Is there a freeware GPS tracking solution for the Blackberry 8700c with pay as you go SIM card?

On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:09:40 -0400, Ari® wrote:


That URL comes across as "page not found" but to answer the point, I only
need to be roughly accurate. For example, if he says he's over Joe's house
but his car is over Susan's side of town, I know something is amiss.

All I need to do is verify that they are approximately where they said they
would be or should be (like in school).

For that, I was hoping to leave a spare Blackberry 8700c with a
pay-as-you-go plan in the trunk or glovebox so as to roughly track where
the car is located.

I ask, in frustration, has ANYONE ever used a Blackberry 8700c as a covert
tracking device? If so, how did YOU do it?

On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:55:59 -0700, Jim Benson wrote:


Your choices are going to be zero to none if your parameters include
"freeware" and "blackberry". Add "8700C" and wanting it to transmit a
signal back to you (to where or what you haven't disclosed) or a set of
coordinates (by SMS, to a website? which then must translate the data to
a location?) and you have boxed yourself into the proverbial non
solution.

Unless your kids are dum-dums, putting a "spare" 8700C blackberry into
the glove compartment isn't going to fool them. Since they are of
driving age, you can bet they have friends who know more about GS
tracking, hacking and similar technologies than you do.

And forget about the trunk, that will most probably kill any potential
constellation reception. Prolly the same for the glove box, YMMV.

You are left with traditional, pay solutions of which tracking
automobiles is found practically anywhere on the 'Net. This would insure
a sophisticated, working and nearly undetectable install which means it
will do exactly what your ultimate goal is - to work.


--
A fireside chat not with Ari!
http://tr.im/holj
Motto: Live To Spooge It!

Try Navizon from http://www.navizon.com; it has a Blackberry version ($10,
but there's a 7-day trial, IIRC.) It's a location software package that
works with GPS, cell tower positioning, and/or WiFi- obviously accuracy will
suffer if not using GPS, but as you say, "close enough" is ok.

[Disclaimer: I've only used Navizon on Windows Mobile devices, so I can't
vouch for the Blackberry version of the software. The WinMo version was
pretty buggy and would occasionally "crash" and shutdown. I can't promise
it'll run for days on end.]

There are two features of the software that might interest you, though: the
"Buddy Finder" that let's you log into Navizon's website and get the
location of the phone (uses data on the phone to continually report
position, so that'll cost you on prepaid!), and the "MobiFinder" where you
send a text message to the phone and it texts you back with its position.

In addition, if you use the Buddy Finder (continual position data upload)
you can add alerts on Navizon's website to email or text you if/when the
tracked phone enters or leaves any circles you draw on the map on their web
page, so you don't have to monitor a website to see if they've gone
somewhere you don't want them.

As for battery life, if you're going to "hide it in the trunk," why not just
rig a power source back there and leave it plugged it in?

I have used Google Latitude. It seems to work with my daughter's BB Bold and
my Curve. If she is not actively using Google Maps I can only get cell-phone
tower based locations (I've heard this referred to a triangulation, but I am
not sure it is always using multiple towers, especially if out in the
country). Error circles can be VERY large, at least 1000 meters in many
cases. Oddly enough if she is on the second floor of my house her phone
often registers with a different tower than my phone does and she appears
over a mile away from my location even though we are in the same house.
Possibly related to her 3G phone whereas mine is exclusively EDGE.

She can disable her location broadcast, or limit it to city level or even
have it lie about where she is. She doesn't do this cause she has mostly
forgotten she has it and I don't bother to remind her :)

A potential downside is that the location is updated very infrequently
unless she crosses over a cell boundary. And you have to have a data plan of
some kind or the pay-as-you-go per byte charges may eat you alive.

On Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:51:31 -0500, Mike Marquis wrote:


AH. That's the part I didn't know anything about. If it uses a "data plan",
I don't even know if the pre-paid cards can do data. I know they can do
phone calls and SMS but I don't know how they do data.

I'll have to call the 611 and find out that.

THe problem with Latitude is that it doesn't seem to work with my
Blackberry 8700c according to what I've read (I may be wrong).