Bongo Fury

Following on from the sad tale of the theft of Trekie's Bongo, I thought I would tell you about my experience with the Van Comfort tracker, which can be obtained from http://www.vancomfort.co.uk/trackers.html

Since I installed it, it has worked fine, the only downside being that it works on the Vodaphone network only (I had to buy a cheap pay-as-you-go phone) and it was a little bit fiddly to install (I got a mate to do it).

Once installed, it draws a miniscule current from the battery (leisure battery in my case) of about 0.1a. You also have to remember to remove the sim card and make a call or send a text every month or so in case Vodaphone shut down the line.

Tracking itself is online via http://www.followus.co.uk/. Once you are signed up, you can also track the whereabouts of any mobile phone (with owner's permission). Tracking costs 30p a go.

All round, I am very happy with the system.

How about just buying a cheap (£10 Asda, Orange + £10 top-up) phone, wiring in a 12v phone charger (£5 car boot) permanently, and hiding the phone under the dash.

Should do the same job and you can ring it (free) every so often to check it's working.

Thanks for starting this thread Ian - I know virtually nothign about these systems (what do they cost) but they sound VERY interesting as an anti theft device. I hope there'll be lots of input from others

PS - plus, assuming scrotes can read, a sticker that explains the vehicle contains a concealed tracking device (mind you, that might rouse them to an act of vandalism unless the sticker goes on to say.........and is monitored by concealed CCTV..........and DNA fingerprinting in case you are hooded)

Just to reply to myself. Maybe no sticker, for reasons above. It must also be simple to have a system that - should the vehicle move out of range of a radio communication with a base station - sets an alarm off in the base station. That alerts you at once to call the police and say you can help by providing tracking data. Also need to cost i na roof sticker a la Muzo so their helicopter can be briefed on what to spot from the air. Boy it would be good to see the look on the scrotes faces when they were on the receiving end of THAT lot.

Hmm, I've got an old Nokia and car charger kicking about somewhere - if I get a minute I'll connect it up and see what sort of current it draws. That's the only drawback I can think of with your idea BFB - maybe it will tend to flatten the battery over an extended period.... We'll see.....

Dave

boyfrombrasil wrote:How about just buying a cheap (£10 Asda, Orange + £10 top-up) phone, wiring in a 12v phone charger (£5 car boot) permanently, and hiding the phone under the dash.

Should do the same job and you can ring it (free) every so often to check it's working.

How does that help tracking a stolen vehicle?

francophile1947 wrote: How does that help tracking a stolen vehicle?

Check out the second website in Ian's first post in this thread.

Dave

boyfrombrasil wrote:
How about just buying a cheap (£10 Asda, Orange + £10 top-up) phone, wiring in a 12v phone charger (£5 car boot) permanently, and hiding the phone under the dash.

Should do the same job and you can ring it (free) every so often to check it's working.


How does that help tracking a stolen vehicle?

Well when you find your vehicle is missing, you ring the mobile. When some little scrote answers you kindly ask him to return it or you will get jolly cross with him.

thats interesting stuff

dp bradford wrote:

francophile1947 wrote: How does that help tracking a stolen vehicle?

Check out the second website in Ian's first post in this thread.

Dave

Oops!!

If boyfrombrasil's setup was powered only when ignition is on, bongo battery would not run down, and phone battery would last a week + in between charges - plenty of time for tracking.