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tracker

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kuliglig

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Just want to inquire if you have circuit for tracking device.
The one they use on animal to keep track of there location.
We have a vacation house, whenever no one home, the burglar keep on coming inside our house, loot whatever they find. including lamp shade.
This is my application in this circuit.somehow we might caught the robber. to this device. we believe he is in the vicinity.
Thanks.
 
most of the animal tracking devices can be separated into
- small ones - do not "track/record anything" - just transmit a low power signal that you can "pick up" using special antenna
- id tags (simple plastic markers with id number or rfid or similar) - do not record/transmit anything, just hold the "ID" of the animal so when you catch animal in south afrika in december and in japan in january (physically catch) you estimate the movement
- big ones that record gps movement data (very very rarely used)

I'm not sure any of these will work for you, maybe just the first one (send a signal on some selected freq and then you use standard goniometry to find it)...

IMHO, it would be much cheaper and much more easier to mount a CAMERA with some IR led's to light the thief... maybe PIR sensor to trigger the recording ....
 
You need to put transmitter that communicate with the gps, and transmit the gps location to your receiver .. it sounds simple.. but i don`t know exactly how you can do this.. probably someone already made commercial devices like this.. but you wants the challenge to make it by yourself... right?
 
intelligent animals :) ( or not intelligent alarm :D... just kidding )
What kind of animals are they :D?
Gps now is not an option :(.. it will be expensive for more than one animal..

What about some devices that will transmit some signal.. and your receiver will measure the signal`s amplitude... in theory, it will success.. i don`t know what will be in real world .. :D
 
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How about this?
**broken link removed**
 
You need to put transmitter that communicate with the gps, and transmit the gps location to your receiver .. it sounds simple.. but i don`t know exactly how you can do this.. probably someone already made commercial devices like this.. but you wants the challenge to make it by yourself... right?

Here is the commercial product of what you would like to make:
SparkFun Electronics - UberTracker


you can make GPS receiver + you can transmit the data, but in order to get more then 20-30m range the device will have to be "big"...

1. you need transmit antenna to get distance
2. you need power supply for the device, and note that cell phone battery will last few hours sending data in a low power device like cell phone (range few hundred meters max, optimized for low power consumption) and cell phone battery alone is too big to be hidden inside the "object you want to track"

It is a good concept for the car, where you have plenty of room to manipulate, but you cannot hide the device like this in a house lamp, let alone in something smaller... Even with low power modules, and limiting transmitter to transmit data only every 15-20 minutes, with a 100g device you will run out of power in few days.... and hiding a 100g device into "something that will be stolen .." .. good luck

If you really want to proceed, you have GPS receiver modules available, you have RF modules available, hook them both to a micro controller and device is done ...

GPS Modules:
SparkFun Electronics - 12 Channel Copernicus GPS Receiver
SparkFun Electronics - 12 Channel Micro-miniature GR-10 GPS Receiver
SparkFun Electronics - 20 Channel EM-406A SiRF III Receiver with Antenna
SparkFun Electronics - 50 Channel GS406 Helical GPS Receiver

RF Modules:
**broken link removed**

Now, you just need to figure out how to give them power :)
 
So what is wrong with gps? Did you look at the link I gave?
 
the gps part is the least of the problems, there are some small gps receivers with very small antennas (you can c in the links I posted from sparkfun) but the power consumption is imho the biggest problem .... as this is vacation house - you want device to transmit few months ..

the alarm system's can be overridden especially if they are "visible", hide the camera, don't tell anyone you installed it, not even your kids (especially not to your kids, as kids have tendencies to talk/brag about such things), put few of them inside the house ... ensure they have battery backed up power and wait :) .. you do not have to worry about the "size" in this case :) and it is much cheaper solution
 
thanks guys,
actually the house is in remote area.
so even if you have an alarm,
it will be useless cause no one can hear it. :(
 
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