Merry Christmas! Garmin Alpha!!!!

[werner.reiche]

Maps come with it - they are on a micro SD chip. You can replace them with better ones you can buy online. You can also download satellite imagery "birds eye" view for it too - but I haven't bothered. Top maps and roads are adequate. I saw one map set that also has property lines marked (mine shows private/crown, but not individual lots).

[Mount Sweetness]

The map on it looks like it doesn't include Canada at all, shows Canada as grey when you zoom in.....no roads or topo?

[Mount Sweetness]

Werner, where did you get your maps? Mine did not come with a loaded SD card.

can someone recommend the best place to buy maps and what are the most useful maps??

[cdelargy]

Werner, where did you get your maps? Mine did not come with a loaded SD card.

can someone recommend the best place to buy maps and what are the most useful maps??

GPS City. I have the Backroads Mapbooks maps. they are nice. lots of detail, crown & private land, trails, paddling routes etc. etc.

Is the tracking function working on your Alpha?

[bodycount]

Mount Sweetness dont go on line and down load or upgrade anything off the Garmin web site. As all of there up grades will make your unit not track in Canada. Because of are Canadian government they didnt pass the bill to let Garmin make a Canadian version.All of the new Garmin tracking units will not work here in canada. Not sure when they will be on the market. Im a little pissed as i bought 10 collars and the alpha last spring and if any collars go down I cant get them fixed as garmin will upgrade them to the ones that will not work in Canada.

[werner.reiche]

Werner, where did you get your maps? Mine did not come with a loaded SD card.

can someone recommend the best place to buy maps and what are the most useful maps??

Lots of places sell them. Mine were from gpscentral.ca. Sail sells them to - but did not have the backroads series.

[Mount Sweetness]

Mine is the Alpha 100 TT15.
I haven't used it yet, just playing with it trying to figure it out.
It seems to track, as it shows the dog/collar location....? I will play around with it some more, go for a drive with the handheld and leave the collar at home and see if it tracks.

I am leaning towards the Backroads Mapbook, if anyone has a better one to recommend please do so. If you have seen these on sale cheap somewhere please let me know.

[Jakezilla]

The alpha is a sweet unit. If you have smaller dogs you can order replacement collars from here with no rings so that you will be able to get them a little tighter.

http://www.outdoordogsupply.com/garm...acement-strap/

They have lots of other accessories like cases, screen covers, long range antennas etc. If you do order anything from them I would suggest calling. I have talked to them before and it sounds like there are certain things they cannot ship to Canada due to restrictions placed on them by Garmin.

Overall I like the alpha but they could have done better with the charging system, those clips for the collars are easy to lose.

On another note. Has anyone actually had a unit or heard of a unit going down in Canada? I have heard lots of talk about it but I have yet to hear first hand evidence of an updated unit going down. A friend called Garmin when this all started and was told that the update affected Europe and Japan only. Phone calls since then have been met with a standard corporate response.

[cdelargy]

On another note. Has anyone actually had a unit or heard of a unit going down in Canada? I have heard lots of talk about it but I have yet to hear first hand evidence of an updated unit going down. A friend called Garmin when this all started and was told that the update affected Europe and Japan only. Phone calls since then have been met with a standard corporate response.

I have been trying to figure out the same thing. Have had the "Company line" response from several U.S. suppliers as well. Can't blame them as they don't want Garmin peeved off. Wish I knew a suppliers personally, then could get an accurate answer.

[Mount Sweetness]

My Alpha is brand new, the latest version, it works.
I went for a drive today and left the collar home with my wife, the Handheld tracked the collar for 3km.