Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs GARMIN Astro 220 experiences?

I have a buddy of mine interested in getting people's personal experiences with the GARMIN Astro 220.

He is particularly interested to see if it really does work at distances up to 7 miles away for tracking your dogs.

Thanks!

I bought one last year after "misplacing" my two german wirehaired pointers for 4 days. I never wanted to have that experience again.

I then had the courage to take them mearns quail hunting. The type of terrain is rather thick and a dog could be on point and you wouldn't see it or the dog could bump into a deer and chase it.

I cannot answer the 7 miles question. I haven't had the dog go more than 150 yds as I wouldn't let him. Twice he must have spooked a coues wt and took off after it. I saw the dog was going straight away at over 100 yds and began by calling him. No change so I gave him a reminder shock. I could hear him yike and then could see his progress towards me. It sure saved the day!

Tracking the dog is easy. There is a pointer that tells the direction and the yardage is also shown. Several times the dog went on point and I would have never known it without the astro.

I think it is a good unit with few problems. Occasionally I have had to recalibrate the compass. The pointer would end up being off compared to the actual direction of the dog, BUT the yardage was always accurate. It does eat up batteries so you must bring spares. I get around 7 hrs of constant use from one pair of AAs.

Hope this answers a few questions.