GPS tracker recommendations

thongbong said:
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.

The battery can come out depending on how the P2 crashes but yes if the props stay on you will have a very short time to find it so separate battery makes the most sense either way. I like it. This may be the best way so far.
 
ericos said:
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.


This is what I just purchased as well, although it was $100 here plus SIM. Pretty cheap insurance if it helps you recover a bird that so far has cost $2500 and counting.......... (That's $NZD folks)
 
I just purchased a new Garmin GTU-10 for $119.00 on eBay including one-year of service. Looking at the weight and specs, it seems almost identical to the Drone Mods UAV Tracker. Someone on a previous forum said that the GTU-10 had been discontinued, however Garmin is still selling them direct at $199.00 USD.

My only minor concern is that the device is 3" long and I'm already running short on vacant real estate on the underside of my P2 with all of the other gadgets already attached ;-)
 
Thing of going with the Pocketfinder ... http://www.pocketfinder.com/. Only downside I can see is $12.95/month fee ..which I do not mind so much. Just spoke with Garmin USA and was told as of 2015 they will no longer support GTU-10 and existing units will NOT work.
 
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.


You may be right, but from the best I can tell it is using gps. I think the sim card is required to send the map data to the phone. When I get the text back from the unit it either reports "GSM" in which case it is not terribly accurate. Most of the time however it reports "GPS" and it seems to be quite accurate. I can move it 10 yards and the map will update if I request a new map.
 
thongbong said:
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?

I bought one. I'm considering not taking it apart. It is in a waterproof case and the whole thing is quite light. A Velcro button should hold it easily as is. Am going to the high desert next month and will be using it there. A flyaway may mean I have to drop down into Mexico but I should be able to find it.
 
I've ordered the TK102B. Have good experience from the same brand ( got a 6600ma battery one for my motorbike...and that works well) , so it was a no-brainer for me.

Hopefully this one does the job as well. Apparently the battery lasts for 6d or so but since the unit will be on for only ~25mins at a time, I expect to recharge only once a month or so.

--Additionally, I'll be attaching it below the battery with some double-sided tape and velcro in between, I think that will hold it and also wont interfere with any of the GPS/Antennas at that position. Let me know if I m thinking about it completely wrong. thanks
 
I got a Fi-li-fi from quadinnovators at the weekend, took a few attempts to get working with different SIM's but now works flawlessly for me. Just need to decide on where to position it. If I put it on the top of the P2 would it interfere with the phantoms ability to get a gps lock? Anyway, great device with no monthly fee.

http://www.quadinnovators.co.uk


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