Anyone done it. I got a old iPhone 4. Thinking of hardwiring it, found this http://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/111765235886

Then hiding it somewhere and having it on lock with find my iPhone turned on

 

that will work mate

 

That's a pretty good idea to be fair mate. I've also got an old iPhone 4s in the draw at home but the blue tooth and wifi packed up on it, will the find my iPhone app still work?

 

Would you not have to have some sort of pay as you go SIM card in it for it to use the 3G to use the gps or does it not need data for the gps to work?

 

If it did work, make sure you disable the power button on the phone, you can make it so you have to put in a code to shut it down.

 

Not sure about data and gps. Will have to turn on phone and have a play about. If not surely there is a pay and go option

 

A guy had his mk2 focus rs nicked and the police got it back within an hour as his iphone was inside with the find my iphone app turned on.
Quicker than a tracker and no yearly subscription.

 

And I expect not jammable like a tracker

 

Seems a good idea, the only possible issue I can see is FMI uses cellular data as well as GPS to track the phone. So you need the phone to have constant 24/7 data connection, but naturally you probably won't want to put it on a monthly subscription contract just for that. I don't know if using a PAYG sim with a data allowance is a better idea, as 1) usually, if the sim isn't topped up it cancels, and 2) I don't know how much data FMI (or location services) will eat up, even if it's just in the background.

 

Let us know your findings mate, u
Could be on to something there!

 

Theres cheap trackers available on ebay/amazon etc,
Only £25 or so, they're dead easy to fit, only around the size of a iphone so easy enough to hide,
They take a sim card, but the cheapo vodaphone sims from poundland work perfect, top up with £15 credit and they give something like 300 txts plus the £15 worth of txts,
They track to the exact space the car is parked in, very accurate and very easy to use,
I've fitted around 15 to a fleet of hire vans i look after
And they are all still working perfect a year on
They also have extra functions like reading fuel levels and listening devices to go in the cab but i've never botherd with any of that,
They do have a built in immobiliser that can be activated by txt so you can shut down the engine at any time
They realy do work perfect and weve never had a problem with the unit or the tracking
i'd use 1 of them before an old iphone

 

Have you a link for the ones you use?

 

Cant link but ebay item number is 351334815502
Looks the exact item that we fit regularly
That 1's in china but plenty uk sellers as well so it arrives quick
We usualy get them from amazon but its the same item asthat 1 anyhow

 

Is thier any battery drain mate my 600 Clifford flattend it every few days car was started once a week when locked away just looked that's a bargain that

 

Obviously there must be some kinda drain however small but
Our vans usualy get used every day or 2, but on the occasional time that they sit for a week or 2 then they all start no prob without any probs

 

The way it work is you ring the phone number of the sim card in the unit,
It then txts you back with co-ordinants and a link for google maps,
We just click the link and it shows you on the map its location(right to the exact parking space its in)
Or just put the co-ordinants into google or whatever and it doesthe same thing,
Or if you txt stop( or something like that) to the number then it triggers the immobilisor,
Then txt it again to switch the immobilisor back again

 

Great mate thanks for the info be daft not to for that price

 

To be honest when we got the 1st 1 to try it, i didnt think it was gonna be any good,
But i've been converted to believing in them,
They are great value and do the job perfect

 

if and its a big if, someone has a modern GPS jammer that actually works on modern GPS units, then niether the iphone or a tracker would get a GPS fix. However on GSM you can get a rough location fix. Any GSM based tracker could, if programmed, use GSM positional data to back up a GPS failure.

Most of the easily available GPS jammers simply dont work on anything made in the last few years.

the civilian available frequencys are currently based on 2 seperate frequency groups with a third in development. the early civilian GPS used whats known as the L1 frequency band.

In simple terms the early civvy GPS network uses a message that contains 3 core bits of info, satellite time/date info, emphemeris data (wherethat satellite is in orbit NOW), and almanac data (rough positions of all satellites).On top of that is a coarse/aquisation code which in essence helps you calculate the "offset". Then the computer once its locked onto 3 satellites (2d fix) and 4 or more satellites (3d fix) it uses the data to calculate a position.

it is more complicated than that in reality as its all the signals are modulated onto a carrier wave so have to be demodulated and broken down, errors calculated etc etc etc before you even get to the point of calculating a position.... but google if you want to know more

now the good old US has upgraded the civvy GPS to use the L2 frequency which does not use a CA code but uses two data streams to do ranging and hence offsets. so works slightly different as well as being on a different frequency.

most new GPS recievers use a combination of both frequencys and methods to get better positional accuracy and faster fixs.

most newer GPS recievers have anti-jam capabilities and sufficient redundancy to get past most basic GPS jammers.

Almost all jammers are focused on the L1 frequency. Especially anything you and I (and more importantly criminal scum) can afford. Anything sub £200 (including the ebay jammers) arfe simple continous wave jammers operating on the L1 frequency.

most modern GPS units can filter out continous wave jamming on the L1 frequency unless the signal is very strong or directly in line of sight of satellites.

the better jammers that cost several hundreds use noise generation on the L1 frequency and hence are much more effective.

Even so their range is very limited due to the very low power of these types of devices. It doesnt help that most are based on cigarette power supplies so low down in car, and its 50/50 whether the aerial is high up or low down. It will be minimally effective on a high up GPS aerial. But they can be quite effective on low down GPS units such as cheap/older units or the magnetic undercar trackers (which is what they were designed for countering really).

all this wont effect L2 frequencies so the GPS will still get a fix in quick order due to stored C/A data and alamanac data. Such jammers would only slow down a fix on L2 frequency for a cold start on a GPS unit thats got no data whatsoever in it.

of course none of this effects the precise positioning systems or the p-code military systems.

GPS tracking and electronic warfare against both jammers and GPS is a very interesting subject... some of the latest kit uses either electronically or physically steerable phased array aerials that can remove all ground interference for advanced anti-jamming meaning youd need an aircraft with a jammer to stand a chance at all of jamming such modern devices. However thats a bit beyond the scope of car usage and generally reserved for top level civvy and mostly military usage.

oh and most people dont realise that one of the other uses of the GPS satellites is to detect nuclear missile launches and detonations as part of the US defence network. Thats a small part of how in the nuclear war films NORAD can see where all the missiles come from and detonate cool or what???