Vehicle Tracking: A Beginners Guide

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Ryder

Having a senior moment
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Well it seems as though we keep getting questions about tracking devices from people so I thought I would put a little post together to answer some of the more frequently asked questions.

Most people know the difference between GPS, GPRS and GSM but since this is a beginners guide after all, perhaps it is best to start out by differenciating between them.

GPS: The global positioning system, facilitated by a network of around 30 satellites operates in the following way. Each satellite contains a clock... the most recently launched satellites contain rubidium clocks and by using these clocks and by talking to eachother the satellites are able to produce a steady stream of numbers and transmit them toward the Earth's surface.

The GPS receiver listens out for the stream of numbers and by measuring the time difference between different streams is able to triangulate a position with some degree of accuracy.

As with all technology, there is a fly in the ointment: Radio signals, as any school boy physics student will tell you, speed up or slow down according to the environment they are passing through. Hence, as they pass through the atmosphere a degree of inaccuracy is introduced to the receiver's interpretation of its current location. The answer came by way of an ingenious system called DGPS (Differential GPS). This records the actual lat/lon for a known point. Then the receiver is able to query what the variation is between the known correct position and the decoded position and apply that differentiation to the final position on the local gps receiver... if all that sounds a bit involved then put simply... DGPS is ****loads more accurate than GPS alone.

Modern receivers are capable of analysing up to 64 incoming data streams - basically the more channels the better when you are looking into any kind of GPS device... be it tracker or simple navigation.

OK so having achieved a signal and decoded it to provide your current location, you now need a carrier to relay that information back to a server, whether that is at a monitoring station or a web server allowing your wife to determine whether you are seeing a bit on the side!

Most common is to use GPRS, (General Packet Radio System), which is the technology used by GSM mobile phones to access t'interweb. Because this is an "always on" connection, positions can flow quickly and simply - however coverage is patchy on some more remote areas (our tests have shown that desert areas can pose problems although even in Algeria we were fine in built up areas. If you need reliable coverage for literally anywhere then you should be thinking about satellite phones linked to your tracker... not cheap but more reliable in these conditions.)

On a slightly aside note: though related... remember that any use of GPS is illegal in Algeria and they will not look kindly on finding it in your vehicle... so ensure any tracking device is well hidden and can be disabled easily when approaching the border.

Over the last year or so of reading posts about tracking devices - people seem to fall into one of two camps. Either they think that trackers are great or they think that they can achieve a better result for less money using a baked bean can and a roll of gaffer tape.

Mobile phone in the glovebox method

Anyone who seriouisly thinks that this is going to get them their vehicle back is kidding themselves.

The GPS system embedded in mobile phones is of a very low and hideously inaccurate variety. Positions are vague in the extreme.. in fact when I look at my own blackberry I am lucky to get a position closer than 200 yards of my current location. That's ok if I am walking I guess... but searching every location withina 200 yard radius that's an area of over 1200 square yards or just under 3/4 of a square mile for a vehicle would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. It would also be a nasty time to find out that the bloke on the forum you were reading about actually got it wrong. Additionally the power of the receiver is very small. Using fewer channels than a tracker, cheaper components than a decent tracker and having a lower reception level all combine to make sure that the phone is the ****tiest solution of all. (Except the bean can idea!)

How to choose a tracker

Actually choosing the tracking system is not all that difficult once you work out what you want the system to achieve. The main source of confusion comes from the fact that so many companies offer tracking devices, and many sales reps are unaware of the device's limitations or abilities. Minor Planet, once the market leader in tracking devices suffered from this problem to the extent that it lost them a great many sales. Reps were continually promising the earth and the installation engineers knew that some of those promises could simply not be fulfilled!

Lets start by saying that as a rule... if it is not manufactured in Europe or Ireland you should not consider buying it for anything important. Chinese devices are simply not reliable; and getting coherent support can be difficult. That's bad enough when it is a simple tracking device but it is bloody awful if you are using the device as a full blown vehicle management system and you have satellite locked yourself out of the vehicle and can't get in to reset the system.

Looking at price: a decent tracking device will be costing in the region of £150-£200. This will include a fitting kit and covert antenna for both GSM and GPS reception.

Typically you should be looking for combinations of the following services available without necessitating any further hardware:

i. Single position reporting to a web site or your mobile phone on request
ii. Continuous position reporting to a web site so that you can follow your vehicle on screen or from your mobile phone.
iii. Geo-Locking - ie setting the tracker to notify you if the vehicle is moved more than 100 meters (or a preset distance) from where it is now.
iv. Geo Fencing - the ability to set areas that will result in a message being sent to your phone or the web site... useful for congestion charge reminders on a personal vehicle...

Many systems will offer more but these are pretty much the basics.

On a more advanced system: say a vehicle management system rather than a simple tracker:

i. Everything you would expect from the basic system plus some of the following

ii. ability to activate central locking from mobile phone

iv. Ability to deactivate ignition or limit engine output

v. active monitoring of various conditions

Of course these will come with extra fees attached but a top notch system will allow for these to be added in later should the need arise.

Finally... and forgive me for posting such a long and rambling roll of information but,

If you want something specific from your system, then search around until you find a company that will give it to you. In the tracking industry, almost more than any other, people are fond of telling you what you can have and not listening to what you want from the system. Stand your ground... if you want reports insist on them... if you want a monitoring station then don't settle for second best and ask for a tour of the monitoring station before you invest, make sure you get monthly or annual tests and if possible take a look at a demonstration system first.

I think I have covered most of the basic points but am quite happy to answer any further queries.

I do have ten years' experience in the industry both in R&D and programming of these systems and the points made in this post, while lin part my own opinion, are based on solid and reliable fact.

If you are searching for tracking answers I hope this went some way to helping.

cheers

Ryder
 
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Is it worth mentioning that as soon as your Landy is put in a metal container it will loose GPRS and GPS signal making the tracker useless? (Even if the tracker could locate the vehicle to the 'last known position' they normally end up on shipping containers on the back of a lorry.

It may also be woth adding that most organised criminals will very quickly de-activate a tracker after stealing a vehicle. This can be done very easily and takes maybe 10 seconds at the most.

Not saying trackers are a bad thing - i know they have resulted in many vehicles being returned, but, that they are no-where near a gurantee to being able to find your vehicle after it has been stolen.

Good article though - some nice technical information about GPS at the start there :)
 
The points you make do have some validity bump However these are the normal arguments presented by the "opposition" for want of a better term.

You have to bear in mind that no one can prevent the theft if the thief is sufficiently determined. All they can do is slow the buggers down enough to make it an inconvenience.

The anti theft value of a tracking system is primarily during the first few minutes... notifying you of the theft and allowing vehicle recovery. Your comments concerning containers are, in general, accurate... however there are also ways to turn this to our advantage - much depends on the money to be spent though it is worth noting that most of us do not live that close to the shipping containers!

It is relatively simple to incorporate a phone jammer detection system and hook it to the lights/horn/vehicle immobilisation system. Again it simply comes down to how much you want to spend.

After stealing the car... you state that 10 seconds is enough to disable the tracking system. This is true of some systems that are not discreetly installed and are the cheap chinese end of the market... hwever it is simply not true of the more advanced European systems.

Remember that you are talking about vehicle management systems...capable of being independantly programmed... we are calling them trackers but in reality they are very much more.

I have not gone into details about how the tracking systems combat the would be thief for obvious reasons... and I did not want to turn this into a technical thread... but it is important to dispell the myths that inevitable grow around this type of technology.

One other thing... people are so fond of talking about GSM jammers that they forget thatover 85% of vehicle thefts are opportunistic. Not fitting a tracker because one has been led to believe that jammers make it obsolete is a little like throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

Thanks for your comments though... I can see where you are coming from even if I do not entirely agree...
 
I was just trying to put a bit of balance to the article and make sure people are aware they are not 100% guaranteed. I agree that if you have a good one it will notice a vehicle is moving and contact the appropriate person to make them aware and this is, as you say, invaluable.

We have a tracker on our caravan for that very reason... the landy isn't worth the expense.

To keep the guide clean i won't go into my thoughts on things further, especailly for disabling them - which by no means involves phone blockers... oh - although i was referring to a shipping container on the back of a lorry... not on a boat!
 
I was just trying to put a bit of balance to the article and make sure people are aware they are not 100% guaranteed. I agree that if you have a good one it will notice a vehicle is moving and contact the appropriate person to make them aware and this is, as you say, invaluable.

We have a tracker on our caravan for that very reason... the landy isn't worth the expense.

To keep the guide clean i won't go into my thoughts on things further, especailly for disabling them - which by no means involves phone blockers... oh - although i was referring to a shipping container on the back of a lorry... not on a boat!

On a personal note I would appreciate your thoughts on disabling them... after all if you have thought of something I have not tackled then it is time for me to don my white coat and come up with a solution!

As for the ultimate deterrent I have always thought a 9 inch spike beneath the driver's seat hooked up to the tracker and fired by sms would be...err...appropriate!


Surprised that your landy is not worth the expense - though I suppose my £500 disco doesn't exactly call for state of the art protection either:D
 
On a personal note I would appreciate your thoughts on disabling them... after all if you have thought of something I have not tackled then it is time for me to don my white coat and come up with a solution!

As for the ultimate deterrent I have always thought a 9 inch spike beneath the driver's seat hooked up to the tracker and fired by sms would be...err...appropriate!


Surprised that your landy is not worth the expense - though I suppose my £500 disco doesn't exactly call for state of the art protection either:D

With Landys they are not usually opportunist thefts. In most cases the vehicles have been pre-scouted and are then nicked to order. For this reason I think it's highly likely that the perpatrators in many cases may carry tracker jammers with them.

I am getting to be an expert at jamming the works trackers or throwing my location out by some pretty big distances.:D:D:D I find the gsm ones are nowhere near as good as the old radio wave ones (were they VHF or summit??) and are therefore much easier to block.
 
I tried top anwer this one last night but either my internet was screwed of lz database was having an eppy!

Anyhow... The devices you mention are not tracker jammers. They are not manufactured to take out trackers and to my knowledge there are no devices specifically designed as an effective tracker disabler... they are, however, gsm jamming devices which work by disrupting the comms between a gsm device and the tower. Hence they can be detected and the relevant action taken.

Old trackers can be confused and connec into returning a non position. This is largely thanks to the low quality of gps receiver and decoder... often listening to as few as 8 channels. The newer devices not only use 64 (ish) channels but they use DGPS.

To use Penn and Tellers words from Con Us? Would this trick work if you didnt know there were a tracker and could not find the antenna? Fact is that technology is improving fast and these are very effective devices these days.
 
I tried top anwer this one last night but either my internet was screwed of lz database was having an eppy!

Anyhow... The devices you mention are not tracker jammers. They are not manufactured to take out trackers and to my knowledge there are no devices specifically designed as an effective tracker disabler... they are, however, gsm jamming devices which work by disrupting the comms between a gsm device and the tower. Hence they can be detected and the relevant action taken.

Old trackers can be confused and connec into returning a non position. This is largely thanks to the low quality of gps receiver and decoder... often listening to as few as 8 channels. The newer devices not only use 64 (ish) channels but they use DGPS.

To use Penn and Tellers words from Con Us? Would this trick work if you didnt know there were a tracker and could not find the antenna? Fact is that technology is improving fast and these are very effective devices these days.

In short... Yes. But I don't know if it would work on a dgps tracker.
 
Hi gents, I hear all the arguments for and against and am totally confused -
All I want is to be able to find my landy in the countryside after some jealous scrote has lifted it in the hope of nicking the kit off it, or breaking it for parts in the privacy of another location.
I need something that with at most half a day headstart should still give us a clue as to if its still in the county or not and preferab;y within a few yards or so.
I don't need to try to stop the pros who nick to order as I don't believe I can or that this landy is the sort of thing they will target specifically.
So heres the question - which is the most cost effective tracker make model and price for what I want.
Cheers
 
Around 200 Euros is about our most basic unit. We can buy cheaper ones but refuse to do so because they are chinese tat. Positions are accurate to within a few feet (actuall most of the time to within six inches or so but this can sometimes be slightly affected by atmospherics. Data is returned to your phone when you want it and there is no running cost except the sim unless you want to change the software.


If you want to know a little more then pm me and I will happily give you all the info you could possibly want (and more lol) but I don't want to ramble on right here because it would be like turning the thread into a spam posting and that's not what its about.

Cheers

Ryder
 
I purchased a tracker from a seller on Amazon back in Aug, £65 and uses GPRS GPS and GSM.
it uses a sim card to communicate with the owner, and uses all three services.
placed my disco in the multi storey car park in Leeds and walked away, city centre i then send the message to the phone to respond with its gps coordinates which it did no problem at all.

you can track the car live from a smartphone using google maps etc and remote kill the vehicle with a simple text message.

These subscription services for trackers are good, but imho are not needed if you feel ok about a few wires and hiding the unit in the motor.

I even had my mrs drive away on the car and told go her to go anywhere she wanted and in 30 mins ill ask the tracker to tell me where the motor was. 30 mins later and i rang her and said she was at makro at the bottom of the carpark, sure enough she replied she was.

£65 and 3/4 hour to fit gives me all the piece of mind i need knowing i can track the motor and take my mukkas to go kick some ass.
 
I purchased a tracker from a seller on Amazon back in Aug, £65 and uses GPRS GPS and GSM.
it uses a sim card to communicate with the owner, and uses all three services.
placed my disco in the multi storey car park in Leeds and walked away, city centre i then send the message to the phone to respond with its gps coordinates which it did no problem at all.

you can track the car live from a smartphone using google maps etc and remote kill the vehicle with a simple text message.

These subscription services for trackers are good, but imho are not needed if you feel ok about a few wires and hiding the unit in the motor.

I even had my mrs drive away on the car and told go her to go anywhere she wanted and in 30 mins ill ask the tracker to tell me where the motor was. 30 mins later and i rang her and said she was at makro at the bottom of the carpark, sure enough she replied she was.

£65 and 3/4 hour to fit gives me all the piece of mind i need knowing i can track the motor and take my mukkas to go kick some ass.

Which one did ya get?
 
You can do that with most of the trackers on the market... like anything else it depends on the kit that you decide to set it up with.

£65 is a good price... I would still be concerned with reliability though. We looked at... and tested... a number of systems in that price range and found that some of the components were cheap and nasty... while others were pretty good. GPS receivers have come on leaps and bounds in the last 12 months... 64 channel DGPS is almost standard in the higher range trackers now.... It was almost unheard of five years ago.

I still tend to go with the more expensive Danish units... I think that the flexibility that they provide does make a difference because it allows you to decide exactly what you want the unit to do rather than being restricted to what the manufacturer tells you it should do...

However.... I also believe that any tracking is miles better than no tracking... I sincerely hope it does you proud and helps to keep your motor safe!
 
I guess it is like a TV.... You could go buy an old black and white (if you can find one) or even colour portable for a fiver and hope that it gives you the best picture possible. On the other hand you might want to buy something a little better... depends on your needs!
 
I guess it is like a TV.... You could go buy an old black and white (if you can find one) or even colour portable for a fiver and hope that it gives you the best picture possible. On the other hand you might want to buy something a little better... depends on your needs!

The problem is that unless yer using the tracker for busines or safety reasons it's only needed AFTER yer landy gets nicked.:(
 
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