Trakker's New Bite Alarm Is Awesome!
It’s called the DB7-R. It looks good. It sounds amazing. And its performance so far has been second-to-none. Here’s what we’ve learnt...
Trakker is on a mission. For years, it was a fabric company: bivvies, beds, luggage and clothing. Now it’s an all-round powerhouse, determined to take over your life alongside Nash and Fox. Along with a newly released line of terminal tackle, bankware, and indicators comes this: the DB7-R bite alarm—a five-year project that’s been designed completely in-house from the ground up. CARPology’s been fortunate enough to obtain an early set of three, and here’s what we’ve made of them…
1. They are so easy to use
We’ll cover all the acronyms and technical jargon that doesn’t mean anything to anyone shortly. But to start, we wanted to express how simple these alarms are to operate. Three good old-fashioned dials grace the front of the DB7-R, meaning just like a Delkim or Micron, you can adjust the tone, volume and sensitivity easily and quickly. The PPS (there’s that first acronym! It stands for Power-On Protection System) is an industry first. It’s designed to prevent accidental power-ups and wasted battery life. Talking of batteries, it’s powered by a single PP3-9V (one of those rectangle ones), making them easy to fit and maintain.
2. There’s a lot of tech
But like all good tech, it’s well-made, works, and is simple to operate. The buzzers work on a dB-Mag Roller, which has eight precision magnets and a high-performance O-ring. Trakker has incorporated their ‘ISM’ (Intelli-Sense Mode) into all sensitivity settings. In real terms, this is a function which eliminates false indications, allowing you to fish effectively in extremes—i.e. combat crashing waves, high winds and boat fishing scenarios without compromising vital indication information when it’s needed most.
3. They are very well made
Visually they just look solid. Feel them in the hand and that’s confirmed. That’s thanks to being built with a tough ABS weatherproof case and battery compartment. The digital circuitry and internal components also get a helping of that weatherproofing to further ensure the DB7-R will perform reliably in all conditions—whether that’s in ball-crushingly cold temps to gushing summer storms or 30+ºc sizzling heat.
4. The receiver is equally as impressive
The technology inside the DB7-R Receiver is something called ‘Sync-connect Receiver Technology’ (or SRT for short). Yes, it is designed for long-range, but the main takeaway is its ‘obstacle-link signal optimisation’. This clever technology ensures that you always receive a strong and reliable signal, no matter the terrain or obstacles in your way. Like the heads, this is easy to use, with four heads per channel (16 in total), and any adjustment you make to the head is automatically updated on the receiver. There’s also a neat ‘Last Event Recall’ (LER) function.
5. Loads of the ‘bits we love’
By this, we mean customisation! There are dual super-bright multi-colour LEDs, which allow you to switch between red, green, blue, yellow, purple and white. The neat ‘peek-view’ positioning of these LEDs further enhances the visual indication from side-on viewing positions. There’s a one-touch night light function, solid latching LED forward indication and a flashing latching LED drop-back indication. And when it comes to sounds, the audio is as crisp as the LEDs thanks to the Tru-tone cone speaker, which also delivers a dual-descent tone drop-back differential. All-in-all, these are the real deal. And just like the Tempest and 3-Piece Winter Suit are two of Trakker’s hero products, we feel the DB7-R has that pedigree to go the same way.
