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Skytag stolen vehicle tracking system


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Hi all

Just come back from the LRsouthwest show and was interested in 'Skytag' (http://www.skytag-gps.co.uk). It is a vehicle tracking system which costs £249:99 which they have on offer for £99 + vat, is self installed and has a service charge of £6:99 per month. I was just wondering if anybody has one and if they have any views?

Cheers

Andy

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One thing I'm not sure about...

The Skytag GPS tracker service is designed to work in conjunction with a theft report and Police crime number from the owner.

Once this number is received Skytag personnel will activate the device and pass its location details on to the Police when found. The Police will also be provided with a login and password to view the online session display provided by your vehicle.

Does this mean you have to wait for the LR to be stolen, report the crime and get a crime reference number before anyting happen?

Not so sure I like that if it's the case. Could give thieves an hour or two to go through the LR by then.

Not sure if the tech has filtered down yet, but fleet users on Tom-Tom can set an area from 50m arround thier house (or any other location) on googlemaps and if the vehicle leaves the area it can send you a message. Also sends a signal every 10 seconds saying where it is, what direction it's going in and how fast it's going. Great for keeping an eye on drivers. ;)

Of course, it costs a bit more though. But I don't have to wait for a crime number before anyone bothers to look at a vehicle. I can log into any PC with internet access and see where every vehicle is right away.

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The price of original Trackers has come down you can buy them for £160 installed and then its only £7 a month, if you wanted the movement based one they also do them, don't know how the skytrack works, but if it needs a GPS signal i.e. would not work in carpark, shipping container etc is not great value in my book.

a quote from there web site below, about the tracking is it won't work until it gains a signal again so when it gets to africa they can tell you it's there!!

"If the vehicle is taken somewhere where there is no satellite reception and no communications network coverage, it waits until there is and as soon as it moves it automatically sends us its location, speed and direction, allowing recovery to take place."

Jason.

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Update

I have ordered it, total of £104 inc. first 3 months but none of the insurance companies I have tried would give me any discount but I did know that before hand. That said, they did not offer any discount for ANY tracker fitted as the vehicle is not high enough value for it to be wothwhile for them. They do not seem to have enough interest in getting the scumbags off the streets permenantly for my liking. It is for my piece of mind as it was the cheapest I could find due to the offer at the show.

Andy

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GPS / GSM units are very easily blocked.

As mentioned, simply putting the vehicle in a shipping container or underground carpark will render it useless.

Also as thieves are getting wise to this type of vehicle protection, mobile phone jammers (around £20 from ebay!) are becoming more common.

Ususally the stolen vehicle will be parked up for a while, quite often in an underground car park or put in a container somewhere nice and remote.

It's then left for a few weeks to see if there is any attempts to recover it. If not, then it get's ringed or stripped.

IMHO the Skytag system is no better than the cheapie GSM systems for sale on ebay.

If you're going to try and keep your motor safe, you'd be better of getting one of these

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thought this thread may be of interest here:

http://forum.landrovernet.com/showthread.php/195903-An-example-of-exempary-service........NOT

Ignore the title unless you are interested, but i thought the use of the tracking systems mentioned might compliment this topic. However, having read Se7enUps post above, i'm not convinced about the effectiveness of the tracking system mentioned by the OP in the link as an anti theft device.

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That appears to be an only GPS based system though, which while fine for the job described in that (quite interesting) story, wouldn't be any good for tracking down your beloved Land Rover as it wouldn't work indoors, in a container, with a GPS jammer nearby etc.

The only one worth getting as far as I can tell is the proper 'Tracker' ones, which use (as well as GPS) RF signals traceable by I think all police cars. I would imagine most ports would have scanners for them too :)

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  • 5 weeks later...

GPS systems are the only ones worth using. Of course anyone can find a way that an ati theft device can be compromised - the trick is to keep it reasonable and decide at what point people are arguing for the sake of it.

I have my Disco V8 in the driveway. When I come in for the evening the tracking device is told that it is in the HOME position.

If it is lifted on a trailer; towed away; driven more than 100 yards I am alerted by a screaming alarm on my phone and the monitoring system (thankfully that I run) also tells me where the ehicle is, what speed it is travelling at etc.

If you want to keep your land rover... track it... but do more than that. Tell the ttracking company the specs of what you want and if they are any good they will give it to you.

One word of warning...When I wanted to put a 9 inch spike beneath the driver's seat I was chastised by our local constabulary! LOL

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GPS systems are the only ones worth using.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I disagree.

I believe the VHF system used by TRACKER is better.

I recently lost a GPS tracked vehicle and now know how easy it is to find/block etc... I wouldn't go GPS again.

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When I first started looking at this thread, I binged SkyTag and saw the http://www.skytag.co.uk/ site which is special roof lettering..

Ive got a set of these (just arrived so will put them on the roof soon) I dont mind having letters on the roof, as it makes the vehicle stand out much more from the air, but you dont seee it so easily on the ground...

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Just best make sure that you're not breaking any traffic laws yourself as you've made it a lot easier for them to find you laugh.gif

Not normally a problem in my case ! ohmy.gif

The guy I spoke to says it works really well on high vehicles (such as caravans/campers) as there are so many of them around, and they all look very similar from the top...

Having beeen in the air a few times, a vehicle with lettering on the roof really stands out from the crowd, IMHO it would also be a help if my vehicle was ever cloned as most cameras also give a vew of the roof as they are up high.

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I have a strange feeling that her majesty may have splashed out on cameras that can see in the dark or they increase the carrot rations...

Understand that ...but as I say what about if it's just eyeballs? ;) I think it's a good idea and will probably invest in it myself.

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i live close to a very large container port,the trackers for which police etc have scanners for don,t work very well when the motot is in a shipping container which is then buried in a stack of containers,which is the norm,a stack is usually five high and up to seven containers wide,it really is luck if the scanner picks it up,most succesful finds are from intelligence led searches.

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Not normally a problem in my case ! ohmy.gif

The guy I spoke to says it works really well on high vehicles (such as caravans/campers) as there are so many of them around, and they all look very similar from the top...

Having beeen in the air a few times, a vehicle with lettering on the roof really stands out from the crowd, IMHO it would also be a help if my vehicle was ever cloned as most cameras also give a vew of the roof as they are up high.

My grandparents have always had their Range rovers reg number on the roof of the caravan :).

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