RolandBrooks

Hi Guys I'm looking to use this with a search and rescue dog.

For some reason the Astro is not available in the UK yet. But as I sourced my 60CSx from the States as the exchange rate was so much better. (and probably still is) I don't see that as a problem

I have been using my 60CSx for Trail walking mainly but the addition of being able to track the dog is too tempting.

Could somebody confirm that the map loading and route and track handling of the Astro is pretty much the same as the 60CSx

Many thanks
Roland

cncnowland

Thanks for all the info on this site, glad I stumbled across. My father and I each purchased an Astro 220 w/ collars for deer hunting with dogs in North Carolina. The units have worked perfectly, no issues with defective collarsm. Range has been pretty good, tested over 1 mile.

I do have one question, hoping you guys can help. I would like to track the dogs with a netbook installed in my truck. Can I attached/tether the Garmin unit to the netbook? I am assuming it should not be to difficult.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

cncnowland

I just got off the phone with the Garmin rep (whom was very helpful and knowledgeable). He stated that the Garmin Astro 220 handheld has no way of outputting the video to a laptop for realtime use. The device was not engineered to support this feature.

Andy

You don't need it to output video, you need it to output NMEA. Then you'd use a map program to display the NMEA location data on. Not sure if it will or not. Garmin use to have a program called nRoute, which let you hook up a Garmin GPS and see your location on a map on the screen.

jahid

My friend has a Astro 220 and dc30 collar. Basically he would like to track them on PC with Astro 220 connected via USB. He can get the receiver's location to show in gps programs but can't figure out a way to have live data from collars show up on maps. he can manually import into something like mapsource and see where they are, but was looking for something that would update their location at real time.

jahid

Any idea?

cncnowland

I have tried several methods/ways, unable to get the live video to a netbook/laptop screen. Maybe someone smarter than me can get this accomplished and let us know how its done.

DonBurke

I have the Astro 220 with 3 DC30 collars and I love it. I see there is a DC40 collar coming out. It looks good, but will have to wait until the DC30 collars fail.

Lately I have been experimenting with putting the dog tracks on Google Earth, grabbing a picture of the map, and posting it on Facebook.

Right now I am trying to figure out how to get the high res dog tracks downloaded from the collars into Google Earth. That would let me get a better look at what the dogs have been up to when they are out of tracking range. There is some "secret handshake" I have not figured out yet.