I have two wildlife recievers, a 48 and a 1000 ,I use the 1000 in my truck with a roof mounted antana, the 48 is mounted to a directional yaggie, the 1000 with the roof mount will sure spoil ya , I have no complaints other than the signal bouncing off of rocks somtimes and sending you in the wrong direction when you know that your dog is not the way its pointing , you kinda have to learn each system and not operate one like the other, In alot of cases the collar or the transmitter will make or break ya in the whole operation of tracking your dog. There are so many makes and models out there these days , I think a guy has to evaluate the kind of country you will hunt in the most and do some research on what fits you and your style of hunting before a purchase, In your situation with the one dead collar , I would probably repair it once and see what happens , if it goes dead again before its time and the company who built it will not stand behind it then I would look at a new one , thats just my opinion, have a good day