Garmin Astro Dc 30 Tracking System

The rugged, all-weather DC40 collar combines a high-sensitivity GPS receiver and VHF antenna into an all-in-one transmitter.

The Astro handheld has all the features of Garmin's top-line handheld outdoor devices.

Tall grass. Short dog. Game on.

See Your Dogs' Every Move
The Astro system includes a bright color-screen handheld GPS device and the rugged, orange polyurethane DC 40 collar. The collar accommodates most e-collar receivers--eliminating the need to put two discerned collars on a dog. Plus, Collar Lock produces a four-digit PIN number that helps prevent others from seeing your dog's whereabouts--a utile feature in field tryouts to assure that an Astro is used only as a recovery tool when a dog in contest becomes lost.

To get started, just take Astro outdoors and turn on the handheld and transmitter to acquire GPS satellite signals. Then attach the DC 40 to your dog. Now you're ready to turn him loose--no other set up required.

The rugged, all-weather collar is made of lasting one-inch orange polyurethane, ready to stand up to the parts and the hunt.

Track Dogs in Dense Cover
As ofttimes as each five seconds, your dog's DC 40 transmits his position to your handheld, and you may see his current emplacement and a trail of where he's been on the Map page of your handheld. Switch over to the Dog Tracker page to view a compass pointing to your dog's emplacement as well as his current status: whether he's running, sitting, on point or treeing quarry. Astro may likewise sound an alarm to let you know without any delay when your dog goes on point.

Astro boasts a high-sensitivity GPS receiver that may track your dog's position even in the densest cover. You may track up to ten dogs at one time with Astro, at a distance of up to seven miles away (depending on terrain). The system transmits info by line-of-sight, so it reaches furthermost in flat, open territory.

Count Your Coveys
After you've captured your quarry, mark the precise spot with Astro's Covey Counter, a special waypoint that tells you the precise location, time of day and elevation where you found your prey, as well as the number of birds you flushed and took from that location. Astro lets you save other particular waypoints, such as "Truck" and "Lodge," so you may save the emplacement of these places quickly and without apparent effort for each hunt. Astro likewise offers special waypoint icons to represent feed plots, tree stands and other hunting-related points.

Experience Full-Featured GPS
Astro shines when you're out on the hunt, but it likewise excels in getting you back to your truck at the end of the day, or even back home again. In fact, the Astro handheld has all the features of Garmin's top-line handheld outdoor devices.

The barimetric altimeter provides elevation profiles for climbers and hikers, and the electronic compass ensures you get a good bearing. Handy tools like an area calculator and celestial info aid you plan your day. With optional elaborated city street maps, you may search for over 6 million points of interest and invent a route on roads with precise turn-by-turn directions; or download TOPO maps finish with elevation information. Finally, the Astro 220 features a rugged, IPX7 waterproof exterior, ready to take on incliment weather without a hitch.

What's in the Box

Astro 220 Handheld, DC 40 Wireless Transmitter Collar, Carrying Case, AC Adapter for DC 40, Vehicle Power Cable for DC 40, USB Cable, Wrist Strap, Belt Clip, Owner's Manual, Quick Start Manual

Most helpful client reviews

33 of 33 humans found the following review helpful.
An Upgrade from their earlier astro (orange box style)
By HMMWV
This astro ought to be pointed out that it is fixed a good deal of of the bugs those of us early adopters ran into (like using velcro to attach anything to a dog was fault 1).

The early versions featured an orange "box" with a non-amplified antenna built into the top of it, plus a li-ion battery. You got a velcro harness to hold it on the dog and keep it pointing skyward. After 2-3 trips the velcro was full of hair and the antennas were being broken by anxious dogs racing through brush.

Garmin re-designed the astro and fortunately for us all we had to do was buy the upgraded collar design. The (now black) collar works the same but features an amplified antenna on top, the electronics box down under where it naturally hangs, and an bettered longer antenna with better range (about 25% better in my testing)

From the top of one mountain I may now find my dog 7.48 miles away with closely full signal strength, so this actually works. Getting to the dog is another matter.

The collar transmits either each 5, 10, or 30 seconds. 10 is a good value as you get regarding 2 days of use from the transmitter before the battery dies. 5 seconds will die in underneath a day (about 18 hours). These settings are made by placing the collar in close proximity to the handheld tracker and uploading them.

Finally for the radio folk the collar transmits on the MURS VHF frequencies at 2 watts digital. The frequencies are 151.82, 151.88, 151.94, 154.57 (old analog radio channel - not a good choice) and 154.6 (same as 154.57) [all in MHZ]

The 151 frequencies provide the best range near towns becuase each fast feed drive through uses the 154 frequencies to talk around. These correspond to the last 2 sets of 10 channels in the Astro.

If you are marveling how they get 10 channels on one frequency, it is simple - both the receiver and transmitter have GPS inside, so they know EXACTLY when a second clicks by to a great precision. They then divide a time amount of time (1 second) into 10 parts, each 1/10 of a second long. Channel 23 for example specifies frequency 2 (151.94) and timeslot 3 - the 3rd 1/10 of a second after 0.00 seconds. Since the radio and the transmitter both recognise when the transmission will take place the radio tunes frequency 2 at 0.3 seconds after a second "ticks" to listen for the 1/10 second transmission from the collar.

The only problem with this is you may not put multiple collars next to each other as the receiver needs time to procedure the info it receives (about another 1/10 second) so if 151.94 is a good channel for you, pick dog numbers of 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29 if you have multiple dogs on one system or are hunting with another astro user. Also, you can't have the radio tune dissimilar channels at the same time, so don't pick dog A on channel 14 and dog B on channel 24 because their transmissions will be at the same time on 2 dissimilar freqencies.

Keeping those simple rules of separation in mind you may track alot of dogs a long ways with Astro.

30 of 35 humans found the following review helpful.
One trick pony, but it is a pretty good trick
By J. Schockett
Nowadays when you may see your mailbox from space on google earth, basic cell phones have gps and mp3 players and you may buy 16gb usb flash drives for less than the cost of a tank of gas, engineering science merchandise come with high expectations, particularly ones with $500 price tags. The Garmin Astro meets expectations, but stops there rather abruptly. Okay, that may be a bit critical. The engineering science is gorgeous amazing. When you firstborn get it out of the box, work through the quick commence guide, and put it on your dog, it is impressive. Once our Schipperke, Lucy, was more than when it comes to 15 yards away the handheld unit distinctly and accurately showed her position on a simple color map and the dog tracker pointed at her approximate emplacement while correctly tracking her distance. My wife walked throughout our neighborhood with Lucy and from our home, I could effortlessly follow their entire walk(500 yards away). But the glow wore off quickly. When you get started to thoroughly examine the features of the device, you'll realize that there isn't much more too it. Outside of the one (admittedly cool) feature, the GPS is basically a run of the mill GPS from 5 or 10 years ago. The included map shows highways, but not surface roads (it costs another $100 to download elaborated maps). It has a compass, a barometric altimeter and a lot of gps games that I'll probably never play. The collar (despite being an betterment from former versions) is likewise a bit huge and bulky for a little dog, altho seeing Lucy run with that antenna sticking up fromm her collar is amazing cute. In total, we love being competent to let Lucy run free in the forest without those moments of panic when we don't know where she is, so I'm glad I own the Garmin Astro. I was on the fence amongst 3 and 4 stars and price pushed me to 3. At $500, I'm still not sure it's worth it. Fundamentally, this is a GPS unit that communicates with another GPS unit thru radio. I can't see any reason why this shouldn't be half the price. Give it two years and I expect that it will be. For now, this appears to be amongst the best gps dog trackers available, but that it isn't saying very much.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
I can't commend this highly enough!
By Noodles
I purchased the Astro 220/DC30 in May of 2009 for my Samoyed who if you have ever owned a sled dog (Samoyeds, Huskies, etc), you know all too well their fondness for roaming, chasing, and running all the while forgetting to listen (ignoring is more like it!) for you calling them!

I now feel exceedingly comfortable when my dog is off leash on hikes, as the Astro 220 does as advertised. I recognise whether my dog is on the move, treeing galore sort of critter, or resting. I also recognise what direction she is located and approximately how far away she is. It's also come in handy finding my way back to the car a couple of times.

On the occasions that I have had to retrieve her the GPS/compass has been 100% on the mark each time. It saves me a lot of time wandering through the woods aimlessly calling her with that more or less panicked edge to my voice!

So far the collar has withstood various swims, miles of terrain, a large total of digging into boroughs, and rough-housing with other dogs.

As someone else mentioned, make sure the units sync up before you release your dog. I sync them off the dog, then put the collar on her. Carry spare AA batteries with you. I get with regards to 24 hours out of a set on the Astro. You don't want to be DOA when you are looking for your pup. The collar nonetheless gives me regarding 15 hours on a recharge with the 5 second refresh.

Aside from all that, if your dog is a hard-running type, you will be amazed at how much ground they may cover in an amazingly short time.

If there was a wish-list for this product I would say a lot of sort of rechargeable battery for the handset would for me make it perfect. A second-tier wish would be to make it more or less smaller.

I am sure I will buy whatsoever the next-gen of this product is as it may only go from Very Good to Excellent, I think.

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