Garmin ALPHA 100 Handheld Only

I have used the Alpha 100 for 3 years. I like it because it’s easy to track and train the dogs. The battery lasts all day. I always charge after a full day to be sure. I have tried the Alpha 200, but found myself going back to the 100. I use this Garmin with mini tt15 collars and they have worked well together. I never hunt or train without them!

Great outfit really enjoying using this product.Very happy with the ordering process,received the item quickly.

Has everything you need. Tells you where your dog is. How far away, which direction he is, if he is on point. I like that it tells you the dogs stats. I was shocked to see my dog ran 16 miles my last hunt. I am mostly glad it has the vibrate feature to get my dogs attention. Then I only need to use the shock if he does something bad. Definitely the best collar I’ve ever seen.

I've been buying and using training collars since Tri-tronics was a standalone product. I've also depended on Garmin GPS products nearly as long. The merger of these two great companies has given dog owners the best of both worlds. More recently, I've owned both Dogtra and SportDog collars. Both brands have their strong points and weaknesses.

The Alpha 100 and TT15X are a big step up. The construction is heavy duty, the daily compass calibration is quick and easy, the collar-handheld range is way beyond any distance I will ever need, and I appreciate the collar's strobe lights that allow me to keep track of my dog in my large pasture at night. I no longer need occasionally to shock my hunting dog in the field because the vibration function is strong enough to get his attention. There's also a tone option. Updates are simple: Download the app, plug the units in and follow directions.

I have mounted the short antennas on both the collar and handheld. As a partial test of the effective range between them I left the collar on a table and drove away with the handheld. They were still communicating with more than two miles between them. There is also a longer set of antennas included in the package.

The handheld is feature rich with as many functions as any GPS user could ask. I have little or no use for many of those options, but found it easy to set up an initial waypoint (to find my way back to my truck), played with the option to record my dog's actual tracks on the hunt and, most importantly to me, set up two different displays to keep track of him in the field and to alert me when he's on point.

When I visit my rural property for an extended stay, I routinely keep the collar on my dog as insurance that I won't lose him. The batteries have been reliable from dawn to dark before needing a charge.

I've had the unit only a week or so and am still discovering new features. What I haven't found are any negatives. I do wish, though, that the "on point" alert remained longer on the display.

When un-packing and inventorying the package I found the Y-adapter was missing. Gun Dog Supply sent a replacement cable the same day.

EDIT: After six months of use, I can confirm my initial review with the following exceptions:

1. After performing a software update, all the handheld data fields disappeared. My call to Garmin's support team confirmed that this "hiccup" had been seen previously; the remedy was to do a hard reset, after which the handheld had to be setup from the factory settings all over again.
2. The handheld was on a lanyard around my neck when the display swung into the side of my vehicle, resulting in a very small impact mark on the screen. Afterwards, the display remained frozen and the unit was unresponsive. Garmin had me send it in as a swap for a used (re-certified) replacement at a cost of $200+. So, I'm deleting "...Bulletproof" from my review heading. I now have a protective screen cover installed on it.
It's still a 5-star product; just fix the updating glitch and recommend a protective screen cover.

Only limitation is it is difficult to change correction levels on the e collar.

This makes keeping track of dogs easy. I love how easy it is to program.

Bought this for my FBECS when he gets into thick cover out of site and for the extreme remote areas that hold the grouse and woodcock he’s after. Simple to use and setup, very intuitive and the initial training sessions with it have been great. Can’t say enough thank you’s to Steve and his team for the videos to review and quick shipping and service.

I bought this for my daughter's dog. I have had these for 2 years for my dogs. Often you can't see dogs in the woods even though they are close by. This let's you know where they are. Also nice to have if you bush whack. You will never get lost. You can also use for geocaching.

What a great device could have used this decades ago. Simple to understand and easy to use.

I bought this so I can tell were my patterdale terrier is when I cut her lose and also for training purposes. I haven't used it much yet but so far love it. With it on her it is just a little loose but I haven't had a chance to see if I can get the GPS unit to slide just a little more on the collar.

Great!

It's fabulous for locating all three and critical to reminding the Jack that she needs to respond to the here command.

I got this as a replacement for an old Garmin GPS only unit. I loved that and love the new one more. There's only 3 issues that I have had with this product:

1. The manual that comes with it is practically worthless, I hate to even call it a manual. Fortunately it is intuitive enough that you can figure it out fairly easily, at least for the common uses. I suspect there is a more complete downloadable manual somewhere but haven't looked yet.

2. I found that it is really easy to change the stimulation mode by accident. In my case it went from continuous to momentary. My dog is trained for a low level continuous setting and I couldn't figure out why she stopped responding well.

3. It does not come with a cover for the probe holes when the probes are not installed. There is supposed to be an orange rubber cover to keep crud out of the hole when the probes are not in use. The one II got does not fit at all, not even close. I don't know if this is a problem specific to the TT15 Mini.

That said it is a great tool and has worked well for my 14-month old Setter.

Instructions could be better but the product works great and there are videos out there to help with the instructions. Only thing I had problems with was downloading the birdseye satellite view, but once I figured it out it worked fine. Only improvement I could think of is if it had 4 buttons instead of 3 so you could have vibrate, tone, constant stim, and momentary stim on the same page. I just put constant on the second page because I rarely use it. Overall, very good unit so far.

I like everything about the website, especially the ease of navigation. Unbelievable fast shipping and accurate order. Everything came extremely fast and correct. I will use them again in the future for all my tracking needs.

Great reception even in mountains.

It works the best. Thanks.

The Alpha 100 with TT15 MINI is a perfect fit for my Mullins Feist. I'm getting up in age and can't hear too good. With this unit I can still hunt squirrels with my dog and know where she is when she gets out of sight.

I don't know how I've gone without one for so long.

Little bit of a learning curve, now I know where he is in the fields. I will use it to break him from running Deer.

It does all that you need to know. Versatile!