GPS tracking devices for vehicles

[Joeyd6]

Actually, the Sarge hooked himself up as he was the OP. ;)

Ahhh...you are right! Blind here! Glad it worked out for you.

[MikeG]

Transmitting over frequencies is nice, but there is a change in the pipline on radio frequencies from the FCC which will change things. Plus you don't want ANYTHINg on a public, non-encyrpted channel. While sending data over the radio sounds easy, it is if you have somebody who completly understands it and is capable of doing it....and that is assuming your agency has teh equipment and FCC permits/licenses and other nonsense.

My point was that GPS location transmission was already done with public safety radios like the APX7000. The specs on those radios are very similiar to public radio like the FRS ones. I was surprised there are not products available for the public that use the free and open radio channels.

I found the redheaded step-child version from Garmin:
Dog tracker: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8576

No service plan. Limited to radio limits.

Something like this should be available to LE but using the LE radio channels and LE handhelds. That would give tracking capability within the limits of the radio system and also be as secure as other LE communications.

If you use a lot of tracking and monthly fees are an issue, it may be worth it to ask Garmin what it would take to replace the FRS radio with a Public Safety UHF radio (if you use/have access to UHF freqs). Physical antenna will be nearly identical to FRS. It might be as simple as changing the local oscillator to the Public Safety frequency. The reason to move to public safety frequency is that those signals are repeated so that line of sight and distance issues are less important and coverage is extended to the coverage of the radio.