Helping You Get the Most From Your Hunting Dogs
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| Garmin Delta Reviewby Geoffrey English
 Garmin Delta Photo by: Author
The Garmin Delta offers a half mile range, 18 levels of both momentary and continuous stimulation with the tone and vibration option. Also, the unit can be expanded to up to 3 dogs. The buttons on the face of the Garmin Delta can be configured in one of three modes. See the chart below:
Mode 1 - Tone, Vibrate and Momentary
Mode 2 - Tone, Continuous and Momentary
Mode 3 - Vibration, Continuous and Momentary
Garmin Delta Collar Design:
The Garmin Delta Collar is much smaller than any rechargeable training collar we have seen out of Tri-tronics yet. The Delta collar weighs only 2.4 oz. which makes it significantly lighter than the 7.2 oz. Tri-tronics EXP collars used in the Sport, Field and Pro Series collars. These collars are suitable for dogs as small as 8 pounds and powerful enough to be worn by larger working breeds. The only downside that we saw with the new Garmin Delta Collars is that the contact points are not removable, making it problematic for dogs with long or thick coats. I sure hope Garmin rethinks this design if they are going to tinker with the Field and Pro Series collars anytime soon.
The collars can be charged fully in 2 hours and you can expect to get close to 70 hours out of a fully charged collar. The low battery light on the front of the collar will switch to yellow when the unit needs to be charged and will turn green when the collar is fully charged.
Garmin Delta Transmitter Design:
Seems like Garmin engineers have jumped on the LCD bandwagon to display the current stimulation level of the collar. I am not a huge fan of this change as I am more of a dial and toggle switch kind of guy. Nothing against LCD displays but I find them difficult to read sometimes when working in bright light conditions, specially while wearing sunglasses. The one good thing about the LCD display, it shows you the battery life of the transmitter and which button configuration mode the unit is set on.
But if that is not enough, the Garmin engineers removed the intensity level dial, too... yikes. In order to change the intensity level of the collar you must click one of the buttons on the side of the unit. Maybe it's just going to take some getting used to but I have always been a big fan of the indexed intensity selection dial found on all Tri-tronics products. There is nothing like the confidence you feel when the dial locks into the next intensity level and you're ready to issue a correction knowing you're one level up or down from the level you were just training with. I guess the Garmin engineers are against all things moveable. Who am I to question their design - I only use training collars everyday for hours upon hours.
The transmitter is also capable of controlling 3 dogs. The dog selection button is located on the side of the unit and the LCD displays the current collar the transmitter is controlling. The collar that comes with the unit is outfitted with a black strap and is pre-programmed to the black selection indicator on the transmitter. When you program additional collars to the transmitter you should match the color of the strap with the dog selection indicator, either red or blue.
One of the most exciting features of the new Garmin Delta is the fact that you can change the correction mode simply by pressing the mode selection button on the side of the unit. I would preferred some way of locking the setting after you change the mode, so that you don't inadvertently change the correction mode while in the field.
Mode 1 - Tone, Vibrate and Momentary
Mode 2 - Tone, Continuous and Momentary
Mode 3 - Vibration, Continuous and Momentary
Additionally, you can setup different correction modes for each dog which is great when training multiple dogs. The transmitter can be charged fully in 2 hours and you can expect to at least 60 hours When full charged. The LCD has a battery life meter consisting of 3 bars. When the unit is down to one bar it's time to stick it back on the charger.
Don't forget to checkout the most up to date Customer Reviews for the Garmin Delta. If you have the product and would like to comment on it please feel free to post a comment below or add a review. | |
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