Rocky Mountain Tracking

Daily GPS News

The Many Types of Tracking Systems

February 19th, 2010

By Greg Bartlett

How many different types of tracking systems do you think there are available? While many people may think that only a few exist, the possibilities are endless and opportunities abound to exploit the advantages of a GPS tracker. GPS tracking systems can be used for a variety of things. One of the most well-known is used for tracking vehicles. Whether you want to keep track of your spouse or children, or whether you simply want to know where your car is at all times, a GPS system could suit you perfectly. Some people hide the GPS system on their vehicle, others place it in a conspicuous location, such as a standard GPS system that gives directions. Some companies, on the other hand, use GPS tracking systems to keep record of where their cars have been, how long they have been there, and their speed in travel. This can be helpful if you rent out cars or have a business that makes client calls.

GPS Tracking & Personal Safety

Another use for GPS tracking is to know where your animal is. Dog-tracking collars have made recent strides in technology and people can even have personal logins and passwords to find a lost pup on the Internet. Some people will also GPS tracking and place a device on an individual or in a pocket.

Other uses of tracking systems have been to keep abreast of what is going on worldwide. Police officers have used GPS trackers to know where criminals are at all times. Paparazzi use similar devices to know where a famous Hollywood star is or where a politician may be staying. The Olympics became well-known for tracking the vehicles that the champions were traveling in. This helped them to know where the athletes were and when they would arrive to the games.

GPS tracking is not difficult and has become very useful recently. It uses a small device that, when activated, transmits radio waves to satellites, that then pass the information to a central computer. This helps technicians know the location of the device as well as any other data it monitors. Tracking with a GPS system can be very beneficial and can provide you with much information that you would not be able to know otherwise. GPS systems are cheap and readily available for anyone who is interested in considering them further. Come see what a GPS tracker can do for you.

GPS Trackers Stop Construction Equipment Theft

April 3rd, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Theft of Equipment

If you were a thief, what type of property would you look to steal? Most likely, you would want high dollar, low risk items that would be hard to identify and easy to sell. Items such as construction equipment and vehicles, for instance, might rank high on your list. If you’re nodding your head and thinking that this idea makes a lot of sense, you’re not alone. Construction companies nation-wide have seen an increase in equipment theft since the recent economic downturn. One piece of equipment can cost upwards of $20,000.00, and nine out of ten stolen items are never recovered. Is there a way to stop equipment thieves from getting rich off stolen forklifts? There is, and it comes in the form of a technological device known as a GPS tracker.

GPS trackers have been around for several years, but just recently are coming into more widespread use. Users simply place a small, inconspicuous transmitter inside a vehicle, and that vehicle can then be tracked by following the signal sent out by the transmitter. As soon as a piece of equipment goes missing, the construction company can see the exact location of its equipment on a computer. Recovery is quick and relatively simple, saving the company thousands of dollars in equipment loss, lost man hours, and increased insurance premiums.

Not all thefts are perpetrated by petty thieves, either. In some instances theft rings have stolen dozens of pieces of equipment from various construction sites and have brought them to a central location for future sales. The value of items stolen by such rings can reach into the millions of dollars. Companies in states where construction equipment theft is most common have already seen the benefits of investing in GPS trackers for their equipment. Although forklifts, backhoes, and generators may still go missing, companies who make use of GPS technology report a significant increase in recoveries.

Are GPS trackers worth the investment for the average construction company? Statistics say yes. Satisfied construction companies view the initial $1000.00 investment as well worth the tens of thousands of dollars recovered in stolen equipment and vehicles. Economic hardships are affecting us all. Thieves come out of the woodwork in times such as these and honest businessmen should take advantage of every opportunity to stop those thieves in their forklift tracks. GPS tracking provides the key to staying a step ahead of the criminals in a system where brains count more than brawn.

Rain or Shine – GPS Tracking Works Anytime

March 22nd, 2009

By Harriette Halepis

For some reason, most of us never think of the future in stormy terms. When we picture what we might do today or tomorrow, we always tend to think of these events as being held in perfect weather. Even for those that think about potential accidents, the thought of snow, rain, ice, or other weather never seems to cross our minds. However, the truth is that most accidents and incidents happen when the skies are less than picture perfect blue.

Whether a car accident or a pedestrian accident, most collisions of any kind occur amidst lousy weather. Cars careen around corners during windy snowstorms. Pedestrians are hit by cars while crossing the street during a rainstorm. Bicycles often wind up entangled with cars when the clouds are covering the sky. Massive car pile-ups happen when the weather is unexpected and treacherous. It is rare to hear of an accident occurring on a sunny day. This is not to say that days filled with sunshine can’t be dangerous, but accidents are far less likely to happen under these weather circumstances.

When bad weather does cause an accident, most people are completely unprepared for the aftermath. Hardly any motorists carry emergency kits in their cars. Most cyclists never bother to take anything with them on a trek, and pedestrians aren’t likely to think about accidents while crossing a street. The amazing thing is that you can be prepared for whatever comes your way with a bit of planning. Always carry a first aid kit inside of your car or with you on your bicycle. Make sure to bring identification cards with you if you plan to cross busy streets. Lastly, consider carrying a GPS tracking device on you at all times – it could save your life.

Most GPS tracking devises are weather resistant. This means that your GPS tracker can be out in the cold, underneath the pouring rain, or stuck in a snow bank, and it will still work. Sometimes accidents don’t happen the way that we imagine them. If you wind up in an accident and you can’t call for help, make sure that your GPS tracker can withstand the elements. While we never picture accidents happening on perfect days, we also never think about what might happen if an accident sight cannot be located. With innovative, weather-proof, GPS tracking systems, you’ll always be prepared for any kind of stormy weather.

GPS Tracking Systems Improve Freight Service Information

March 10th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Sending highly sensitive consignments inside a trailer can be a very risky business. Although the contents can be packed very well and insulated, and the trailer can be secure and quality assured, things can always go wrong. A lot of problems can arise when a temperature-sensitive cargo has to be shipped over a long distance, or even over short distances in the summer when temperatures are high.

GPS tracking system devices are a very good way of tracking an individual item. There are many ways that this can be done. A single positional location can be determined. A moving tracker can be followed. This gives information about the direction of travel of an item and the speed it is travelling. As well as this, other information can be added along with the location, such as time-stamps every hour, or even every few seconds, or any other information such as temperatures.

ABS Trailers is a company located near a science park. They are an international courier service that specializes in shipping freight overseas. So naturally, they were the first choice of companies in the science park to send their items to other laboratories. These items consisted of different types of tissue samples, chemicals and genetic material. All these need to be kept within a certain temperature range otherwise they become completely useless. But the trouble was that they had no way of guaranteeing the temperature of the cargo. If a fine range of temperature was needed, then the trailers were next to useless. ABS Trailers was losing their reputation and their customers.

GPS tracking system devices can combine with existing freight technology to provide all sorts of information about a trailer. Temperature information can be time-stamped at the beginning of the journey. Temperature information can be monitored throughout the journey. It can also be recorded for different parts of the trailer. Also, at the best level, it can be transmitted real-time to the customer’s computer and a detailed record sheet can be provided to the sender of the shipment and the person who has bought it.

Once GPS tracking system devices were acquired by ABS Trailers, they were able to provide very accurate readings to their customers. Their custom base increased rapidly as their new service proved to be efficient and effective. They had to expand and buy new trailers with this new service fitted and their business went from strength to strength. Boost your business today with GPS tracking systems by calling Rocky Mountain Tracking, Inc at 1-888-242-0500.

Aircraft Rely on Global Positioning Systems

March 10th, 2009

By Harriette Halepis

GPS tracking systems can be used for a number of things. Recently, these systems have been tested for use within airplanes. The positive news is that GPS tracking for aircraft is both helpful and beneficial.

Cockpit Up until this point, it was nearly impossible to track any kind of common aircraft. While military aircraft carriers have been using tracking systems for many years now, this technology was never transferred for use with standard aircraft. Today, all of this has changed.

It is now possible to track aircraft with a GPS tracker. While those aboard an airplane may not be able to turn on tracking devices while in flight, flight operators now use GPS tracking to follow airplanes throughout flight.

As you may be able to imagine, this type of tracking information is priceless. Not only does it allow airlines to track their fleet effectively, it also allows for many answers to questions raised following a plane crash.

After a plane crash happens, investigators can now determine the exact location and position of an airplane. This is crucial information when it comes to locating an aircraft, and helping potential crash survivors.

Often, the hours following a plane crash are the most crucial. Those that survive the initial crash are often left abandoned until rescue workers can find them. Until now, finding those survivors meant hours of endless searching. This searching often took place in remote areas, wooded areas, or areas that were too difficult to search. Today, these search and rescue tactics are about to change for good.

Up until this point, search and rescue teams were able to find out the general location of a fallen plane, but they could not pinpoint a precise location. Thanks to GPS tracking, the help that is needed following a plane crash is now more available than ever before.

While there are numerous uses for GPS tracking devices on a regular basis, the life-saving uses for these devices are just beginning to surface. As it turns out, GPS tracking systems can be used for a lot of different purposes.

One of those purposes is now locating and finding crash survivors. While there is nothing positive about an airplane crash, there is now hope that survivors will be rescued before it is too late. As each day passes, global positioning systems become more and more important to daily life.

GPS Tracking Helps Prevent Crime

March 7th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Many people know that GPS Tracking devices can and are placed in cars, trucks, containers and any other device that carries commodities. What many people don’t know is that these tracking devices are also contained in smart cell phones. These current state of the art version communication devices also contain the software to allow them to be tracked.

The Johnson City Tennessee police department plans to equip all of its officers with smartphones. These smartphones would allow the dispatcher and supervisor to be in constant touch with an officer out on patrol. The GPS software built into the phone would allow the dispatcher to immediately identify the officer nearest to where a call has come in from and dispatch that officer. This lowers response time to the scene of a crime, consequently increasing the chances of apprehending a criminal.

The smartphones with their 3G technology would reduce the reliance of the Johnson City police department upon radio communication and provide an effective alternative for communications with the officer when the officer is out of his patrol car and away from the radio. When an officer engages in the pursuit of a criminal, the officer would no longer have to update the dispatcher as to where he is. The GPS Tracking software in his phone would take care of that for him. The dispatcher would simply have to watch as the smartphone updates its location. The dispatcher would then has multiple options to vector additional officers to aid in the pursuit and apprehension of the criminal.

The GPS function built into the current edition of smart phones allows the user to always acquire directions. These directions can be as simple as finding a location in a city never visited before to as complex as a police officer finding his way to a remote geographical location on the other side of town. The abilities that GPS Tracking systems have built into them allow police departments an advantage in apprehending criminals. Law enforcement officers through their smart phones are always in touch with the dispatcher. The dispatcher always knows where the assets on duty are. Officers on duty never have to think about where an address is located whether serving a warrant or answering a call. The GPS unit will take them there.

Johnson City Tennessee, after a pilot program, hopes the issue and utilization of the GPS cell phone tracking capabilities of smartphones provides a worthwhile tool in the prevention of crime. The ability to quickly determine the closest officer to a call, the ability to direct additional units in cases of high speed pursuits and the ability to always know what every officers’ location is at all times has resulted in reduced crime statistics in Johnson City Tennessee.

GPS Tracking – Where Does He Go?

February 28th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Most people never think about it, but airline catering trucks run on a very precise schedule. Schedules are prepared for each driver, which include loading time at the catering kitchen, travel time to the airport, loading time at the airport and return time to the kitchen with the food and beverage carts used on the flight.

At a major airport, one of the drivers of the catering trucks was reported late once or twice a week when he would return to the kitchen after unloading a flight. The driver wasn’t grossly late, just a matter of 15 or 20 minutes. Since it was only once or twice a week, it wasn’t a major issue. When asked about being late, the driver usually gave the excuse of traffic or security; however, this particular driver was the only one late.

Tracking Image from Satellite The kitchen manager inquired of the security department if there was any way that they could find out where this particular driver was going and why he was going there. The security director decided to install a GPS tracking device into the truck that this particular driver was assigned to. When the truck was removed from service for scheduled maintenance, a GPS tracking system was installed. This installation was completed by a vendor and done after hours when vehicle maintenance personnel were off duty.

The truck now equipped with a GPS tracking system was given back to the driver. The drivers’ movements were monitored for a week. The GPS system showed that the truck was driven to a vacant warehouse that was in close proximity to the kitchen and was parked for 10 – 15 minutes. The question arose as to why the truck was going to that location. This pattern was observed for several weeks and a correlation was established that the aircraft the driver was servicing was always a flight that originated in South America.

When the truck was scheduled for maintenance again, a covert CCTV camera was installed in the truck. When the images produced by the CCTV camera were reviewed it was showed the driver upon parking the truck at the vacant warehouse, was removing a package from the bottom of one of the food carts used on the aircraft flight and passing it on to another person outside the truck.

Determining that something was amiss, the local metropolitan police department was consulted. Due to the fact that something was being removed from the truck that had not passed through customs, the metropolitan police department turned the matter over to U.S. Customs. Customs continued to track the catering truck and established covert surveillance at the vacant warehouse. Customs determined that it was narcotics being smuggled and brought the DEA into the picture.

In a matter of a few weeks a major drug smuggling operation had been broken up and several hundred pounds of narcotics were seized. The utilization of the GPS tracking system allowed the authorities to maintain close surveillance on the truck used without any sign that the surveillance was being maintained.

Benefits of GPS Vehicle Tracking Systems

February 26th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Satellite Tracking Image Since the 1990s when GPS tracking technology first became available to the general public, people have found more ways that GPS tracking can be used every year. One of the most common uses of GPS technology is to incorporate it into GPS vehicle tracking systems. There are several different benefits of such systems.

1. GPS vehicle tracking systems provide an accurate location and speed check on vehicles being driven by employees of a company. These can also be used to track the amount of time employees spend at one location in the event that a customer complains that he is being billed for more time than was actually spent on the job.

These systems are also very useful to company dispatchers who can locate each mobile unit and route the nearest one to any calls that come in, whether for service calls or pick up of packages.

2. A second use of GPS vehicle tracking systems is providing an accurate location of the vehicle to police in the event of car theft. The signal from such systems can be received by any police cruiser with an internet connected computer on board, which is almost all these days. Police can follow the movements of the vehicle and arrest the thief in short order, often catching others at the same time if this is a professional chop shop operation. Recovery of the vehicle in an unharmed state occurs far more frequently when GPS vehicle recovery systems are involved.

3. GPS vehicle tracking systems are also very useful for parents of inexperienced teen drivers. These systems allow the parents to monitor the movements and whereabouts of their teens when away from home in the family car. They have proven useful in reducing accidents and moving violations because the parents can track speed data and call the teen with instructions to slow down before the police get involved or an accident occurs.

4. Finally, GPS vehicle tracking systems make it possible for a spouse who suspects that his/her mate is cheating to follow the movements of the vehicle and catch them in the act if the suspicions are founded. Spouses who prefer not to make a direct confrontation can provide information on the signal from the GPS device to a private investigator who can obtain any evidence of infidelity and turn it over for use in a divorce proceeding.

GPS vehicle tracking systems have proven very useful for a variety of commercial and personal applications when knowledge of where a vehicle is and how fast it is moving is necessary.

Laptop Security Using GPS Tracking

February 25th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

More and more companies rely on computers and laptops for their business. They are not only useful for keeping and transferring information but also vital ways to keep in touch with salesmen and operatives who are out on calls and may not be available any other way. Many of these computers carry sensitive information about customers and product designs and prices etc. Information, in fact, which could be very lucrative for any competitors.

GPS tracking technology is now so advanced that it not only provides geolocational information but also shows the status of the laptop, i.e. whether it is being used. The mainframe computers at a central control can use information from satellite transmitters which are orbiting in space, but subsidiary receivers and transmitters can receive and transmit information to these mainframes without sending signals out to space. It’s not necessarily free gps tracking, but the small price to track can pay off in a short time.

A major engineering company was having problems with its products. As soon as a new range was launched, or sometimes even before, their rival competitors were producing the same or similar items with the same types of names and details. It was as if all the hard work and sleepless nights were done by the engineering company, only for someone else to come up with goods effortlessly beating them to it every time. They were losing thousands in lost productivity and man hours. They needed a real solution – and fast!

Although they were not suspicious of their salesmen and workers, they had GPS security systems installed into their new laptops. This was more to track the working hours than as a matter of espionage. To their huge surprise, one of their most trusted workers was showing strange behaviour patterns. He was recording time spent working and visiting customers, but his laptop showed that he was actually in the pub. Then, his third laptop went missing in as many months. Was he the culprit?

With this new technology, it is possible to not only track the whereabouts of the laptop, but to also disable sensitive information it contains. Sensitive files can be wiped clean. This will withstand operating system reinstalls, systems wipes and re-formatting of the hard drive because it is not software driven. Of course, if someone goes to the trouble of doing all that, then they have lost the potentially damaging information on the laptop anyway! The laptop was immediately remotely wiped. Not very surprisingly the new drawings which were on the laptop could not be copied by the rival company!

GPS Tracking System And the Fight Against Animal Extinction

February 25th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Endangered species are under constant threat in the world because many of them are highly prized for their organs and body parts. One such animal is the rhinoceros. It is incredibly highly prized for its horn which is said to have aphrodisiac qualities. For this alone, these magnificent animals are routinely slaughtered and have been hunted to the very edge of extinction. Despite being a protected species, while there is a demand for the animals, trade in them is still brisk.

In an amazing clash of ancient and modern, GPS tracking devices have been used to track these beasts. GPS wireless tracking devices work by collecting data from orbiting satellites in the atmosphere and calculating their position using the co-ordinates in this transmitted data. Four such satellites must be used. If there is even a microdecimal discrepancy in the signal, then the angle subtended from the satellite to the planet below would translate into hundreds of miles. So four satellite signals are used to correct each other.

Animal Tracking The Northern White Rhinos are now thought to be critically endangered and are on the World Wide Wildlife fund’s red list. This means that there are very, very few animals remaining outside of protected areas. Soon, they may be totally gone. This has very much to do with hunters and poachers who shoot them for their horns. For many years it was a policy to cut off the horns so that the animals would be safe, but this has its own consequences. Poaching itself is a highly dangerous and risky business. Long cold nights are spent silently tracking the animals. Also, rangers have orders to shoot poachers on sight, so if after all this, what if they encounter a hornless rhino? How do they stop themselves from tracking it again in future? The answer is simple. Kill it.

Rhinos are now caught and anaesthetized. As quickly as possible, a hole is drilled into its horn and a GPS tracking device is implanted with a huge dollop of glue. The rhino is then transported into a protected area within a secure compound. At any time of the day or night it is possible to track these ancient beasts and know exactly where they are.

GPS GSM tracking devices are aiding in the unending fight against man’s inhumanity and irrational behavior. As long as these idiotic beliefs persist, there will be poachers. And as long as there are poachers, there will be rangers to try and stop them.