Trackers

[Harry Bloomfield]

I've just been watching a TV program, about how the track down stolen vehicles fitted with trackers. They seem to be suggesting, that the tracker signal, includes the GPS location data, but they seem to struggle in that the GPS data lacks accuracy, once they get near, and they then have to resort to radio direction finding - which seems odd.

GPS data, in normally accurate to a 10m radius, so why would they struggle to find a vehicle, within a 10m radius? Even better, if a series of GPS locations of a stationary vehicle is averaged, the accuracy can be as close as 1m.

 

[mattylad]

Most vehicles they are tracking are usually within a building and so out of range to the GPS.
Thus they use DF tracking.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Most vehicles they are tracking are usually within a building and so out of range to the GPS.

Generally, they would have perfect GPS reception, right up to the time the satellites were lost, so why are the trackers not able to simply repeat that last good fix? Only being inside a metal roofed building, would stop the GPS reception, but in today's episode, they were struggling to work out where a stolen caravan was, because it was surrounded by low buildings, but open to the sky.

 

[robinbanks]

Stick an apple AirTag in it as a secondary

 

[pcaouolte]

Stick an apple AirTag in it as a secondary

That doesn't work very well as the thief with either an Android or iPhone will be notified that the tag is moving with them and the tag will start beeping so that they can easily find it.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Some trackers do not give a live update, maybe every 5 mins or once every 24hrs or whatever.

 

[IT Minion]

Generally, they would have perfect GPS reception, right up to the time the satellites were lost, so why are the trackers not able to simply repeat that last good fix? Only being inside a metal roofed building, would stop the GPS reception, but in today's episode, they were struggling to work out where a stolen caravan was, because it was surrounded by low buildings, but open to the sky.

They don't have a perfect location, they've got a precise location that points to a specific spot. That spot may or may not be where the vehicle is. Precision Vs accuracy.

 

[robinbanks]

That doesn't work very well as the thief with either an Android or iPhone will be notified that the tag is moving with them and the tag will start beeping so that they can easily find it.

My bad; I should have said Tile (my preferred finder, but more likely to elicit a "a what?" response).
Assumed AirTags worked the same, but I see that aspect of their relevant behaviors is very different

 

[petebuiltit]

Android tiles seem quite good. They don't beep and give their location away. I think there's a setting to prevent that.