nice features.

Oh and Don't hunt with a dog from Colbalt dog trained and hunted by URE, If I do that again, I"m going to have a couple pages of Excuses ready before hand. Luckily for me it was a Successful

Will the long range antannas from the astro work on the alpha?

yes

Glen wrote:Will the long range antannas from the astro work on the alpha?

Wow,

That is really scary. I was waiting for the new reports to start coming in saying that everybody was getting signal halfway around the world. And that they were shocking dogs just as far.

Very surprised we are not getting all the sales pitches from the dealers.

That's okay I know where there's at least one that we will get an honest critique on. Almost seems maybe that the ones that are out there, the one's that bought them may be to sheepishly embarrassed to let the cat out of the bag.

Just seems that way to me. Because when things are really going well most shout it from the rooftops. What's the scoop guys?

Take care, Willie

I got to play with the Alpha today. Here is the good bad and ugly I see with them.
Batteries on the collar and the hand held seem to me good. I have had them on all day on the 2.5 second relay and the collars are at 3 out of 4 bars and the handheld is at 65%
Easy to use, Still not the easiest to see in the bright sun.
As far as distance....It still sucks and I think it sucks worst than the old collars. I had 6 of the new T100 collars and 3 DC30's and 3 DC 40's and the 40's and 30's never did loose a signal and the T100 lost at 770 yards and never did reconect unlill I was 50 yards from the dog. The terrian was little rolling hills on my coyote dogs. I was not impressed at all.
If you are thinking about getting one and selling your old unit, I sure wouldn't. They are not worth the extra money and do not work as well as the old ones do. Hold on to your money.

Devin,

Something is wrong with your system.. You should send it back. I wouldn't be happy with that if I were you, I'm definitely seeing much better results than that.

Buddy

Just did another test on them. 6 collars and they all lost connection at .59 line of sight the whole time. Never did pick back up. Too bad Garmin didn't work more on the distance rather than the fancy features.