GPS tracker recommendations

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What GPS tracker do you recommend since Garmin GTU10 is being discontinued in US by Jan 2015? For those with TK102 what are the dimensions and weight as I see different info on almost every site I check? Thanks!
 
After I lost a phantom 1 I decided I better buy some insurance, so I bought this tracker:
http://www.cedarpc.com/cgi-bin/commerce ... QgodgG0AAw
(I posted a link because I don't even know what the thing is called). This link is to a refurbished one but there are new ones out there. It requires a full sized sim card. I bought a t-mobile sim card for it. ($20 I think). I put $10 on the sim card as pre-paid. The cash doesn't expire for 3 months, so that's about $40 a year to be able to track it in case of emergency. The sim card has a regular phone number. I have it in my speed dial, and turn on the gps unit and call the number before each flight. It then texts me back a google map with a locator pin and I know I'm ready to go.

It is not at all perfect. The first unit I got from amazon was always on. It seemed like the power button did nothing. I exchanged it for another that has the same problem. I decided to live with it. Now I put in the battery before I fly it to power it on. Take it out when I'm done. The initial setup is fiddly because it requires texting phone numbers and codes to the device. That said, it's cheap and it works all right.
 
Ericos ..that is exactly the one I was asking about! How much does it weigh and what are the dimensions please? My P2 setup is already 1300g so I am very concerned about weight!
 
If the Garmin GTU10 is being discontinued, does that mean they will also discontinue the service for those who have one? I was thinking of picking one up on Ebay for just over $100 (includes a year of service). Seems like the perfect size for the Phantom.
 
With battery and sim card it weights 53 grams. Not sure about dimensions. I'll try to measure when I get home. I have a photo of how I mounted it in this post: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6558

I too was concerned about overall weight. ('im at 1400 grams) Thats what the post was about, but the gps is one of my lighter items. :)
 
It flies fine, not straining, but I try to keep my flights at around 10 min. When I'm not on a full battery is when I get into trouble. Over the weekend I was descending quickly at a little past the 10 min mark and It was not a graceful landing. Not enough power to overcome the descent. I definitely have to trim the fat somewhere. Still figuring out the battery voltage, what the iosd is telling me about the battery, etc. Still figuring it all out.
 
Bugatti,
Got home and measured the dimensions of the tracker I mentioned earlier. It's 4.75cm x 7cm x 1.5cm.
 
I have the Garmin GTU-10. However, be careful. I have seen some concerning behavior in my F550 when I mount the GTU-10. It seems to affect the compass or GPS and has some toilet bowl that goes away after removing the GTU-10 and recalibrating.

Because of this concern, I have not yet tried it in my Phantom 2 Vision or the Phantom 2. I'll report when I do.
 
Ok, I should of posted this up months ago, but here is my very small gps solution. It's a $7/month subscription through

http://www.pettracker.com/

The GPS itself is about 100 but you get 3 months free after that and you can cancel anytime and resume anytime. If you take apart the pet collar and extract the GPS and battery itself, its only the size of 4 quarters stacked on top of eachother.
 

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thongbong said:
The GPS itself is about 100 but you get 3 months free after that and you can cancel anytime and resume anytime. If you take apart the pet collar and extract the GPS and battery itself, its only the size of 4 quarters stacked on top of eachother.

Once you extract the GPS and the battery from the collar, are you still able to charge it with the included charging dock?
 
If anyone is looking for one of these 'pettrackers', I'll have one for sale shortly. I just bought it and it's on it's way, but I found out the other day that it doesn't work in Canada (doh!). Brand-new, unopened. PM me if interested.
 
lgeist said:
thongbong said:
The GPS itself is about 100 but you get 3 months free after that and you can cancel anytime and resume anytime. If you take apart the pet collar and extract the GPS and battery itself, its only the size of 4 quarters stacked on top of eachother.

Once you extract the GPS and the battery from the collar, are you still able to charge it with the included charging dock?

You'll have to do a little soldering, five points of contact for the charging port and 2 points of contact for the antenna. I soldered the contacts to a female 6s balancing cable and I soldered the male 6s balancing cable to the charger. Granted you'll need to have some experience soldering but well worth it to get it done or find someone to do it for you. The battery itself is only a 3.7v and if you take that off, the GPS unit is only the size of a quarter!
 
thongbong said:
You'll have to do a little soldering, five points of contact for the charging port and 2 points of contact for the antenna. I soldered the contacts to a female 6s balancing cable and I soldered the male 6s balancing cable to the charger. Granted you'll need to have some experience soldering but well worth it to get it done or find someone to do it for you. The battery itself is only a 3.7v and if you take that off, the GPS unit is only the size of a quarter!

Do you intend to use a DC/DC converter or power it off it's own battery? Even though it's more weight and more cumbersome, a separate battery that can't come loose like the main one would be preferable.

Also, what will you use for an antenna? Weight of the extracted unit?
 
Do you intend to use a DC/DC converter or power it off it's own battery? Even though it's more weight and more cumbersome, a separate battery that can't come loose like the main one would be preferable.

Also, what will you use for an antenna? Weight of the extracted unit?

The battery will definitely not come loose, guaranteed. The reason I wanted to keep a separate battery was that in the chance the Phantom crashed and the props kept spinning, you know the rest. The life of the GPS can last about 1 week away from the home charger, 1 month if its within range of the home charger. (you can look this up on their website)

For antenna, I believe it uses an imbedded chip antenna. Very very small! And it still works taking it out of the case! I dont have a scale, but without the battery I wager the GPS devices weighs no more than 15grams and total with the battery no more than 40 grams.
 
Mosleyh said:
If I was looking in the $100+ range, I'd seriously consider this one:

http://www.drone-mods.com/Drone-Mods-UA ... -DM005.htm

I've looked into phone number solutions for tracking, but in the end, the technology was never up to par.If it requires calling a number, I'm willing to wager that it's not using GPS for location tracking but GSM GPSR instead. These companies will advertise they have GPS but say you have to buy a sim card or call a phone number to ping a coordinate (which is not true GPS). GPS uses the US military array of satelites for pinpointing your location as GSM GPSR uses mobile phone antennas to triangulate your position. For an extra $2 a month, getting a personalized app with true GPS is way more efficient.
 

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