Cheap GPS tracking device TK-102 real time tracking setup

Joined
Jun 7, 2016
Messages
244
Reaction score
93
Location
Birmingham UK
After spending an hour or two pulling my hair out setting this up, i thought id post a little tutorial in case it can help any others inthe future. Im from the UK and im using the Giffgaff cellular network, but the info below can be applied to other networks.

The TK-102 is a little GPS tracking device you can attach to your drone so you have a record of its location independently of its own inbuilt locating service. This can help greatly in finding your device should it vanish off into the sunset. Not bad for £12 ($15) (Also you if you put an sd card in the tracker, it will log its location to that if the network is down, and when its re established it will send all the data to the server.)

Most peoples method of using these devices is by calling or texting them and waiting for a response with the devices location. However, i didn't want to do it this way. I wanted it to log its location constantly and display the info on a map for me. To do this you use 2G GPRS mobile data to send location information from the device instead of SMS.

You can skip this paragraph if you like
At first I could not get GPRS to work, however it wasn't my network providers server at fault it was the protocol. The tracker was actually using the TK103 protocol! You have to do 2 things to get it working.

On the service you are trying to use select the TK103 protocol/device option and select the port that service it uses for the TK103 protocol.

Secondly, unlike other devices this clone device doesn't use its imei as its identifier, it uses the last 11 digits of its imei with an additional 0 at the beginning. EG: your imei:352887072630899 use identifier: 087072630899


Setting up the server

I run my own server with open source software traccar but there are free easy to setup services. ill cover gps-trace.com in this example, there maybe better options.

First create an account at gps-trace.com

Add your tracking device by first making sure you select the 'old gps service' when you initially add it, as i couldn't see tk103 listed on the new style map, you can use the new map once your device is added.
  • Name: myphantom
  • device type: Xexun TK-103 (NOT 102 see above)
  • Unique ID: 087072630899 (Your tracker imei in the format mention see above)
  • phone number: +447516139300 (mobile number of your tracker)

Setting up the device

To set it up on the giffaff network do the following (if using other networks is must be able to use GPRS, some UK networks like three can no longer use it.)
  • Get a free giffgaff sim, activate it by topping up £10.
  • (i switched voicemail off, not sure if you need to)
  • whack the sim into the device
Send the follow commands via sms to you device one by one as follows and await an sms confirmation for each command.

begin123456 (only ever do this once, this resets all settings)
apn123456 giffgaff.com giffgaff password (Service providers APN, user is giffgaff password is password)
adminip123456 193.193.165.166 20222 (gps-trace's current server details for recieved data from this device)
gprs123456 (changed mode to data instead of sms location)
t030s***n123456 (reports its location every 30s indefinately)

Now every time you switch it on it will begin logging to your server automatically ever 30 seconds. No more sms messages needed.


Optional

If you fancy running you own server or even a community server everyone can use, checkout traccar.com its free, open source and has its own app for ios and android. Here are the commands to set that up. You will need to forward ports etc etc if you use a home PC as a server.

begin123456 (only ever do this once this resets all settings)
apn123456 giffgaff.com giffgaff password (user is giffgaff password is password)
adminip123456 serverip 5002 (the server details you are sending the location info to)
gprs123456 (changed mode to data instead of sms location)
t030s***n123456 (reports its location every 30s indefinately)

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
trackimo is so much easier
 
  • Like
Reactions: timmer
trackimo is so much easier
True, but a hell of a lot more expensive :D Its not so bad, 5 text messages and signing up to a website. The rambling at the start was for the people who come from google searches and have had trouble setting one up on GPRS in the past.
 
trackimo has a new 3g model
 
An old but very useful thread, thanks for this.
I pulled my hair off trying to setup clone tk102 to work with orange.gps-trace.com and never succeeded. I ended up following your path with traccar.
Worked like a charm.

I host the server for FREE in Microsoft Azure. MSDN Platforms subscription (free to apply) get me $100 credit and the smallest server only cost $80 per month. I stop the server when not using so actual cost might be well below that number.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scoot88 and dan84uk
Thank you dan84uk for your wonderful, extremely helpful post at the very top on how to setup the unit as a live tracker. I have tried this and failed miserably and so left it alone and did not dig deeper to getting it to function as a live tracker.
Huge thanks to you, and to the others, for the helpful information as well, it took me less than 10 minutes to setup and it works very well.
I went was not a member in here and just to thank you and the others in here, I registered just to do this, so thank you dan84uk and the others in here for all the help and info, well done !
 
If you fancy running you own server or even a community server everyone can use, checkout traccar.com its free, open source and has its own app for ios and android. Here are the commands to set that up. You will need to forward ports etc etc if you use a home PC as a server.

begin123456 (only ever do this once this resets all settings)
apn123456 giffgaff.com giffgaff password (user is giffgaff password is password)
adminip123456 serverip 5002 (the server details you are sending the location info to)
gprs123456 (changed mode to data instead of sms location)
t030s***n123456 (reports its location every 30s indefinately)

Thank you dan84uk...I have a question, when you're running with your own server (traccar s/w), what identifier/imei you use? was it a complete imei or just 0+11 digits? thanks.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,936
Latest member
hirehackers