Rocky Mountain Tracking

By Greg Bartlett

Every year, forest fires destroy thousands of acres of timber and threaten many homes along the way. Most emergencies call for the set up of a central command center to take care of sending equipment and manpower where it is needed most. In the past, this has not always been an easy task because in an emergency, there is a lot of confusion and sometimes assets can become lost in the shuffle, so to speak. GPS vehicle tracking makes the task of routing equipment and crews to the areas that need them most a lot easier for incident commanders who are in charge of making these decisions.

Many emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks and ambulances, have GPS vehicle tracking devices installed in them. These devices transmit information in real time over a wireless network to a monitoring station that can make the information about the location, direction and speed of travel, and other features of these vehicles available to incident commanders via any computer with an active internet connection.

Being able to pinpoint the location of vehicles and the crews that man them can prove to be of paramount importance in the case of a large scale emergency, such as a forest fire. Incident commanders can compile data about the movement of the fire, wind speed and direction, and other pertinent information, and look at where they have assets located on a map of the area. Crews can be sent to areas where they will be needed soonest and others that may be in danger in just a few minutes can be pulled back before the danger develops.

Medical assistance in the form of ambulances can be staged at different locations around the perimeter and sent to wherever needed at a moment’s notice with the commanders of the situation being able to dispatch the unit closest to where the need is located.

GPS technology has many uses in business and in the private sector. Vehicle tracking by GPS technology has proven invaluable as a means of reducing thefts and increasing recoveries of stolen vehicles. It has also proven useful for tracking the movements of spouses and teens. Today, GPS technology in the form of a vehicle tracking device is an invaluable asset to the command crew dealing with large scale emergencies and natural disasters. The ability to track the movements and locations of emergency vehicles makes it possible for command staff to focus on getting resources to where they are needed quickly and efficiently.

By Greg Bartlett

In some areas of the U.S. a great deal of natural gas exploration is taking place. One of the tricks used to locate unproven gas reserves is a seismological examination of what is below the surface of the earth. These tests are performed using very sensitive seismological equipment and many miles of sensor laden cables that connect to several computer terminals in a network to compare the readings obtained on one computer to those on another to for a sort of 3D picture. These cables and computer terminal boxes must be moved from one location to another quickly and efficiently.

Many of the areas where crews are working to lay out these sensor cables and set these computer terminals are very rural, overgrown, and impossible to reach in a ground vehicle. Most of this equipment is far too heavy to lug in by hand and try to walk in these areas of heavy growth. For this reason, helicopters are used on an almost daily basis to pick up bags of cables and terminals from one location and fly them to another to be dropped to a crew waiting on the ground.

How do the pilots know where to locate these ground crews, especially if working in thickly grown forest areas? The answer is simple. The ground crews are equipped with GPS locators that transmit a signal picked up by a computer on board the helicopter that gives the pilot the coordinates for the next drop. One man is on site at the next pick up area with a similar device to direct the pilot to the location for the next bag pick up. This is a very time saving method of moving this equipment from one location to another. It makes it possible for pilots to fly by the most direct routes between points without having to search for markers or people to signal them where to go.

When one considers the cost of aviation fuel and a pilot’s salary, it makes perfect sense to use every advantage available to maximize the benefit of having the helicopter to pick up, transport, and drop off sensitive and bulky equipment. GPS tracking allows the pilot to know exactly where he/she is going from each pick up or drop off point to the next so that there is no flying in circles looking for the ground crews.

By Greg Bartlett

Earthquakes. Destructive, frightening and unpredictable. In some parts of the world earthquakes occur far too frequently and have destructive and devastating consequences to buildings and lives. Traditional methods of trying to predict them have involved digging trenches along the fault lines themselves and analyzing past earthquake signals and lines to try to discover how fast the Earth’s plates move in relation to each other and trying to extrapolate this data to predict the next earthquakes.

Can a satellite tracking device be used to track the actual Earth itself? Well, the way GPS actually works lends itself quite easily to this. Satellites in orbit around the planet have equipment which routinely sends signals down to receivers below. These satellites are positioned at equidistant locations around the Earth, but send signals at exactly the same time, every five seconds. Something receiving these signals would receive them at different times. By extrapolating this data it is possible to construct an algorithm which can allow the receiving system to discover its exact position on Earth with pin-point accuracy.

At these earthquake fault lines, GPS receivers are embedded into the shifting geological plates. They are actually firmly positioned into the bedrock itself. The plate shift is not so important as how quickly the plates are shifting away from each other. Scientists can measure the exact distance moved by working out the end position of each receiving station in relation to the original position.

Now scientists are able to measure this shift to within a millimeter. Several of these measurements taken over time can allow the pattern of seismic shift to be determined which eventually leads to an earthquake. It has been found that the distance moved is related to the magnitude of the earthquake itself. This research is in its early stages still, but it has the potential to save hundreds of lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.

The uses of GPS satellite tracking are extraordinary and seemingly unlimited. Using this technology the movements of the Earth itself can be tracked and in California there is now a network of two hundred and fifty GPS stations. These are now poised to give as early a warning as possible about any earthquakes likely to occur in the region.

By Jackie Gately

Use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) is becoming commonplace for navigation and tracking purposes alike. While we enjoy the novelty and benefits of GPS navigation and tracking tools, the first application was military in nature – and it really wasn’t that long ago. But what exactly is behind the “magic” and how did it evolve?

In 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (the first satellite) into orbit, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) made an interesting observation: as Sputnik approached their location, its radio signal increased; and as Sputnik became more distant, the radio signal decreased. Using this information combined with the knowledge of their own position, the researchers were able to determine Sputnik’s location. It was this discovery upon which GPS technology is based.*

In 1960, Transit was the first satellite navigation system used by the United States Navy. It used five satellites in tandem to determine and report a location about once every hour. The Pentagon later began developing the Navstar Global Positioning System in an effort to create an error proof satellite system for military strategies. They launched a total of 24 GPS satellites between 1978-1993.

Simply stated, GPS uses microwave signals transmitted from a network of satellites as a basis to determine ground position. The military uses this technology for a range of applications, including navigation, target tracking, missile and projectile guidance, search and rescue, reconnaissance and map creation, and as a major portion of the United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System.

The need for civilian use became obvious after Korean Air Lines Flight 007 strayed and was shot down in a Soviet no-fly zone. In response, President Ronald Reagan made GPS available for civilian use in a limited capacity. In 2000, President William Clinton ordered the removal of signal degradation and other military restrictions.

To date, civilian GPS applications include navigation, GPS tracking devices, fleet management, search and rescue, and more. You can plan a trip, find your way home, locate or track a vehicle, person or other object – all courtesy of positioning data from satellites maintained by the US Air Force 50th Space Wing.

* American scientist, Roger L. Easton, Sr. received the distinguished National Medal of Technology in 2006 and has long been acclaimed as the principal inventor and designer of GPS.

Jackie Gately is a freelance writer. She can be reached at jackiegately.wordpress.com or located by GPS.

Perhaps while you were out celebrating Presidents’ Day on Monday, you attempted to use an old cell phone or access the OnStar system in your vehicle only to find that it didn’t work. Did you wonder why, or did you just chalk it up to the fact that technology just isnt’perfect?

There is a very good explanation as to why those devices and others that are still using an analog network didn’t function properly: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) told carriers they could give analog networks the boot to make way for more and more digital services. If you have been using a cell phone or tracking system that is on an analog network, you probably realized that you were left out in the cold, as Monday was the last day to use many of these analog networks.

You’ve probably heard a lot about how people with older television sets will not be able to use those sets anymore (at least not without a converter) after the conversion to digital next year. But you may not have realized that the same measures that affect the way we watch television, also make a difference for other modes of communication.

Cell phone service providers have spent years trying to get customers to leave analog cell phones behind.

The good news for customers of Rocky Mountain Tracking is that they did not and will not experience an interruption in service because of the big switch to digital. RMT doesn’t sell analog devices, but you can be assured that if we did, we certainly would not have left our customers hanging. We look for and evaluate the latest tracking technology to keep our customers in the know. You don’t want to hear that your packages cannot be located and we wouldn’t let that happen.