# Broke down and bought an Astro



## Nancy Jocoy

The DC50 is being discontinued but I think this is a pretty good deal - $399 plus you can get $20 off if you just get the code.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Garm...ts&Ntt=astro&WTz_l=Header;Search-All+Products


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## Sarah Platts

The dogs bought me one last year as a Christmas present. I need to buy a couple of more collars. Mostly what I had planned to do with it was put a collar on the runner, a second on the dog team and then sit back at base and watch them work from the comfort of my chair. 

For those who work BHs, you should consider getting one and putting it on your hound before you go out. That way when you trip and fall and lose your lead, you won't have to spend a couple of days trying to find your dog again. (Luckily the team this happened to was able to locate the dog alive - we were expecting the worse because the trailing lead was still attached and we all knew the lead would get wrapped up on something somewhere)


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## Nancy Jocoy

That was the intent when our team bought a 220 and 7 collars - found out the base radio fried the unit. They set the frequencies for the garmin right there in the same VHF band as emergency services.

Got it fixed by Garmin but now know a bit more about keeping the mast for the garmin away from the mast for the radios (needs to be on a lower plane) the 320 also has, I understand, better shielding.

But I got this for me for field use-when I get back we can download and I know not to transmit with a radio next to it.


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## Jay Quinn

what do you folks primarily use the GPS for? showing the areas a dog has covered? or for finding the dog if it goes AWOL?

genuine curiosity here, i got involved in USAR at the start of the year and our search areas are generally rather small in comparison to trailing / land SAR...


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## Nancy Jocoy

Coverage and marking waypoints...also if you draw search area on computer and send to gps as a track you can visualize boundaries of search area.....it is also faster to download gps data than manually draw maps. Also accurate way point marking. Had one find by deploying an air scent dog after lining up head pops from trailing dogs

The astro is nice to document where dog went and to locate when out of sight


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## Jay Quinn

Nice, thanks for the clarification! : )


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## Nancy Jocoy

One of the things I am working on is commitment to source when I am out of sight for awhile. Right now if he goes and indicates, he does not always wait long enough and will come back and "get me" - Also I don't always know where he is- and with the collar and can go for a STAY. In retrospect I would have liked to have a bark as part of his trained response for HRD.

Anyway I think that is a real good price for the unit.


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## Sarah Platts

I use the garmin to document where the trailing dog goes. But whether LE or MP case its important to document where you went or why you may be terminating a search. Waypointing head turns or areas where something was hinky.

I have also attached the unit to the dog's collar to document off-lead movements to ensure coverage (pre-astro days). I havent figured out yet how to actually download the astro yet. It doesn't seem to like my mapsource program. Nancy, how do you do it?

It wasn't till I got the astro that I found out how far my dogs were actually working. Never fails to amaze me how much ground a quick moving dog can cover in a short period of time. Even my "slow" dog that I thought was a velcro baby was going out 400-500 yards. The others were going out 700-800 yards.


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## Nancy Jocoy

I have not used mapsource for several years. Garmin replaced it with Basecamp which is free and has much better capabilities (and also which allows you to buy and overlay topo and aerial maps for a lot less than Maptech (mytopo). Also if you have a car GPS with lifetime maps it will import that data into the program and now you have updated street and business map info.

During live use, the collar sends a truncated version of the trail to the handheld and that is what the computer pulls off the handheld. It is even worse for us because whenever a signal is lost the computer starts a new track and makes a mess of things. The older collars (like ours) could be held close the handheld and there is a command (look up in manual) to send ALL the dog data directly to the handheld wirelessly. The DC50 has a USB port for direct transfer of data to the computer (so I have read but have no experience with the new collar-I am going to keep an eye out for discounted DC 50 collars for the future)

I really do think seeing the coverage is so helpful and so great at seeing, like you said, where there is a head pop or something is hinky.

You are aware of this issue with repeaters and base radios. Our handhelds are also 5 watts, our base is 50 watts and the police base is stronger -- not an issue for a lot of hunters who use FRS or GMRS but we all use VHF. In real world what I got from folks was not to worry about the handheld but to keep any secondary astro antennas electrically isolated from the main mast and lower than it.

https://support.garmin.com/support/...caseId={68fa3fa0-ba59-11de-7974-000000000000}

http://www.reddogradios.com/fido-filter.html

I found this great article on the 320

http://www.gundogsupply.com/garmin-astro-320-review.html


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## Nancy Jocoy

To late to edit: add.

I think our old collars are DC30s. (they have the awful nylon strap). Now that I have a repaired 220 back I am going to work on that idea of not tracking in real time from base and just downloading from the collar during debrief. Live tracking with limited map staff and computers is just too much information to process. IF somebody has something in the field we just have them call it in. Also switched to using NGRS as it is harder to mess up the coordinate info than with UTM.

I will keep my personal 320 handheld with me and not use it at base..


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## Sarah Platts

I've tried some playing with basecamp but right after I downloaded it - the computer crashed and burned. Have not loaded it back onto the new one yet. I usually end up taking the track and overlying into google earth. Getting the topo mapping program is next on my list of purchases but haven't done it yet.
I usually turn the collar on but then turn off the handheld once it's located and married up to the collar. I tend to use it just to locate the dog, not the track per say. Mostly for the radio issues as you indicate. oops, got to go - company.


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## Nancy Jocoy

We have used mytopo (maptech) for years but they are so expensive it is getting harder and harder to justify the expense. 

I used to get free aerial subscription extensions by participating in beta tests but it is hard to justify paying about $100 per year per state loaded to update your aerials. About the only thing that makes maptech really stand out any more are some of the project features and the ability to print maps perfectly scaled for a grid reader. 

I am going to buy the annual aerial subscription to basecamp. Once you buy any of the garmin maps they don't care how many devices/computers you load it on


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## Rob Maltese

This is a comment coming from someone who didn't read the entire thread, and has no idea on SAR training but, is there a way to just affix the GPS tracking unit to the dog's harness/vest rather then putting a collar on him/her?


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## Nancy Jocoy

A lot of folks do that. I have done that with a logger device. The utility of the collar is that you can find your dog if something happens. 

My last search had beaver traps set out ("but not in YOUR area" so I was told).....and you can adjust your search pattern real time. I carry a GPS handheld anyway and I can use it for navigation while still keeping up with the dog.

It is pretty sweet. I am used to an old Garmin 60CX and mine just came today. I have to lay a trail for an internal evaluation of a team dog on Friday and I was able to make a jpeg out of a state park map, calibrate it to google earth, and send it to my GPS so I could see the trails. I know as a handheld GPS the Astro 320 is pretty rudimentary but I like that! I will take the GPS on Saturday, hand it to one of the flankers, slap the collar on the dog and they can compare the dog's track to mine while watching the dog work. {I will go back to the end of trail from another direction on Saturday morning}


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## Rob Maltese

Nancy Jocoy said:


> A lot of folks do that. I have done that with a logger device. The utility of the collar is that you can find your dog if something happens.
> 
> My last search had beaver traps set out ("but not in YOUR area" so I was told).....and you can adjust your search pattern real time. I carry a GPS handheld anyway and I can use it for navigation while still keeping up with the dog.
> 
> It is pretty sweet. I am used to an old Garmin 60CX and mine just came today. I have to lay a trail for an internal evaluation of a team dog on Friday and I was able to make a jpeg out of a state park map, calibrate it to google earth, and send it to my GPS so I could see the trails. I know as a handheld GPS the Astro 320 is pretty rudimentary but I like that! I will take the GPS on Saturday, hand it to one of the flankers, slap the collar on the dog and they can compare the dog's track to mine while watching the dog work. {I will go back to the end of trail from another direction on Saturday morning}


Well mounting the GPS tracking portion of teh collar on the dogs harness would be the same as the collar, that is unless the harness/vest comes off which I suppose would be more likely then a collar right?


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## Nancy Jocoy

No, because the collar worn by the dog has radio communication with the handheld carried by the handler. And pretty good communication at that. Several miles.

A dog being out 1/2 to 1 mile is not unusual - The advertised range is 9 miles line of sight (of course like an ecollar you never get that range but you can get very good. Push comes to shove and you lose your dog their are higher powered antennas you can use)


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## Sarah Platts

Was going to post that to the *other* site but but my stuff never seems to make it through.

Working from my dubious memory, to clear the track log, you have to bring the dog's track then go into history or details and remove that way. YOu have to go through each dog's history if there is more than one.


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## Nancy Jocoy

LOL thanks. I have had that happen. I will update, I did ask Garmin via email but after Christmas I imagine they will have a user support backlog.

Clearing off the handheld is easy. Clearing off the collar seems not so easy...as the tracklog is held both places.....I did find out to get the collar to talk to the computer you have to mash the button long enough to go from red to green to red again.

It will get a nice use today. We are doing an internal evaluation of a bloodhound on a 12 hour old trail in highly contaminated terrain. I walked the track yesterday and recorded it on the GPS so the flankers can put the collar on the dog or handler and compare while following. I have a complicated start at a busy parking lot and a good shortcut where the dog might miss a turn off a trail and the handler will have to cast to recover........


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## Nancy Jocoy

Sarah, we did figure out something. To get the search area AND my track AND the dog's track on the screen simultaneously we had to put in the search area as a "route" and press "go"--

Also download direct from collar does give more points but not more info such as speed, direction, etc. so I think the only time I would use it would be if I lost signal from my dog and wanted to re-create where he was during that time


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## Sarah Platts

Thanks, for the info. I need to sit down and play more with it. I'm such a techie Neanderthal.....

How was the BH's track from the other day?


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## Nancy Jocoy

It was interesting. My trail roughly paralleled a road but had a lot of switchbacks-. Trail higher than road, scent must have gone down to the road as that is where the dog picked it up and followed until a spot where the ground was flatter and i had passed closer to the road - then dog went into the woods and picked up my trail. 

Plausible. I set trail in the late afternoon and a bunch of bike riders were on it while I was walking which probably dispersed the scent a lot. Hate it for her she wound up on the road which was narrow and steep and heavily traveled by cars.


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## Sarah Platts

I hate to say but that's pretty typical on that age of trail. People think all the scent falls directly down or comes strictly from the feet (I had a guy who thought that by wearing rubber boots he could evade the dogs) but you are a 6 ft tall walking stink stick. Because you are warmer than the ambient air, the heat from your body rises up taking your scent with it and lofts up over your head about 2-3 feet. Then it drifts down but if its caught by the prevailing terrain or wind travels to find it's level. So the dog will work where the greatest amount of scent is located. The amount of scent coming off the feet or legs is minimal compared to the amount traveling off the rest of your body. Hence the road. 

What would be very interesting is to go out and have the dog run this same track in a week or two. Or if you had waited to run the track for a week or two. I think then you will find that all the loose fluff (skin cells, dander, etc) is reduced and the hound will probably stick closer to the original path you walked. That's if you haven't gone out and cross contaminated the track with fresher scent in the interim.


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## Nancy Jocoy

Trailing is definitely interesting in that regard. I always think of the pictures of heat current coming off of a human. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VraEsZK_iKs#t=20

When she got in the woods she went downhill but on the other side of the trail. Once again consistent with odor dropping as the night falls. I really do think the air currents from the many bikes constributed to greater dispersal.

About 10 years ago a teammate took the NASAR trailing test and the evaluator was grandfathered in as an HRD handler and had never trained a trailing dog and said tracking/trailing = same thing. So crossing a clearcut at 2 in the afternoon the team lost the scent and got "off the track" [failure] BUT she boxed the area with the dog and picked up the trail on the other side of the cut. The only reason we did not make a stink about the failure was the dog went off later some distance on a deer trail and the handler did not pick up on that so, by rights, she should have failed but not for the reason of getting off the "track" (which she recovered).


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## Sarah Platts

Great video. With all that activity lofting up you really have to wonder what smidgens the dog is trying to work when we force them to track (versus trail). 

That mindset that tracking and trailing are the same is a windmill I've been tilting at for years. I have never really understood why people who don't have a trailing dog are evaluating them. It kinda goes in line with an airscent handler telling me how much she really hates trailing dogs. That they didn't understand them and how much they can't do but when I asked and got a "NO' for have you ever worked with a trailing dog, trained with a trailing dog, or had a trailing dog you have to wonder why these people are evaluators. I told them how refreshing to find a handler that knows so much on a subject they have so little about experience about (yeah, I know bad me.....)


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## Nancy Jocoy

You know, as I play with this I realize that it is dumbed down version of the Astro 220 but the collars have better communication with the handheld and some features such as ability to use aerial maps.

Kind of like the 62 vs the old 60 GPS.

I miss some of the features from the 220 such as the ability to clear the tracklog on the actual collar. ....... 

If I pair the DC30 collars with an Astro 320 and the track is lost, I am SOL because there is no way other than wireless communication with the 220 to pull the tracks off of those collars. You can pull directly off the DC50 but there is no way (unlike the DC30) to clear the tracks on the collar itself unless you do a master reset of the collar. (Which Garmin tells me won't hurt it). For 90% of folks I guess that is no big issue. Looks like we will need to keep a working Astro 220 as long as we have DC30 collars.


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