Garmin Astro vs Garmin Alpha

R

Ranger6

Member
Thinking about picking up a new collar for the 1 year old GSP. I am trying to decide between the Garmin Astro and the Garmin Alpha. Just wanted to see if I could get any input from someone who has one? I would be using it in the Grouse woods of Wisconsin CRP of Kansas and in South Dakota. Thanks for the input.

Tom
 
I have the Astro, and run my Dogtra collar at the same time. The Dogtra collar has a beeper that I can turn on remotely when needed, and I also use its locate function as a tell for the dog to come in.
 
I have the Astro. I put the dogs' e-collars on the same collar as the Astro receiver. It works fine for a big dog, but honestly it's pretty clunky for my tiny brit. If you have a small dog and you want both tracking and E-collar functions, I would get the Alpha.
 
I have the Alpha. It's worth it's weight in dog for sure. The only thing I would change on it is I wish it had a vibration button on it instead of the tone. I don't use the shock unless its a safety issue. Haven't had to hit my little setter with it yet but she hasn't chased anything close to a road yet and she turns on the tone. If they had a version that was the GPS plus a vibration button, that's the one I would get.
 
PheasantWhisperer said:
I have the Alpha. It's worth it's weight in dog for sure. The only thing I would change on it is I wish it had a vibration button on it instead of the tone. I don't use the shock unless its a safety issue. Haven't had to hit my little setter with it yet but she hasn't chased anything close to a road yet and she turns on the tone. If they had a version that was the GPS plus a vibration button, that's the one I would get.
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Hey PW... it does have it (tone, vibrate & shock). :) I mostly just use tone... rarely if ever do I need the others in the field but certainly nice to have... vibrate is certainly as far as I need to go with my older pooch.
 
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PheasantWhisperer said:
The Alpha 100 has vibrate? I think mine just has tone, nick, and continuous...
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See under Train and Control... says tone or vibe. :)

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/107225
Train and Control

"Two modes of level progression let you customize your training even further.

Alpha 100 helps you train and control your dogs to stop chasing unwanted game. Easy to access training buttons allow you to communicate separately to each dog through safe and effective features, including 18 levels of momentary and 18 levels of continuous stimulation or an audible tone or vibe command. Plus, a lockout setting is available to avoid accidental stimulation or tone.

Select from 2 stimulation modes to customize your training even further. Traditional stimulation allows you to make quick changes (low, medium and high) within a predetermined stimulation level (1 through 6), whereas linear stimulation allows progressively more stimulation from level 1 through level 18."
 
Yeah, you have the 3 buttons at the top. On the touch screen, I don't recall how they can all be setup but I have mine set so the first button is for one dog, second button for the second dog and the third button isn't used. Then I can simply touch the touchscreen for each dog to choose stimulation, tone or vibrate. I typically just leave mine on tone... so when I want their attention each time, the default is tone. But I can change from tone to vibrate or stimulation by adjusting on the touchscreen under the button for each dog... hopefully I'm making a little sense??? If not, let me know...
It's fun to find that a gadget we bought does more than we thought for once. :) Usually we find out this stuff doesn't do everything we hoped instead. But if you have a TT15 and 100 remote, you have vibrate capability for sure. See ya!
 
I'll see if I can change it then. I would like to change them to tone, vibrate, and stim if that's possible. I change dogs by witching them on the touchscreen. The three buttons just go to one dog. Switch dogs on the touchscreen and they all three pertain to the other dog.
 
Ah, I remember that option I think... I'll take a peak at mine too and we can talk back. I believe you should be able to just set each bottom as stim, tone, & vibrate if you want to do that and then change screens to your second dog to do the same. But I pretty much set mine and haven't looked back... I pretty much keep mine on the compass screen. I'll take a look. Send me a PM if you'd like and we can catch up and talk more to get it figured out.
 
PheasantWhisperer said:
I'll see if I can change it then. I would like to change them to tone, vibrate, and stim if that's possible. I change dogs by witching them on the touchscreen. The three buttons just go to one dog. Switch dogs on the touchscreen and they all three pertain to the other dog.
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Here's my home screen I use...

Then if I touch the screen on one of the dogs, I'll get this... Vibrate is there (along with the other 3 options). :)
 
Yep got it. Thank you. It is awesome when you figure out that your toys have more to em than you thought. My screen looks a little different than yours but same options.
 
PheasantWhisperer said:
Yep got it. Thank you. It is awesome when you figure out that your toys have more to em than you thought. My screen looks a little different than yours but same options.
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Cool... I'm assuming you use the map screen rather than the compass like I did when I got mine. Setternut suggested that I try the compass rather than the map and I never went back. The compass is great.... the screen arrows point to the dogs direction and the dog's distance from you is displayed for each one too. MUCH easier than the map IMO. Give it a try if you haven't, you may like it better too... best wishes!
 
Yeah I use the compass. I only switch to the map if I get lost. Happens in my home state more than when I'm out of state. Do you have the sim card to save your hunts on or do you just clear it after each hunt?
 
PheasantWhisperer said:
Yeah I use the compass. I only switch to the map if I get lost. Happens in my home state more than when I'm out of state. Do you have the sim card to save your hunts on or do you just clear it after each hunt?
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I'm a 99% pheasant hunter so I've never saved hunts... just clear them each hunt. Am I missing out on something I should be doing? The few quail I run across is easy enough for me to remember. ;)
 
Well, I keep a log book of all my hunts. Some of the stories are from when I was 12 and through the teen years to the present. So I download the hunt information and the map. That way at the end of each hunt story I put this info. Kill count, how many miles the dogs ran, how many miles I went, weather, sometimes the exact trails we went, number of points, etc. Haven't figured out how to download them to the word program that I am converting all the handwritings to. But haven't tried that hard yet.
 
I can also look at it and see patterns. Where the birds fly to every time when they get up, or birds getting up ahead a lot. Knowing these patterns makes me a better hunter I think.
 
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