cheap car tracker?

Mailman

what is to stop someone putting an old mobile phone in the engine bay or boot or behind the dash, disabling the ringer and powering it off the battery?

The gardai can request the location of active phones can't they?

If you supply the phone number they can track the phone to within a few hundred metres?

Would this idea fly?

KTRIC

You've just answered you own question. It would be a few hundred meters squared, try finding your car then is still a big task.

Mailman

Few hundred metres squared - Local Gardai then think to themselves "what Scum live here in this locality?"
Should reduce the number of likely locations immeadiately.

If the car is being left on a back-road until things cool off it will be found also.

Mailman

Newer phones have GPS in them don't they?

kluivert

Thats actual a good idea.

Well done for thinking off that one.

Pataman

That really is an excellent idea. Everybody has at least one old phone lying around. If you mounted it behind the dash, set auto answer you could hear them talk, could be incriminating as to where they are. Also the issue of being accurate to within a few hundred metres, at least it gives you a chance of finding it. Are there not crowds who will track it, for a fee, in the event of a robbery. I have seen a few in the UK I presume they operate here?

Funxy

My car has a vodafone sim car installed in it, allowing you to text it at any stage and request its locations, speed, temp etc. It also allows you to ring the car and listen to whats happening inside it. It was installed to lower insurance by the garage. Pretty damn handy

http://www.meta-sat.com/gb/index2.htm

secret_squirrel

Mailman wrote:

Newer phones have GPS in them don't they?

Nope thats a proposal currently floating around in the states. Their might be one or 2 specialist models but nothing mainstream. Plus the GPS antenna needs to remain exposed.

Bluehair

The gizmondo has an incredible set of features that people are just begining to realise has just what many car owners have been crying out for.

Check it out here; http://www.gizmondo.com/mygiz/gps.asp?id=1&t=mygiz_gps_geofence

It has GPS functionality and the ability to put a sim card into it meaning amongst other things you can leave it ,say, in the boot of your car and activate a GPS 'geofence' around the car. If the car moves 100m outside this 'fence' the bloody thing texts you to let you know! And then allows you to track it online!

kermit_ie

Nokia have a GPS module that works with thy Symbian phones. Here it is with the 6630 http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=cm&id=2326

There's also an xpress-on GPS cover available, but I've never seen it. www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk/p2625

Alun

secret_squirrel wrote:

Nope thats a proposal currently floating around in the states. Their might be one or 2 specialist models but nothing mainstream. Plus the GPS antenna needs to remain exposed.

It's a lot more than a proposal, it's a requirement called E911 that is supposed to be fully implemented by the end of 2005. It's not specifically tied to the use of GPS however; the network operators are free to use whatever system they choose. In areas where there is a high concentration of phone masts they can get close enough just by triangulation, in rural areas they may need GPS to get close enough. Also, by using a combination of the two techniques they can use both the rough position generated by triangulation and a fairly accurate network time and further refine that using GPS thus partly negating the slow time-to-first-fix problems associated with a GPS unit that has had no signal for a while.

http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/

secret_squirrel

afaik from the very brief reading the operators have the choice of a network based system good to 100m (ie mast triangulation) or a handset based network good to 50m (ie gps handsets) and not a requirement to do both just one.

But I take your point - sprint reckon they had sold 1m GPS enabled handsets in 2002 :eek: - which I find hard to believe tbh. (wonder if they mean smartphones that can theoretically interface with a gps)