Diy Tracker

[JOHN_5078847]

Just thought I would share this idea although Im sure most of you already know.

You can get a service on the Net that tracks mobile phones- I use www.followme.co.uk there are others.

Hide a pay as you go mobile wired up to your 12v in your caravan and then you are able to track your caravan. Works for me fine up to 100m if your in range of quite a few satelites.

Costs are about 50p per track no monthly fee just buy credits.

 

[Guest]

Why not do the job properly

http://www.snooper.co.uk/snooper-gps-tracker.htm
Cost is sbout 10p per track and accurate to within less than 3metres.

 

[JOHN_5078847]

Why not do the job properly

http://www.snooper.co.uk/snooper-gps-tracker.htm
Cost is sbout 10p per track and accurate to within less than 3metres.

Yes I have seen these -But there is the initial

 

[Guest]

Yes I have seen these -But there is the initial

 

[Steve L]

I'm a "private" person and after looking at the two websites mentioned here, Im concerned at just how invasive these sites can be if they become publicly known.

While I can agree that any traker on a valuable piece of equipment is a good thing in this age of light fingered sculduggery. One does have to reflect on just how easy this type of tracking can invade a persons right to privacey.

There are tens of thousands of un registered pay as you go mobiles out there owned by people who don't want to be pestered by cold callers who have obtained the contact details from the sale of the info by the phone company. My phone is in this catagory, as I want personal privacey.

A firm I worked for had trackers in their vans and the boss was watching every move. I know for fact, as he rang me one day to ask why I had stopped at a certain location to wait 18 mins for a work collegue who had overslept! We were doing the boss afavor starting at 5am so why was he tarcking us. We weren't driving a bullion van, but a regular builders van.

So i reckon it is "food for thought" for those of us who want to be private and not harrassed every day by "big brother"!!

Steve L.

 

[Guest]

You've lost me matey ! ! !

What the heck has a tracker on your personal goods got to do with big brother and invading a persons privacy.

With phone tracking you can't track a phone wiithout the owner agrreing.

If a boss is paying you he is entitled to know where you are surely. He's not paying for you to call at the cafe on the way to a job or do back door deals and go to the local builder merchants using his van.

May be you didn't come across as that trustworthy Steve ;-0

 

[DeliDave]

if you dont pay for tracking you dont get it so its hardly Big Brother,although I have cancelled the tracker on my van as I dont want to know where it is if it does get stolen rather not get it back tbh

 

[Lutz]

I would fully understand your concern, Steve, if the boss did not tell you beforehand that the vehicle had a tracker fitted. That is certainly an invasion of privacy in the same category as wiretapping. However, if you were informed, this would have amounted to a mutual agreement.

 

[Steve L]

Lutz has hit the point. My boss had told us that the vans had trackers for insurance purposes as they carried more than 10K of kit, but not that he would then use the system to track the employee's.

As for my personal trustworthyness Euro. I have in the past had to sign the official secrets act and also neumerous private agreements with motor manufacturers as I used to test drive cars that were being developed and often only came out on the market several years later. So I think that my personal trustwothynes is way beyond reproach.

What worries me is invassion of privacey and the ease that this type of tracking can be accessed by individuals.

Going back a few years I had an engineering business using predoninently Brass as its production medium. Today Brass is worth about

 

[Lutz]

If the boss has informed his employees that company vehicles are fitted with a tracker to prevent their contents from being stolen, it would be a bit naive not to assume that the tracker could also be used for other purposes, such as checking on the whereabouts of his employees. How would you be able to differentiate the intent anyway or prove that the boss was not actually trying to monitor his employees?

 

[xtrailman]

steve

I think you have woke up this morning and decided to stir things up, otherwise why would you go to such lengths to write such tripe?

I hope you are not tracing my broadband signal!

 

[seth1]

Must say John,cracking idea,for me if it saved my caravan brillant.Naturally any company that equips vehicles with trackers is going to watch unautharised stops,whats happening during the day,etc it is human nature,call it protecting the business and after all the vehicles belong to the company who are entitled to do what they like with them.Whats the problem?

 

[Guest]

What the heck has signing the OSA got to do with trackers. Civil servants and military personel sign the OSA, if you telling us that it stopped them from sciving, fiddling or the odd "homer" job you are having a laugh Steve.

Whatever the automotive secrets you were privvy too again has nothing to do with employers getting the maximum bang for buck out of you.

Steve you've simplified the phone tracking process set-up, just scaremongering.

The original post was about being able to track your personal goods, that has nothing to do with infinging personal liberties.

Have to say Steve, you sound as though you have something to hide if you are so worried !

 

[Lutz]

By the same vein, Steve, one would have to put a notice on a caravan fitted with a tracker that it is protected as such or else you would be invading the privacy of the person stealing it. (No joke! People have actually been convicted for this very reason of not warning the thief)

 

[Guest]

ps

If you have a mobile phone it is tracked all the time that it is on.

The law can access phone company records and see where you have been. If you are in an auto crash and there is any reason to believe mobile phone use was a factor. The phone can be tracked to being at the accident scene and in or out of use at the time of the accident.

 

[Steve L]

No Euro, I don't have anything to hide except my privacey.

The whole point I was getting at was that inappropriate use of these sysytems is nothing short of invasion of privacey.

I am all for trakers being used as security devices and being proffessionally managed.

As for getting the maximum bang for the buck spent on me, I can errect and completely finish a 27'000 sq ft poultry shed in just five weeks and there are only six of us in our team. That is two weeks shorter than the other teams in the firm where I contract for. Being self employed demands that I have the main driver to get the job done and that is a fixed price on the job and having to pay my team by the hour which means that every hour I'm behind schedule cost's me

 

[Guest]

On this CARAVAN forum JOHN posted about tracking a caravan or personal belongings.

I still can't see why John's or my post has anything to do with tracking people whatever your pet worry is Steve!

Turnover means nothing! Profit is what counts. That's how I retired seven years ago and still have a while until I'm sixty.

 

[Damian]

OK, take a rest both of you.

Yet again an topic is being hijacked and turned into a war of words over nothing.

The current parrying between Euro and Steve has absolutely nothing to do with the OP and further irrelevant posts will be removed.

No one cares how much anyone turns over per annum, or what they do for that, nor in what wonderful qualifications a poster may , or may not, have.

It is , as Euro points out, a Caravan forum, not a platform for whining about th erights or wrongs of an owner watching where his vehicles are at any time by use of a tracker.

 

[Guest]

Sorry Damian.

Real issue is that you can fit a phone or dedicated GPS tracker yourself to vauable belongings without the need for expensive fitting service and supplier contracts.

Snooper and GPS manufacturers offer trackers that lend themselves to caravan protection.

 

[Steve L]

Ok Damian, I take your point and you won't see me on this post again.

But ask yourself this. If someone got hold of your mobile phone number and started to follow your moves, would you be worried. All it takes on the two sites indicated on this thread is to pose as a private investigator and pay a registration fee and item search to be able to do just that.

TTFN

Steve L.

 

[ScouseIan]

Steve. You buy a pay as you go mobile and leave it in your caravan. Nobody can track 'you', only the caravan, which surely is no big deal. And why oh why would someone go to this trouble. First of all lets assume you know this person, they'd just ring you. Nobody would would even know about this other mobile stashed in your van. I can't think of any scenario where this would be a problem.

This discussion about privacy is a storm in a teacup and I'm glad its been stopped.

I am still interested in how one would install this DIY tracker. First of all I would have to buy a 12v charger for the phone, then where would I install it where nobody would think to look?

Ian

 

[Zafiral]

Ian, as a minor point, for this system to work you would have to bypass the van's electric system and any gains on the insurance would possible be negated by stating that you have bypassed the battery isolation systems.

 

[Stephen_374341239]

Irrelevant and provocative post removed

 

[Thorpedo]

I like the idea of simple and cheap tracking.

Seem to me a number of problems id'd above such as secreating it somewhere Bill the Burgler won't look,

providing a power supply which is not connected to the battery,

Is the Mobile network accurate enough ( maybe).

But I have to agree with Deli Dave, while I'm still paying insurance I'm not sure I want my van back once it's been nicked and damaged. It would never be the same. If the perpetrators were nicked, is there also a possibility that they may search you out in future for vengance. Who slashed my types? scratched my car? broke into my house.

I'm afraid to say, if they've nicked it they can keep it.

 

[JohnnyV]

I like the idea of simple and cheap tracking.

Seem to me a number of problems id'd above such as secreating it somewhere Bill the Burgler won't look,

providing a power supply which is not connected to the battery,

Is the Mobile network accurate enough ( maybe).

But I have to agree with Deli Dave, while I'm still paying insurance I'm not sure I want my van back once it's been nicked and damaged. It would never be the same. If the perpetrators were nicked, is there also a possibility that they may search you out in future for vengance. Who slashed my types? scratched my car? broke into my house.

I'm afraid to say, if they've nicked it they can keep it.

I think I agree with Thorpedo & Deli Dave in as much that if my van was stolen would I want it back - if it was damaged or missing for a while then No would be the answer.

Maybe I am naive but I thought the whole point of the tracker is that it can be recovered very quickly - probably within a space of hours?

Mine is supposed to activate on the van bieng interefered with in any of three ways, or via me notifying the tracker company that it has been stolen.

One other deciding factor is the Discount on my insurance premium !

Cheers

Jon