Originally Posted by
Juha
There's been quite a bit of discussion here about GPS based tracking devices. There are a couple of problems. GPS requires good visibility to satellites - you can usually stuff your GPS receiver inside a bag, but that's about it. Hide the antenna inside the frame, and you just lost all reception. Same if thieves toss your bike into a van, or in a storage room.
GPS is not a transmitter. The unit receives information from the satellites and calculates its position based on that. To send the position data back to you, some sort of transmission is required. Cell phone network is widely available and WiFi could be an option in urban environment. Cell based transmission offers better coverage, but would likely be more power hungry. With GPS that would be a problem, because GPS alone requires quite a bit of power already. The real problem with hiding a GPS + transmitter on a bike is, where to put the rather hefty pack of batteries so that they're relatively easy to recharge, replace and still not obvious?
--J
Hmm, apparently I didn't know that.
I thought it would just work.
I thought, there must be a simple system to track your bike, wether it's GPS, or another system. I'm a technology n00b.
I probably see these things too simple, as in:
"They can track a robot on Mars, but they can't find a lost airplane in our oceans."
They can find you aswel if you carry a mobile phone along with you. Someone I know was arrested in a crime scene investigation, because his mobile phone was found a few meters away from it, while he obviously wasn't there.