GPS jammer?

[ShayneThill]

Anyone installed GPS jammer ir remote control jammer for your vehicles?

[jonyem]

What the hell is a GPS jammer and why would you want one?

[Amskeptic]

What the hell is a GPS jammer and why would you want one?

I am thinking

[JLT]

My wife has a sort of built-in GPS jammer in her 2010 Corolla. The GPS unit kept dropping the signal. What's weird is that the same GPS (a Garmin Nuvi) works fine both in my bus and my Sienna. Of course, we traded units, and now the one I gave her (which worked fine in my cars) now screws up when installed in the Corolla. (And yes, it shows full charge in all the cars.)

Go figure.

[tristessa]

I've been thinking about installing a GPS *tracker*, what with the spate of mostly-Vanagon thefts that's been happening around Seattle this year, but not a jammer. Leaving aside the non-legality of a GPS jammer, it's too useful at times .. plus I'm not a paranoid conspiracy-theory wingnut.

[jonyem]

The original post made me think paranoid conspiracy-theory wing nut.
Now a tracker makes a lot of sense. I saw a while back that Just Kampers started selling a tracker because there's been a rise in bus theft in the UK.

[Amskeptic]

The original post made me think paranoid conspiracy-theory wing nut.
Now a tracker makes a lot of sense. I saw a while back that Just Kampers started selling a tracker because there's been a rise in bus theft in the UK.

Do trackers send out a constant signal that savvy thieves could use to find the unit?
Colin

[tristessa]

Not really. The ones I've looked at use GSM cellular hardware for communication; you send an SMS to the phone number associated with the unit, it sends back GPS coordinates that you plug into a mapping program .. which should get you within 20 feet or so. Obviously it's dependent on A ) having the battery connected/charged and B ) having a cell signal, but it's a hell of an improvement over nothing.

Since you're going to be hiding the tracker someplace in the vehicle, it wouldn't be too much extra effort to stash a smallish backup battery along with it. Wire it to the electrical system through an isolator so it doesn't keep the rest of the car "on" with the main battery unhooked, just the tracker...