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I now have 10 DC 30s and three DC 20s and two Astro recievers. And two long-range antennas and a magentic base car roof antenna I put on the roll bar of my side-by-side.
I find the way the chargers hook in frustrating as they note above. I have a small wire brush I use to clean the ports out for the charger plugs.
Garmin service totally replaced two DC 20s and one DC 30, no questions asked, under warranty at around 10-11 months post purchase. The DC 20s stopped because I got water in them, one because I let wet loctitie get on the base screws which was like acid to the plastic. Garmin could have stuck me for that, but did not. The DC 30 was damaged by a boar biting it, and they still covered it under warranty.
Plastic is soft, the collar webbing material breaks down real fast, usually at the buckles.
I have swam or waded with mine with no issues, but made the mistake of going to the dogs across a large bayou with the rubber on the antenna damaged and water got in from the antenna connection. That unit already had a really scratched up screen anyway - the dog icons would "dissappear" under one really bad scuffed area on the screen. They charge a flat fee of $150 for out of warranty Astro receiver rebuilds and sent me a reconditioned unit you could not tell from the brand new ones. This time I got some of that protective film from I-Phones touch screens and put it on both units to prevent scratches.
The best thing about them is I can tell, when I cannot hear them, when my dogs bay, run, and catch. Way to cool. I save all my hunts in my computer with the free MapSource software they include with the Astros. Then I can analyze my hunts and each dogs efforts. You can even view all your marks and track lines in Google Earth and Google maps. I use the the PrtScrn key to capture the image and paste it into a graphics program like Power Point to add labels, arrows, text, then save it as a low file size .jpg file to email to my hunting friends. I can really tell which dogs are hustling, and which are messing around.
My son took his 15 month plott gyps out and they went over 20 miles. I verified it by uploading the Garmin Astro data, it was actually 26 miles and they ran the hog for 9 hrs. They lost the big one in a bird colony and then took their frustration out on a poor 40 pounder.
