Tracker Found It?

[Happyflyer]

We have had many posts about our quads going bye bye. Also many on different trackers.
Has anyone had an experience of loss and finding because of and only of having a tracker?

 

[J Dot]

Hey happy,
I have not had a fly-a-way, but when I got my tracker
Tk102b, I had my wife drive somewhere and hide my
phantom with tracker installed. When she got home,
I called the tracker, got coordinance, went on google earth,
Then went hunting, I found in a local orange grove! Got me within
About 20 feet of so, I did have to search a bit, but did find it,
After 5-10 minutes! Pretty cool!

So I never fly without it! Go tk102b!

Take care, fly safe!

 

[ChuckMRN]

I changed the location of the TAGG Tracker on the plus after installing the GS data link. I finished up flying Sat at dusk and noticed it had fallen off. Went home to get some good lights and the wife. Looked on the web site on the PC at home and found the general location just under 1K meters out from my LZ. Drove to within 50' of it with the Jeep in the desert and found it in the dark in about 10 min. with the phone as back up. The wife was pretty impressed.

 

[Wedeliver]

areas near us, medicine lake, california.. there are no cell phone usage so i dont think a tracker would work where there is no phone coverage. am i correct with that thinking? also here where i live verizon works great but no at&t service here. does that effect how thee trackers work?

 

[ASabai]

Glad to hear trackers are working. I was thinking of getting one myself.

 

[EMCSQUAR]

I had one go down due to a battery failure and luckily I had Garmin GTU 10 mounted on it. Pulled up the Garmin app on Iphone(note on 3g) and literally walked right to it.

 

[Happyflyer]

That's what I am using now but checked mine a little differently though, I just gave it to my wife and told her to leave it on seat and go somewhere and hide and I would find her and just to stay still did . Bad thing though as I had forgot to put the dang battery in and have not found her yet NA, I put mine in my pocket for a few days and as was just driving around town and places I would pull over and call it. Worked great and it now lives on my PV2 :lol:

I have heard of many ways of getting rid of the wifie, but that is the best one yet! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Happyflyer]

areas near us, medicine lake, california.. there are no cell phone usage so i dont think a tracker would work where there is no phone coverage. am i correct with that thinking? also here where i live verizon works great but no at&t service here. does that effect how thee trackers work?

Well, I sure do not know everything about them, just a few. I would think you need the phone service to send the command "Tracker, tell me where you are." It would/should pick up the GPS, but without any way to pass it on to you, not much good. You mentioned Verizon works where you are. Something you must check is what type of service the tracker you are thinking about uses. One poster here in Canada had no GSM network so the tracker he had would not work. So there are several things to research before you purchase one.

 

[Steely]

I'm the poster that had the problem. It wasn't that we don't have a GSM network in Canada, it was that the best providers with the best coverage don't have a 2g network, which that particular device required. I've ordered the TK model, which I've heard works fine in Canada. I'll give everyone an update when it arrives.

 

[Happyflyer]

I'm the poster that had the problem. It wasn't that we don't have a GSM network in Canada, it was that the best providers with the best coverage don't have a 2g network, which that particular device required. I've ordered the TK model, which I've heard works fine in Canada. I'll give everyone an update when it arrives.

OK. I thought you had purchased the same one I have. It only uses GSM.
Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Happyflyer]

Re: Tracker Found It? Part 2

It has been a couple of months since asking this. Just wondered if anyone else has had a "good find" due to their tracker use?

 

[HoverMan]

It would be nice to have a comparison of all the trackers, like a spreadsheet with cost, weight, reviews, etc. But it sorta appears the TK102B is the general consensus.

 

[rrmccabe]

Re: Tracker Found It? Part 2

It has been a couple of months since asking this. Just wondered if anyone else has had a "good find" due to their tracker use?

Yes. Last month I was out on a distance run and got caught in some wind and depleted battery and the Phantom auto-landed. In retrospect I did a few things wrong (including pushing it to hard into the wind going out), trying ATTI coming back in strong winds and following a the wrong tree line.

Anyway, Marco Polo tracker installed. Phantom was about 1/8 mile from home. Marco Polo took me right to it. Landed in someones front yard. No damage.

 

[Happyflyer]

That is good to read, rrmccabe. If you did not have that tracker on your unit, do you think you would have found it?

 

[rrmccabe]

I think so in this particular case.

I checked later and the Find my Phantom (in the app) was pretty close. Also the fact it was in someones front yard made it visible from our car.

Since the Find my Phantom relies on last known location transmitted via WIFI it really isn't accurate if you lose FPV and are still moving. In my case I was in auto-land mode so it went straight down from last known location.

I have been making some long runs in the last week exceeding 9500' and I would not consider doing that without a tracker that I trust.

I really like the fact the Marco Polo is durable, long lasting battery that you can track for days and it doesn't rely on Phantom power.