self-made cheap GSM tracker

[giuanz]

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Smart-Car-Surveillance-System-Using-a-Mobile-Phone

I like the idea because if you hide it well enough, you can still track the car even if they disabled your car alarm.

I was thinking that if you have a camera phone and you are able to hide the camera from sight properly, you could also use some cool software that sends you pictures of what's happening.

Though serious thieves nowadays use GSM/GPS jammers.

[Kace]

So have you found any facility (in Ireland) that will actually allow you to track the phone ?

You can forget Vodafone / O2 and the Gardai as they won't be in the business of providing a phone tracking service for us.

[giuanz]

huh? You mean that both Gardai and the mobile phone operators will not help you tracking phone and the car?

I'm Italian and I'm not sure how it works in Ireland. Do you mean that here the Gardai and mobile operators would not give a ###'s ###?

[Bernard]

I can't remember if it was O2 or Vodafone but one of them had a tracking option on their site a few years ago.
You had to sign up and confirm via text message from your mobile.

[giuanz]

Yes, I do not expect tracking services to be available for purchase, at least not in Ireland. But in this case I have gone to the Gardai and reported the car as stolen. I expect them to ask the provider to track the IMEI and I expect the provider to give the tracking information to the police. This is the way the police tracks people's movements in most countries nowadays.

Is anybody in the forum working in the Garda and can he/she confirm that the Gardai/mobile operators won't help me tracking the phone and the car, even if I report the car as stolen?

If they won't help me track the car, I have to do it myself, which means find a phone with GPS and install some GPS tracking software on it. But if that were to be the case, I wonder if the Gardai would at least help me once I give them the full GPS coordinates, or if I have to get a shotgun and some bad guys with me and go after the thieves myself instead.

[giuanz]

Anyway it seems it is possible to track GSM phones without asking the providers. Some social networking apps have built their own GPS maps of GSM cells.

http://www.locle.com/
http://www.locatik.com/

[colm_mcm]

I can't remember if it was O2 or Vodafone but one of them had a tracking option on their site a few years ago.
You had to sign up and confirm via text message from your mobile.

That was O2, think it was for business users. haven't heard anything about that in 6 or more years.

[Kace]

....I wonder if the Gardai would at least help me once I give them the full GPS coordinates, or if I have to get a shotgun and some bad guys with me and go after the thieves myself instead.

Probably the latter would be the most likely option.

Gardai won't be too interested in dispatching units for a dangerous high-speed chase around Dublin or fueling up the chopper or for the sake of your P&J.

......unless of course you told them that they tied up your girlfriend/wife and put her in the boot before taking off in your car