When I saw Garmin and Tri-Tronics get together last year, my first thought was, "They are going to make an awesome tracking e-collar." For those of you who don't know, Garmin is a leader in the field of GPS and location devices, and Tri-Tronics is, in my opinion, the best ecollar manufacturer around.
For years people have used the tracking devices with bulky antennas that look like the old TV antennas dad would make you crawl on the roof to move around until he could catch the Cowboys game on Sunday afternoon. They are a bit cumbersome and have a limited range.
A few years ago, Garmin came out with the Astro. It started as a harness antenna, then to a collar antenna that transmitted to a handheld GPS. You could literally tell when your dog was running, stopped, how much distance was traveled, and at what speed he covered the distance. This was amazing to me, but they all had a problem. Both with the older style tracking collars and the new Astro, your dog was going to have about 3 collars around his neck.
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| 3 collars are a little bulky for small dogs. |
With the heat in Texas, I like to run smaller, 40-50 pound dogs. Big labs and pointers, while they may be perfectly suited for the duck blind or the snow banks of South Dakota, tend to break down in the heat a lot quicker. When you have an everyday collar, ecollar, and tracking collar on a 40 pound dog, their neck starts to get a little busy.
Ladies and Gents, may I introduce the Garmin/Tri-Tronics Alpha.
I hope this unit lives up to the hype I'm giving it, and I hope somehow I can someday afford one. The unit comes with thousands of U.S. topo maps already downloaded on an easy to use (looks like to me) touch screen. The stimulation controls for the ecollar are the 3 buttons across the top. You can add up to 20 collars to the unit (what for, I don't know), and you can adjust the update frequency to allow for longer battery life. This is basically like the iPhone 5 for the upland bird hunter.
With this new technology, also comes the iPhone like price. About $800 for the collar and transmitter, and $300 for each additional collar. Looks like I'm going to need to put in a little overtime for this new toy... Or I'm open to field testing or sponsorship, Garmin? Tri-Tronics? Just throwing it out there.
I look forward to hearing some first-hand reviews on this product. According to their website, there is a 3-5 week wait for processing, so it sounds like a lot of other people are excited about this also. Now I'm off to see what I can sell on ebay to afford this thing. Hunting season will be here before you know it. Until next time...
Happy Hunting,
