Tracker

[Ray T]

http://www.tracker.co.uk/TRACKER/

 

People happily fit one of these or a similar system to cars, (we have one on one ours) so why not boats? many cost much more than your average car.

 

No vested interest B T W.

Edited November 7, 2011 by Ray T

[ditchcrawler]

http://www.tracker.co.uk/TRACKER/

 

People happily fit one of these or a similar system to cars, (we have one on one ours) so why not boats? many cost much more than your average car

There was a hire boat with one fitted.

[Midnight Rider]

http://www.tracker.co.uk/TRACKER/

 

People happily fit one of these or a similar system to cars, (we have one on one ours) so why not boats? many cost much more than your average car.

 

No vested interest B T W.

But how much to fit one?

 

There are not many canal boats stolen, but lots broken into, goods stolen, set alight etc.

 

Perhaps this is a better area to address?

[Chalky]

Have a look at the power that they draw. Most of them are fairly horrendous and rely on the car being used frequently to keep the battery topped up. If a boat is in a marina on a land line than this is not a problem - but then you've got people around who will spot something going on. If a boat is by the towpath than it's possibly moor vulnerable. There it doesn't have a mains hook up, just something drawing lots of power and flattening it's starter battery.

 

Most of these devices use a standard GPS engine and these draw 50 - 80ma continuously. The average domestic battery bank would only last a couple of weeks before the batteries were severely depleted, unless you had a solar panel.

[Rebotco]

Trailer boats maybe - but with a 40ft+ narrowboat, your average thief isn't going to get far at 3mph and would probably be knackered at the first lock or swing bridge. Not a good career move I would suggest!

[Albion]

Have a look at the power that they draw. Most of them are fairly horrendous and rely on the car being used frequently to keep the battery topped up. If a boat is in a marina on a land line than this is not a problem - but then you've got people around who will spot something going on. If a boat is by the towpath than it's possibly moor vulnerable. There it doesn't have a mains hook up, just something drawing lots of power and flattening it's starter battery.

 

Most of these devices use a standard GPS engine and these draw 50 - 80ma continuously. The average domestic battery bank would only last a couple of weeks before the batteries were severely depleted, unless you had a solar panel.

 

I agree with this entirely. I had one fitted to my motorhome and the batteries flatten at an alarming rate. When you need it most, when the boat is unattended for longish periods, will be when you flatten and ruin your batteries by deep discharge and eventual sulphation. Not too bad if you're on a permanent landline, but in that case you're probably in a marina where there are people around reasonably often and the risk is reduced anyway. As a result of my experience I now never use the tracker on the mh which rather negates the point of having it. It is absolutely true to say that an apparently small discharge 24 x 7 will soon add up to a badly discharged battery bank.

Roger

[CV32]

I have a tracker on a car i have garaged (high days and holidays minus most weekends now i have a boat!) got a call a few weeks back, panic when the lovely lady from tracker called me.... She asked was i driving the vehicle, answer no. Turned out to be low voltage as i had forgotten to plug in the battery charger/conditioner. .. The draw on the battery was the tracker according to the garage. My conclusion is they work if you can afford the load of the unit.

[Bob18]

They certainly work on cars, but do draw a fair bit of power.

 

It isn't the GPS unit that sucks the power, its the GSM phone that does the damage. The phone contacts its base at regular intervals, and because the antenna is normally hidden inside a metal box (aka "car") the phone ramps the power up until contact is made These calls, "heartbeats" are made at about 1 minute intervals and are "data only" calls. If too many of these "heartbeat" calls are missed then the base will call you to tell you there's a problem, some services will tell you that the battery is getting flat, others will say they can't see the tracked object.

[Ray T]

It was just a thought.

 

Oh well "Back to the drawing board Mr. Sprott".

[The Bagdad Boatman (waits)]

There is a similar system using mobile phone technology which phones you if the boat is broken into. One I looked at cost about £100, but our mooring is poor for mobile reception. When you hear of boats on a marina being broken into I wonder why more people don't have a support service based round this method.

[Phoenix_V]

This one is free

 

My link

[Ray T]

This one is free

 

My link

 

 

Suckered, Hmmmm!

[JonL]

Somewhat but I've been wanting to raise this question for a while.

 

With current price of raw materials at an all time high and lots of businesses suffering thefts ( apparantly the rail network suffers on average 4 cable thefts a day) what are the changes of narrow boats going missing for the value of steel in them ?

Does anyone know the scrap value on say a 50ft narrow boat? Obviously some serious logistical issues with nicking and scraping a narrow boat, however if the returns are high enough, who knows !

[The Bagdad Boatman (waits)]

batteries wiring looms, One oat at Keighley had his engine ad gearbox stolen when the thieves pulled the boat under a bridge and lifted the engine out then sold it in Manchester. another had a new stove stolen at Bank Newton. Organised thieves targeting boats.

[pearley]

As an approved Tracker installer, before I retired, I should point out that 'Tracker' is a brand name rather like Hoover is. There are plenty of tracking devices on the market, not all of them, are 'Tracker' but most people will call all of them trackers.

 

The original Tracker, and the cheapest does not use GPS or GSM. It uses a form of VHF triangulation to track the vehicle. It lies dormant until a signal is sent from the Tracker control centre wakes it up and it starts transmitting. This signal is then received, hopefully, by Tracker receivers and those Tracker equipped Police vehicles (thats the ones with an array of 4 antenna arranged in a square on the roof) The next one in the range uses a movement sensor to alert Tracker that the vehicle is on the move. As has been said, all Trackers wiiol alert if the battery voltage drops below a predetermined level. Other models do use GPS & GSM however.

 

There is a new version designed for plant & equipment which has a battery with a 5 year life which, presumably, can be mounted without connection to the vehicle power source.

 

Regards

Pete