Looking For Vehicle Tracking Units:

[chrisv]

Dear Mr Recoverer

GPS systems are mostly used for FLEET MANAGEMENT, and these are very expensive - at least double the price I paid for my EWCop system. I do not have a fleet and I looked at a system in price range of R2K. So GPS based tracking systems do cost a lot more every month!

My car comes standard with a GPS - and I have another portable little Garmin e-trex which I use for hiking. All I know is; whenever there is thunder storm - there is zero GPS signal! If I fit a sunshade over my dashboard - I also loose the GPS signal on both systems. Surely thieves know this! You are most welcome to try these experiments yourself using a GPS based system! Lets not advertise ideas to thieves - but you get the drift! Mounting the GPS on the petrol tank does not work for my bakkie. The fuel tank is under the loading area - leaving only the dash as a prefered mounting location for the GPS antenna. For my car - mounting the GPS on the fuel tank is a GREAT idea - since it has a glass roof!

I lost my bakkie to theft - which was fitted with a basic system & famous brand system! It did not incorporate a GPS Fleet Management system. I discovered the theft approx 30 minutes afterwards, and to date my bakkie is at large. With the EWCop system - it phones me immediately. I can check on my vehicle anytime anywhere!

Yes, maybe not 6meter GPS accuracy, but most of the time I find it to be better than 1,2km accurate everytime.

Thank you for valuable information - I did check on the recovery and EWCop indeed uses CAPITAL-AIR and seeing that you are a recoverer I now feel better about this new system!

Besides the point, most ordinary vehicles are not fitted with fleet management systems - and if the vehicle is stolen - and the driver discovers this too late - the vehicle is lost forever! So, all systems should at least be early warning systems.

I tested the EWCop sysem with Look4Me. It gave me an error of 1,4km in Magaliesburg. I phoned EWCop call centre and they explained using two different triangulation systems as well as beacons and transponder tags to pinpoint! Look4Me are only for Vodacom users. The GSM base station reads the timing advance to calculate the position.

I suppose this is the next best accuracy if you do not have a MUCH more expense system which uses GPS.

According to EWCop the accuracy is around 400 to 1000m in cities and even up to 2km in rural areas. My SAPS tracker friend - says this is accurate enough for locating!

I believe the increase in automotive security (key transponders et al) forced thieving techniques to hijackings! My main decision for fitting the eWCop system was that they offer a lot of extra features - other than a panic button. I also evaluated the TRACKER Alert system and others with panic buttons. But EWCop offered more!

EWCop says they immobilise according to goverment guideliness and the vehicle provides suffcient warning for 45 seconds! EWCop says they do not expect a vehicle ever to be stolen - since 5 people are phoned as well as the call centre. Only in the case of hijackings and having a vehicle in sight - they will stop the vehicle to protect and prohibit a fatal accident!

I wish someone like you were dispatched to locate my missing bakkie! I got paid 50% of the replacement value - after paying five years every month for my previous TRACKING system! I once tested this and at that stage they could not actually tell me where it was - I had to drive to a filling station!

 

[recoverer]

Dear mr Chrisv

Dear mr chrisv
On a gps system for a private vehicle I agree, it is to expensive to both install and pay monthly installment for monitoring. It is mostly used in fleet management although it is an excellent system if only all can afford the best obviously everyone will install the best.

The lost signal. I am sorry to inform you but you are so wrong. Yes the portable gps and the one fitted to your vehicle does not work indoor or with sunshade over windscreen. I also have a handheld and a garmin street pilot I use to aid me in tracking vehicles. They also don’t work without line of sight to the sky. I have experimented with this a long time ago, I also find that certain kind of electronic devises “scramble” the reception rendering them worthless. The differences with the gps recovery/tracking system is that the antenna on these systems are very sensitive and do receive a gps signal without line of sight. I have also tested the gps recovery system extensively, in any situation I can think of. It does get signal even if the antenna is underneath the car fitted upside down. Even indoor. You can fit the antenna underneath the vehicle and park the vehicle inside a garage with no windows and close the door you still get a position you can take my word on that. It does have limitations, if you park that vehicle in an underground parking garage with say 3 floors above it you are pushing your luck. You don’t need a “liewe heksie” glass roof to get it to work trust me.

I know that you get a wayoff position with look4me it’s more a toy than anything ells. Yes what the control room does is divide the reception area of the cell phone towers in sectors and then calculate the sector the vehicle is in. It does narrow the search area but this is in a best case scenario only as the vehicle must be in an area with more than one tower. It does narrow the search area but still not give you an exact position. I found in the past that it can be very accurate but also the other way round. Take my advice and TAKE THE RF BEACON that is optional. Let me explain.

If I give you an exact lat and long and tell you the vehicle is in a radius of 200 meter from that position, go find it. That is a very small area considering it is 400m by 400m. Now how many suburban houses can you fit into that area not many say a yard is 1000sqm that gives you 16 houses with 16 garages and 16 backyards to hide the vehicle in. Go walk around your neighborhood and see if you can spot all the residents cars and they are not even hiding it. Now take that same are in a township or a squatter camp and count the number of houses in the same area. say a yard is 15X15 how many places are there to hide a vehicle now, and believe me it is not a good idea to walk around in a squatter camp at night not even for the people staying there. If you do have a RF beacon fitted to your tracking system you can give the recovery personal a search area of a 1000m X 1000m and the beacon will take them exactly to the vehicle even if it is hidden inside a garage or behind a house. Iow without the RF beacon recovering a vehicle is very very difficult.

I told the truth about immobilizing a vehicle didn’t I. Yes most systems can see if the vehicle has an ignition on or of and if switched of they can immobilize it but it still is debatable in a law environment. Personally I would love to immobilize the vehicle if the thieve is driving at a 160 on a gravel road but that is just me.

I am sure you previous recovery company did there utmost best to find your vehicle it is just a fact that some vehicles never get recovered. Not even a member with 20 years experience can recover a vehicle if the unit is faulty or disabled.

To all out there with tracking systems fitted try buls*t the bulsh*ter. Go to any good electronic store and buy a small plastic electronic container box type thing. Fit it underneath your dashboard in a place the thieve will look first to disable you system. Put some wires on it and attache it someplace to make it look like it is the real thing. Spray or put a sticker on the box to make it look authentic. Even insert the inside of an old remote or calculator inside the box. For show put a battery inside fitted to a small flashing led. Now if the thieve finds the fake tracking devise he will cut the wires a smash the box thinking he did his part disabling your tracker. This will heighten the chances of finding you stolen vehicle.

All the companies out there have got good and bad points but I bet every single one is doing their utmost to get your vehicles back. In a later post I will try to give the type of vehicle most at risk of being stolen.

Please post any questions I will try to answer it.

 

[recoverer]

These vehicles need tracking systems

I found that vehicles most at risk differ from one province to another.
Most vehicles that get stolen are the older models or vehicles that have been on the market for a long wile. To give a short list of vehicles that mustn’t dare go outside without a tracking system.

Jointly top of the list is the Golf1 or the Chico or velocity or what ever it’s called. This golf has been on the market since the seventies with very little change and they get stolen by the hundreds a day. The most difficult part is opening the door. What the bad guys do is bring their own computer box and replace it with the cars box that is fitted underneath the glove box, or just unhook the ignition and hookup their own ignition. It is just a matter of unplugging one and plugging in the other. The steering lock is a short bolt that is removed in seconds

Another list topper is the good old Toyota Hilux 2y or 4y as the engine is comely known. The body is removed and replaced by a Hiace body with little effort and that is why they are so popular. This might change if the new Maxi taxis replace the old 16 seater.
If you drive any one of these you are driving a loaner as someone will take it from you sooner or later

The Toyota Tazz/conquest is a favorite, again a shape that was introduced to the market a long time ago.

Mazda 323 boot and hatch along with the ford tracer lazer boot and hatch again new car old body.

The Toyota Hiace and Venture for obvious reasons

Honda older shapes a big favorite in Western Cape.

Most shapes sentra but especially the box shape I think it is the previous model.

Nissan 1400 bakkie sure you are driving a loner almost impossible to hide a tracking system without the bad guy finding it. It is the most basic car on the SA market

In a smaller way the Uno

Toyota Cressida the big boxy one the last of the Cressida models. Big car still a states model to drive (Toyotas will always be very popular because and you can argue with me it is an excellent car in all its shapes and sizes)

The older corolla models the box shape as it is known

Almost any car that is older than 10 years

If your Nissan 3liter bakkie get stolen/hijacked chance are excellent that it is going to be used in cash in transit heist. The Saps will find it later on but badly damaged after running the FG truck of the road

I see a tendency of Isuzu bakkies being stolen more often.

Don’t think an immobilizer or gear log will protect your vehicle from being stolen. It only lengthen the time it takes the bad guy to be of with the vehicle and the good old carwatc, How many times have you driven of with the paper thingy still stuck to your windscreen without them even noticing you driving off.

Do not think it is only cars on my list that get stolen/hijack. Remember the thieve steels whatever the customer requests so if it is a porch 911 turbo the customer want that it the vehicle he will set out to get.

 

[captainwifi]

Please post any questions I will try to answer it.

Ok, here is a question: How is the thief going to steal the car if you lock
the bonnet via bevvel gears actuated by a http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/RS485 circuit? The only way you can steal the car is if you can physically lay your hands on the dieselpump. Now all you do is place an embedded micro in the engine compartment that receives a RS485 signal. Nomatter what the thief does, hack or cut, that atmel micro won't allow
the bonnet to be opened nor the solenoid on the dieselpump to be actuated.

What do you think?

 

[Ryder_JHB]

Sigh...

 

[Moederloos]

Ok, here is a question: How is the thief going to steal the car if you lock
the bonnet via bevvel gears actuated by a http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/RS485 circuit? The only way you can steal the car is if you can physically lay your hands on the dieselpump. Now all you do is place an embedded micro in the engine compartment that receives a RS485 signal. Nomatter what the thief does, hack or cut, that atmel micro won't allow
the bonnet to be opened nor the solenoid on the dieselpump to be actuated.

What do you think?

Tow it.

 

[Drazde]

Tracking GPS/GSM technology

Navigational devices like a Garmin cannot be compared to tracking units as they all use a passive (non-powered) antenna system.
Tracking devices usually incorporate active antennas that have built in low noise amplifiers (LNA) to boost signal power over the cable. Also a rule with antennas is usually: the larger the surface area, the more GPS energy in that area and thus the stronger the signal. Tracking unit antennas are usually larger (up to double the size) than the standard patch antenna in GPS navigational devices like Garmin.

Every technology has it's own benefits. It is important to note that most GPS/GSM tracking companies use triangulation as well, so even if the GPS signal is not available, a fall-back mode is enabled and the unit can be tracked by GSM/Cellphone triangulation, just like Vodacom's look4me service. So you dont need a GPS lock to track the vehicle, GPS just provides better accuracy.

Most GPS/GSM solutions provide a early warning feature, where, if the vehicle moves without the ignition being on, the owner is immediately informed. This can even be extended to activate regardless of whether ignition is on or not (so when you park in a dodgy area activate this feature).

Immobilizers are an optional feature in these units. Although it is against the law to immobilize a moving vehicle, the units usually monitor the vehicle speed and rapidly switch the fuel/electrics of the vehicle to facilitate erratic and shaky behaviour, until the vehicle moves so slow the driver has to stop, much the same as an antihijack system from Autowatch.

Funny enough, the current company with the highest recovery rates is using GPS/GSM technology...also a company that came second on the Sunday Times business Top100 fastest growing companies. SO before you take any tracking company, make sure you get one with a good track record, experienced technicians that know how to hide your tracking unit and have a good recovery rate.

Lastly, a expensive but handy feature now being seen in units all over the world is Dead Reckoning. This enables the vehicle to be tracked very accurately underground by using the speed (from the wheels) and direction (using a Gyroscope) of the vehicle and calculating is corresponding coordinates as from where it last had a GPS lock. The application is more appropriate for the exact tracking of vehicles in heavily built areas like London and New York, but could be applied to stolen vehicle recovery.

This should answer most of your questions. Don't believe some unproven technology, get something that can tell you your car is being stolen before it is stolen, it's worth the piece of mind.

 

[captainwifi]

You don't understand the technology. You can buy a phone jamme from
http://www.phonejammer.com for R400. You push the button and all your
GPRS/GSM tracking devices goes "poof". I have explained counter measures
elsewhere. You must, must use a http://www.roundsolutions.com modem.
The modem detects the phonejammer signal then pulls in a relay. The relay connects to http://www.netstar.co.za Netstar gets a panic signal they http into your home PC to get your LAST GPS COORDINATES. They send out the marines and catch the phone jammer hijacker.

The only other real counter measure I could think of to phonejammer.com is to build your own spread spectrum cell phone.

Build your own cellphone using a http://www.gumstix.com [[EmbeddedPc]]. This will enable us to keep on sending a GSM signal even if there is a spectrum jamming attempt. The FPGA logic is well advanced and there are many hardware engineers that can design a GSM phone for us.

We hack the patent from http://www.roundsolutions.com and on detecting a spectrum jamming attempt the custom cell phone sends out an alert instead. Thus the thing will in eternity not be Icasa approved - but who cares about Icasa if you are about to die? Normal cell phones all operate on the principle of cutting back their signal on detecting a jamming attempt - this is by international protocols. This is fine for Norway where we don't have deranged criminals killing people for their cellphones.

And for obvious reasons our friends at Altech Electronics who don't want us to have our own Wimax spectrum wouldn't want you to even read this post. They wouldn't be able sell such illegal units.

* [[GsmCommander]]
* http://www.gsmcommander.com
* http://www.hongdian.com/en/products/h6800.htm
* http://www.dbg.co.za/catalog/index.php
* http://www.wirecom.co.za
* http://www.remotesms.co.za
* http://www.gsmcommander.com ''021 948 4025''
* http://www.onecell.co.za
* http://www.roundsolutions.com
* http://www.m2mtelemetry.com
* http://www.TraceME.eu
* http://www.autobleep.com
* http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Gsm
* http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/
* http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/SMS_Receiver_Project
* http://www.planetgis.co.za/gis.php
* ECB_TRACK http://wiki.emqbit.com/openembedded GPS/GRPS $500
* GPS embedded in shoes.
* http://www.bomarc.org/catalogsmenu.php Reverse engineers circuits

 

[Ryder_JHB]

Sigh...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Recovery Agent]

Dear Recoverer. Who are you??

 

[captainwifi]

It seems facial recognition of a driver behind a wheel is becoming a reality, we should see
commercial systems soon.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/y4164k783008rg15/
"...Our experimental results indicated that the algorithm is robust for driver authentication inside the vehicle and is also reasonably fast for real-time processing....."

As an added measure place a dome camera on the roof which will send snapshots to the base via an embedded pc/GPRS combination. Install an IR and/or Ultrasonic distance measurement(UDM) device that is used in robotics on the roof/door junction. The UDM can accurately determine the distance of a close range object up to a centimeter. Thus as people walk past the car say 1meter away, no images will be sent, only if somebody is within 50cm of the door will a snapshot be sent.

Now imagine if you can prove to a would be hijacker with a logo on the door pointing to a website that you really, really do have such a face authentication system and that his face will be sent via GPRS to a PC, he won't hijack the car to begin with in the first place - just like no Eskom and Telkom bakkies are hijacked anymore since the crooks are convinced they won't get away.


Lets recap:
1) Camera dome on roof that automatically turns in the direction of UDM trigger and sends snapshot to base.
2) Bonnet lock device.
3) Ultrasonic(UDM) and IR distance measurement sensors on roof and inside car.
4) GPRS/GPS system linked to embedded pc in car.
5) Embedded PC gets power from a DC-DC converter(http://tinyurl.com/6n3qa6)
6)GPS signals aren't always available such as in city centers. Measure the distance and speed a vehicle travels from the gearbox sensor. A Propeller [[RateGyro2]] and digital compass determines the turns a vehicle makes. Allows an approximate GPS position to be established from the moment of GPS signal loss.
7) On spectrum jamming attempt using http://www.phonejammer.com the panic button is activated on the Netstar radio transponder back-up system. Netstar gets SMS from your PC saying that it has lost GPRS contact and provides last GPS coordinates. Netstar sends out the marines.
8) Place a GunShotDetector device in your car - http://tinyurl.com/6gpwn4.
9) A Propeller RateGyro2 - http://tinyurl.com/5aojhv - measures the incline a vehicle makes and alerts the Gprs system. If a car is being towed it will make an incline. The "propeller" IMU uses Kalman filtering.
10)When Netstar gets the radio panic alert they will FTP all the images triggered by the UDM the dome camera sent to your PC via GPRS to theirs to see what happened right before your door was opened.
11) Infrared module detects wether a white, colored or black person is behind the wheel. http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/676368.html
12) Each chair has a weight sensor.
13) Vibration and ambient light detection circuit inside dashboard and bonnet to detect forced entry - http://www.ewcop.com
14) Ultra-violet detector detects actual flames - http://www.bomarc.org/catalogs/Catalog-upload/DETECTION.txt
13) Advertise all these measures - don't bluff, prove it - hijacker will go somewhere else.

Bomarc provides reverse engineered schematics of commercial electronic and security products.
http://www.bomarc.org/catalogs/Catalog-upload/DETECTION.txt

 

[Recovery Agent]

Dear Tracker Giant. I will recomend Global Telematics "Orchid", Mix Telematics for GPS based units and fleet management. But for safety and security it is always wise to have a beacon based unit installed aswell. Matrix, Netstar and E.T.S offers briliant beacon units. PS: E.T.S has a 100% Recovery rate.

 

[captainwifi]

Dear Tracker Giant. I will recomend Global Telematics "Orchid", Mix Telematics for GPS based units and fleet management. But for safety and security it is always wise to have a beacon based unit installed aswell. Matrix, Netstar and E.T.S offers briliant beacon units. PS: E.T.S has a 100% Recovery rate.

Do Matrix, Netstar and ETS have any gyro based system to detect wether a car is being towed and will they alert the owner in real-time on his cellphone ?

 

[captainwifi]

Privacy invasive anti-theft measure

There are platoons of unemployed Chinese and Indians with broadband internet connections. Install a SerialCameras - http://tinyurl.com/5bj5t5 - inside your car and a pan-tilt system on the roof. The pan-tilt will continually rotate 360 degrees taking pictures and storing it on the EmbeddedPc - http://tinyurl.com/6ow3sd . Every time the door opens or if the window is broken (detected with a vibration sensor) the camera inside takes a picture. The inside picture and outside picture are transmitted in real-time to China via a GpsAndGprs-http://tinyurl.com/5gsb2c - modem connection. This results in an extremely low bandwidth usage security measure.

The Chinese inspects the picture and decides wether a hijacking or theft has taken place or not. On an alert it will FTP the pictures to http://www.netstar.co.za for further action. The cameras will only trigger if the door is opened or the window is broken, thus providing one with a reasonable compromise between privacy , bandwidth costs and not getting killed.

The same sort of concept can be extended to perimeter protection using ZoneMinder - http://tinyurl.com/5a4hmg - and InfraRedLeds- http://tinyurl.com/67orcu. On an alert the snapshot is first sent to 10 different Indians on different PC's in India and they don't have to know about each other. Each manually inspects the image and if for example it was a cow or monkey on a farm triggering the alert they will indicate is as such. If just one person fails to reply or corroborate what the other 9 are indicating triggered an alert then the farmer will receive an MMS on his phone plus a missed call to wake him up. How would anybody get past such a system ?

Detecting a rock through a window
If a rock is through through vehicle window while driving at speed, the vibration sensor and odometer will detect this and send a real-time alert.

 

[captainwifi]

Lets extend the concept to every traffic robot in Gauteng. Install a 3G and GPRS camera system on each robot. A poor illiterate Indian in Punjab pushes buttons in real-time on a touch-sensitive screen:
"Five men loitering"
"condition red"
"accident"
"Car abandoned" etc.

The GPS and GPRS system in your vehicle pulls these real-time alerts from this pc in India only when you are in the approximate vicinity of such a specific traffic robot or turn-off such as Rigel/N1 junction in Pretoria.

You could for example set your thresholds to only give you a warning if there are people loitering about the robot which would be condition red. If the Indian designates condition "green" then you wouldn't receive a real-time alert as you approach a possible hijacking junction because condition green means there is nobody loafing about the robot. This would allow our society to return to normality as we hire thousands of Indians to be virtual security guards, there are no labour laws to panic about and the CCMA has no jurisdiction.

 

[Tweak]

interesting topic ^^

 

[Mr.Jax]

I work for C-track in the R&D dept.

I didn't read the whole thread, so excuse me if I missed something.

Some things I'd like to point out:
- GSM Jamming is real, I won't go into more detail than that
- tracking underground; it's actually possible for short to medium time periods. Again, I won't go into mroe details
- Someone said C-track sucks, uses old technology etc. You don't really know what you're talking about.
- The original question was asked where to get tracking units. Well, most tracking companies develop their own hardware and firmware, we do. I can tell you our hardware is seriously specialised; a LOT fo R&D goes into developing the hardware. If you are looking at a tracking unit, research a bit, there are a couple of 'generic' tracking units on the market. But be careful, we've had to integrate some of those products into our systems and the quality and reliability was shocking for some of those....be very careful what you use.

Any other quesations, ask away.

 

[captainwifi]

I work for C-track in the R&D dept.
Some things I'd like to point out:
- GSM Jamming is real, I won't go into more detail than that

Jamming is done at the local CPE handset cellphone itself, due to a software routine that listens for other handsets and cuts back its s signal on detecting interference. Because cell towers are Omni setups they are wide open for a DDOS attacks using small FPGA devices, by the time Vodacom's antenna van gets to the device (matchbox size) another one would start. I shouldn't really be posting this but somebody who knows enough could wreck the GSM spectrum because it is closed source, the code can't be changed because the handsets can't be changed. Over 1million lines of GSM code for a specific brand cellphone code have been leached unto the Internet. Will not go into further details, it is in nobodies interests that Vodcacoms networks be harmed.

Jamming a vodacom tower would be pretty much impossible to do for a hijacker , he can only really exploit the GSM loophole that all cellphone devices must adhere to and force an internal software routine to shut down communication. This is clearly unacceptable in a vehicle tracking situation. The solution would be to build our own illegal Cell devices but this again would enable DDOS attacks on the main towers if such custom devices are open to hacking by everybody. Only other thing I can think of is to use a FPGA packet radio system on 200Mhz to send out a distress signal with GPS coordinates if the GSM jamming attempt is detected. This stuff gets complicated and don't think the organized gangs are stupid.

 

[MidnightWizard]

GPS Antennas

Been reading this post with interest

My question -- not really part of tracking / anti-hijacking but I see mention has been made of advanced GPS antennas.

I have a GPS device that I use for GIS ( MGIS ) -- not a GARMIN but produced by a company that specialises in serious products for the surveying market.

The device I have is the entry level one and I have only been able to find basic non active patch type antennas for it. ( which do help to a certain degree )
with post processing differential correction I am able to obtain 1-3M accuracy.

I would like to try and see if any of these "advanced-custom" anti-hijack GPS antennas would work in my particular application --
better GPS signal = better GPS accuracy -- or so I hope.

Obviously dependent on the hardware of the GPS "base processing unit" -- but you can never have enough accuracy ( especially in marginal areas )

As an aside -- do any of these tracking GPS devices use both LI AND L2 ?????


MW

 

[Imminent]

Lets extend the concept to every traffic robot in Gauteng. Install a 3G and GPRS camera system on each robot. A poor illiterate Indian in Punjab pushes buttons in real-time on a touch-sensitive screen:
"Five men loitering"
"condition red"
"accident"
"Car abandoned" etc.

The GPS and GPRS system in your vehicle pulls these real-time alerts from this pc in India only when you are in the approximate vicinity of such a specific traffic robot or turn-off such as Rigel/N1 junction in Pretoria.

You could for example set your thresholds to only give you a warning if there are people loitering about the robot which would be condition red. If the Indian designates condition "green" then you wouldn't receive a real-time alert as you approach a possible hijacking junction because condition green means there is nobody loafing about the robot. This would allow our society to return to normality as we hire thousands of Indians to be virtual security guards, there are no labour laws to panic about and the CCMA has no jurisdiction.

Wow.. really nice plan! I mean REALLY

But our low tech vehicles would be unable to hook up to this new system..