WESTMINSTER, Calif.—A Costa Mesa police officer has been charged with hiding a GPS device in a woman's car without her knowledge so he could follow her.
The Orange County district attorney's office says 30-year-old Aaron Parsons was charged Thursday in Westminster Superior Court with a misdemeanor count of unlawfully using an electronic tracking device.
Prosecutors say Parsons hid a GPS device in a 32-year-old woman's car on March 18 so he should show up wherever she was.
After several "chance encounters," the woman became suspicious, checked her car and found the device which belongs to the police department. She reported it to police.
Parsons faces six months in jail if convicted. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday.
credit:www.mercurynews.com
Showing posts with label Gps Tracking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gps Tracking. Show all posts
California considers easing rules on black bear hunting
The population has roughly quadrupled over the last two decades, and some Fish and Game officials say it would remain robust with expanded hunting regions and caps.
A black bear in the foothills above Monrovia. (Rudy Libra)
As outdoor activities in California go, bear hunting is not particularly popular. Officials estimate that, at most, 1% of the state's population hunts black bears. Many of the other 99% are appalled that anyone does.
"I think most people think of it as an anachronism," said state Fish and Game Commissioner Michael Sutton, who speculates that the state's voters may soon ban the practice.
Bear hunting has come a long way since the 1920s, when ranchers and farmers wiped out the grizzly, leaving its sole California presence on the state flag. Gone are the days when you could kill a bear anytime, anywhere, any way.
So Sutton and his fellow commissioners — hunters all — weren't surprised when proposals to expand black bear hunting drew protest.
Nearly 70 environmental, community and animal welfare organizations have lined up against the proposals, most notably the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and various chapters of the Sierra Club. In San Luis Obispo County, the board of supervisors passed a resolution last month opposing expansion of hunting into their area.
"We find the totality of the proposal to be unsporting, unfair, inhumane and reckless," said Jennifer Fearing, the Humane Society's Sacramento lobbyist.
But officials at the state Department of Fish and Game say they proposed the changes because California's black bear population is flourishing and spreading.
On Wednesday the commissioners will vote on whether to allow bear hunting in San Luis Obispo County and to increase the hunting area in Lassen and Modoc counties. They'll also decide whether to eliminate a cap on bear kills per season and allow bear hunters to put collars with GPS tracking devices on their hounds.
Black bears long have thrived from Northern California down to Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, according to Doug Updike, the department's game program manager and a wildlife ecologist. In the last few decades, he said, Fish and Game biologists have seen more bears in San Luis Obispo, Modoc and Lassen Counties. The number of bears statewide, meanwhile, has "increased from under 10,000 in the early '80s to nearly 40,000 now," he said.
"They get hit by cars, we get reports by property owners that they broke into their houses, we get pictures, we know what bear prints look like," he said.
Over the last half-century, California has regulated bear hunting. Trapping has been outlawed and a hunting season set — roughly October to the last Sunday in December, depending on the region. Cubs under 50 pounds and mother bears with their cubs may not be killed. Hunters must obtain identification tags and are allowed one bear per season.
Successful or not, hunters must return their tags to Fish and Game, stating whether or not they bagged a bear. In addition, successful hunters are expected to present their bear skulls to department officials, who extract a tooth from each skull for age monitoring. (Hunters then get the skulls back.) It also is illegal to sell bear parts in California. The state considers possession of as few as two bear gall bladders — lucrative products in Asian markets — evidence of illegal activity.
Still, those who object to the proposed hunting changes say the killing remains too easy.
One proposal they find particularly egregious would allow hunters to equip their dogs with GPS tracking collars that have so-called tip switches, which go off when a dog cocks its head, presumably to look up a tree where it has hounded a bear.
"Given that we are not anti-hunting as much as we are anti-trophy-hunting practices, we zeroed in on these changes," said Fearing of the Humane Society. "Hound hunting is totally unfair and often inhumane — for the bears and the dogs," she said.
Opponents portray hunters as unsportsmanlike folks, watching their GPS devices to see when dogs have treed a bear so they can easily amble over and shoot it. Proponents of the sport, on the other hand, portray hunters with hounds as athletic and focused, sprinting after their dogs, enjoying the chase as much as their canines do. They say that the GPS devices are mostly for tracking lost and injured dogs and that hunters already use radio telemetry to track their dogs.
You don't need a GPS device to tell you when your hounds have found a bear, said Updike, a hunter whose wife has killed a bear. "They can tell by the baying of the hounds how the hounds are doing." He also objected to the idea that California hunters are after trophies, saying that most eat the meat of the bears they kill.
The state relies on a variety of methods to track the bear population. In addition to anecdotal evidence and field work by biologists, hunters' tags tell officials when and where bears were killed.
Critics of changing the hunting rules say monitoring killed bears is not enough to get a sense of their real population. They say the state's methods also don't take into account regional pressures on bear habitats.
The state also monitors the median age of bears killed and the percentage that are female, Updike said, to alert them of when to pull back on hunting. Hunters prefer larger bears, which are usually male. So if a season's total kill is more than 40% female, for instance, "that's a red flag because it means the number of males is getting scarce, which means the hunting pressure is starting to affect the population."
Because of such tracking, he said, state officials are confident that the population is robust enough to withstand well over the 1,700-bear kill figure that now prompts the state to send out an alert closing down the season.
"We looked at a mathematical model for the hunting season which would take 3,100 bears — which we've never ever done," said Updike. "That still is an insignificant number relative to the population. The population would still be robust."
And not having to send out an alert would save thousands of dollars, he said. Some commissioners said they are still not sure how they will vote Wednesday. Commissioner Daniel Richards, who hunts mammals, said he is inclined to widen the hunt. Commissioner Richard Rogers — a duck hunter — said he has no problems with bear hunting but was leaning against the changes.
Sutton, who hunts birds but not mammals, said he too is leaning toward voting no. He's not against bear hunting. But his experience as a former federal game warden has made him sensitive to the dangers of hunting, such as "the potential for increased poaching and illegal commercialization."
"Our wardens are already strapped," he said. "All these things tend to argue against expansion of bear hunting."
carla.hall@latimes.com
"I think most people think of it as an anachronism," said state Fish and Game Commissioner Michael Sutton, who speculates that the state's voters may soon ban the practice.
Bear hunting has come a long way since the 1920s, when ranchers and farmers wiped out the grizzly, leaving its sole California presence on the state flag. Gone are the days when you could kill a bear anytime, anywhere, any way.
So Sutton and his fellow commissioners — hunters all — weren't surprised when proposals to expand black bear hunting drew protest.
Nearly 70 environmental, community and animal welfare organizations have lined up against the proposals, most notably the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and various chapters of the Sierra Club. In San Luis Obispo County, the board of supervisors passed a resolution last month opposing expansion of hunting into their area.
"We find the totality of the proposal to be unsporting, unfair, inhumane and reckless," said Jennifer Fearing, the Humane Society's Sacramento lobbyist.
But officials at the state Department of Fish and Game say they proposed the changes because California's black bear population is flourishing and spreading.
On Wednesday the commissioners will vote on whether to allow bear hunting in San Luis Obispo County and to increase the hunting area in Lassen and Modoc counties. They'll also decide whether to eliminate a cap on bear kills per season and allow bear hunters to put collars with GPS tracking devices on their hounds.
Black bears long have thrived from Northern California down to Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, according to Doug Updike, the department's game program manager and a wildlife ecologist. In the last few decades, he said, Fish and Game biologists have seen more bears in San Luis Obispo, Modoc and Lassen Counties. The number of bears statewide, meanwhile, has "increased from under 10,000 in the early '80s to nearly 40,000 now," he said.
"They get hit by cars, we get reports by property owners that they broke into their houses, we get pictures, we know what bear prints look like," he said.
Over the last half-century, California has regulated bear hunting. Trapping has been outlawed and a hunting season set — roughly October to the last Sunday in December, depending on the region. Cubs under 50 pounds and mother bears with their cubs may not be killed. Hunters must obtain identification tags and are allowed one bear per season.
Successful or not, hunters must return their tags to Fish and Game, stating whether or not they bagged a bear. In addition, successful hunters are expected to present their bear skulls to department officials, who extract a tooth from each skull for age monitoring. (Hunters then get the skulls back.) It also is illegal to sell bear parts in California. The state considers possession of as few as two bear gall bladders — lucrative products in Asian markets — evidence of illegal activity.
Still, those who object to the proposed hunting changes say the killing remains too easy.
One proposal they find particularly egregious would allow hunters to equip their dogs with GPS tracking collars that have so-called tip switches, which go off when a dog cocks its head, presumably to look up a tree where it has hounded a bear.
"Given that we are not anti-hunting as much as we are anti-trophy-hunting practices, we zeroed in on these changes," said Fearing of the Humane Society. "Hound hunting is totally unfair and often inhumane — for the bears and the dogs," she said.
Opponents portray hunters as unsportsmanlike folks, watching their GPS devices to see when dogs have treed a bear so they can easily amble over and shoot it. Proponents of the sport, on the other hand, portray hunters with hounds as athletic and focused, sprinting after their dogs, enjoying the chase as much as their canines do. They say that the GPS devices are mostly for tracking lost and injured dogs and that hunters already use radio telemetry to track their dogs.
You don't need a GPS device to tell you when your hounds have found a bear, said Updike, a hunter whose wife has killed a bear. "They can tell by the baying of the hounds how the hounds are doing." He also objected to the idea that California hunters are after trophies, saying that most eat the meat of the bears they kill.
The state relies on a variety of methods to track the bear population. In addition to anecdotal evidence and field work by biologists, hunters' tags tell officials when and where bears were killed.
Critics of changing the hunting rules say monitoring killed bears is not enough to get a sense of their real population. They say the state's methods also don't take into account regional pressures on bear habitats.
The state also monitors the median age of bears killed and the percentage that are female, Updike said, to alert them of when to pull back on hunting. Hunters prefer larger bears, which are usually male. So if a season's total kill is more than 40% female, for instance, "that's a red flag because it means the number of males is getting scarce, which means the hunting pressure is starting to affect the population."
Because of such tracking, he said, state officials are confident that the population is robust enough to withstand well over the 1,700-bear kill figure that now prompts the state to send out an alert closing down the season.
"We looked at a mathematical model for the hunting season which would take 3,100 bears — which we've never ever done," said Updike. "That still is an insignificant number relative to the population. The population would still be robust."
And not having to send out an alert would save thousands of dollars, he said. Some commissioners said they are still not sure how they will vote Wednesday. Commissioner Daniel Richards, who hunts mammals, said he is inclined to widen the hunt. Commissioner Richard Rogers — a duck hunter — said he has no problems with bear hunting but was leaning against the changes.
Sutton, who hunts birds but not mammals, said he too is leaning toward voting no. He's not against bear hunting. But his experience as a former federal game warden has made him sensitive to the dangers of hunting, such as "the potential for increased poaching and illegal commercialization."
"Our wardens are already strapped," he said. "All these things tend to argue against expansion of bear hunting."
carla.hall@latimes.com
credit:www.latimes.com
GPS Tracking Devices
Global Positioning System (GPS) have been around long enough for most people the basic idea of what they have to do. Originally developed by the government for military purposes, has developed the technology and the units now many GPS tracking devices used by consumers. The changes are GPS watches, GPS tracking control units, GPS-enabled mobile phones, vehicle tracking GPS, GPS navigation systems for boats, cars, aircraft and portable devices, among others. Over the years, the accuracy of GPS devices has a better point (few meters) to be almost shocking. Fortunately for all of us, has removed the cost of the technology in-law, although the improvement of performance and reliability. Only a few years ago the idea of buying a GPS unit would have done well under $ 100, it seemed impossible, but today is a fact. By reducing costs, the popularity of these devices has exploded, almost literally.
The GPS-development has also meant a drastic reduction in the size of the units. This important result is the popularity to increase even more the level of prices. Who would want a device the size of a shoe box mounted on the dashboard of a car and tied to your arm? Of course, a GPS would never be seen without a reduction of practice. I still have a "handheld marine units" Since the early 1990, that laugh at my size when I see it, even though they often do not. Those days are thankfully long gone.
GPS tracking device to receive signals from satellites to determine the orbit of Earth around the user's latitude and longitude of a rule of a few meters. This makes it easier to get your position, speed, direction and distance to go, exact time and many other features to be pursued. For the serious running / walking enthusiasts with a GPS-Clock provides a meter pulse rate can also cut the pursuit of personal goals and monitor road.
The biggest challenge that could see the GPS location decision that is best for you, that's where we can help.
Free GPS Fleet Tracking Software
If you are looking for some GPS fleet tracking software for your business but don’t want to part with a lot of cash can you think of a better price than free? That is what OpenGTS provides to those with enough technical know how to set up this free and open source fleet management tool.
You might expect that a tool like this has practically 0 features – but you’d be dead wrong. OpenGTS is a full featured GPS tracking solution for your business or fleet. Its features include:
You might expect that a tool like this has practically 0 features – but you’d be dead wrong. OpenGTS is a full featured GPS tracking solution for your business or fleet. Its features include:
- Web-based authentication: This means that you will be able to support multiple users in your account, each having their own unique password and username as well as access to specified features. If you have a manager in charge of the tractors on left at the work site but don’t want him having to deal with all the information gathered from your mobile team you can set his account to only have access to the tractor tracking information. This makes the product scalable for all fleet sizes and business needs.
- Customizable web-page decorations: If you care how your interface looks you are able to change it with OpenGTS. The look and feel can become of your specific company, increasing brand awareness among your employees.
- Customizable mapping service: As of v1.8.3, OpenGTS comes with support for Mapstraction in addition to the original support for Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth. With the addition of Mapstraction OpenGTS can now display maps from OpenLayers, MultiMap, Map24, MapQuest, and more. Within the OpenGTS framework, other mapping service providers can also easily be integrated with minimal effort.
- Customizable reports: Sometime in can be a big pain to sift through all the data for your fleet at the end of the day. With customizable reports you can find historical data on problem employees or special projects that makes your life as a manager much easier. Tracking can be done over the entire fleet or a single car or truck.
- Customizable geofenced areas: Geofencing, as known as creating geozones, is the ability to mark up a map into territories. These territories can be given custom names (suck at “Roger’s Turf,” or “Fueling Up”), making tracking service calls easy and effective. You can even set up arrival and departure notifications so you know when a vehicle enters a certain area.
- GPS tracking device independent: OpenGTS comes with support for OpenDMTP capable devices, but it is is not limited to these. It can be made to work with nearly any available remote GPS tracking device. This compatability enables business to track a variety of devices with one single platform.
- Operating system independent: OpenGTS is written in Java, uses Apache Tomcat for web service deployment, and MySQL for the datastore. This means that it can run on pretty much any operating system found on a computer – from Windows Vista all the way to Linux.
- i18n Compliant: OpenGTS is i18n compliant and supports easy localization (L10N) to languages other than English. Languages supported currently include English, Spanish, Italian, German, and Turkish.
GPS RECEIVER TRACKING PERFORMANCE UNDER IONOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION CONDITIONS
GPS RECEIVER TRACKING PERFORMANCE UNDER IONOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION CONDITIONS
credit:igscb.jpl.nasa.gov
GPS receiver tracking performance can be degraded during periods of enhanced ionospheric activity, where small-scale scintillation effects (phase and amplitude variations) are observed in the high latitude auroral region and the low latitude equatorial anomaly region. During periods of intense scintillation, the availability of carrier phase observations may be limited through loss of signal lock, with a significant impact on precise positioning applications. Such effects have a larger impact on the L2 tracking performance, where codeless and semicodeless technologies are employed to extract the encrypted L2 signal.
The tracking performance of a given receiver depends not only on the magnitude of scintillation activity observed, but also on the receiver tracking capabilities. Recent research has shown that tracking performance can vary significantly between receivers, under identical scintillation conditions. In this presentation, the impact of scintillation effects on various receiver tracking capabilities is presented. A comparison of receiver technologies is conducted, using both codeless and semicodeless GPS receivers. Performance comparisons are established and interpreted with respect to GPS network applications and GPS availability at solar maximum. The frequency and magnitude of receiver tracking errors is also examined on a regional basis, for both the high latitude and low latitude regions.
credit:igscb.jpl.nasa.gov
GPS tracking system unveiled for Alzheimer's patients unveiled for Alzheimer's patients
The Alzheimer's Association has unveiled a new Web-based application that works with various mobile devices to track people suffering from dementia who may wander off at some point during their illness.
The association's Comfort Zone service was released earlier this month and is powered by Omnilink tracking services . It is the first comprehensive location management system designed specifically for Alzheimer's patients.
Comfort Zone uses OmniLink's FocalPoint tracking software and relies on GPS to find almost any location-enabled tracking device, which can then be used to monitor the location of an individual. If an Alzheimer's sufferer strays outside a pre-set zone, the software uses GPS and cellular technologies with online mapping to proactively send a text message or e-mail with the person's location. The message is sent within two to 30 minutes, depending on the family's selected tracking plan. Comfort Zone also offers families assistance with 24/7 monitoring center services and access to emergency health records from the MedicAlert Foundation.
"Comfort Zone is an interactive safety service that allows people with the disease to be more active and caregivers to be more confident whether they are in the same house, down the street, at work or across the country." Beth Kallmyer, director of Family and Information Services at the Alzheimer's Association, said in a statement.
Families or caregivers can log into a secure, password-protected Web site similar to logging into most e-mail systems and establish safety zones in which their relative can roam. These zones and alerts can be adjusted as the disease progresses.
Pricing for the service varies, beginning at $42.99 a month with a $45.00 activation fee.
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive and fatal brain disease affecting about 5.3 million people in the U.S. That number is expected to grow to as many as 16 million by 2050, according to the the association's 2009 Alzheimer's Disease Facts & Figures report. The disease causes memory loss as it destroys brain cells and accounts for 50% to 70% of all dementia cases. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, although symptoms can be treated to lessen its affects. Six of 10 with Alzheimer's will wander away at some point, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
By Lucas Mearian
The association's Comfort Zone service was released earlier this month and is powered by Omnilink tracking services . It is the first comprehensive location management system designed specifically for Alzheimer's patients.
Comfort Zone uses OmniLink's FocalPoint tracking software and relies on GPS to find almost any location-enabled tracking device, which can then be used to monitor the location of an individual. If an Alzheimer's sufferer strays outside a pre-set zone, the software uses GPS and cellular technologies with online mapping to proactively send a text message or e-mail with the person's location. The message is sent within two to 30 minutes, depending on the family's selected tracking plan. Comfort Zone also offers families assistance with 24/7 monitoring center services and access to emergency health records from the MedicAlert Foundation.
"Comfort Zone is an interactive safety service that allows people with the disease to be more active and caregivers to be more confident whether they are in the same house, down the street, at work or across the country." Beth Kallmyer, director of Family and Information Services at the Alzheimer's Association, said in a statement.
Families or caregivers can log into a secure, password-protected Web site similar to logging into most e-mail systems and establish safety zones in which their relative can roam. These zones and alerts can be adjusted as the disease progresses.
Pricing for the service varies, beginning at $42.99 a month with a $45.00 activation fee.
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive and fatal brain disease affecting about 5.3 million people in the U.S. That number is expected to grow to as many as 16 million by 2050, according to the the association's 2009 Alzheimer's Disease Facts & Figures report. The disease causes memory loss as it destroys brain cells and accounts for 50% to 70% of all dementia cases. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, although symptoms can be treated to lessen its affects. Six of 10 with Alzheimer's will wander away at some point, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
By Lucas Mearian
Confused GPS Takes Driver Into Collison
Confused GPS Takes Driver Into Collison
GPS systems really are a wonderful thing. They tell you where to go. With just a press of a button, you don’t have to deal with the considerable stress of “knowing where you’re going.” It’s a beautiful thing.
Then again, for all their convenience, GPS systems are also sort of scary. What if some mysterious person can see where you are at all times? What if your GPS system gives you the wrong directions? Such was the nightmare apparently suffered by a New York motorist when his GPS system turned him onto a pair of active train tracks. His car was stuck and he had to ditch the vehicle before it was crushed by an oncoming train. Fortunately no one was injured, but it’s a terrifying account nonetheless.
It’s not the first time this has happened, which goes to show that these GPS units aren’t infallible. Or there’s some kind of horrifying alien-GPS conspiracy going on. One of the two.
dddddadf
Tele Atlas clients to get TomTom's speed profile database
As a result of the acquisition of digital map maker Tele Atlas by TomTom, all Tele Atlas customers will gain access to TomTom's vast speed profiles database, to be made available later this year.
The speed profiles database is derived from almost half a trillion speed measurements that TomTom customers in 25 countries have been sharing with the company over the past two years. The desktop application TomTom Home has an opt-in system through which customers can automatically share their GPS tracks when they connect their device to their PC.
The database provides information about actual average speeds for every five minutes of the day on any day of the week on all of the roads in 23 European countries and 90 percent of the roads in the United States. “To achieve this kind of accuracy, those 18 million kilometers of roads had to be driven and measured on average more than 2,000 times at different times of the day and during different days of the week”, said Tele Atlas.
“[previously existing] estimates ignore many things that influence how people should drive to their destinations, such as the frequencies of traffic lights, lunch breaks at large schools, speed bumps, stop signs and awkward railway crossings, ” said Tele Atlas CEO Bill Henry. “Speed profiles actually contain this very specific and important local knowledge, enabling our customers to deliver unprecedented navigation quality-much better routes and much more accurate estimated times of arrival.”
TomTom already used this database to improve its routing algorithms in its mid- to high-end products under the name “IQ Routes”.
This new database is the first product based on the closed cooperation between TomTom and Tele Atlas since the acquisition was completed. HD Traffic and Map Share are two other technologies that will benefit to Tele Atlas; it is likely that more announcements will be made in this area before the end of the year.
credit:gpsbusinessnews.com
The speed profiles database is derived from almost half a trillion speed measurements that TomTom customers in 25 countries have been sharing with the company over the past two years. The desktop application TomTom Home has an opt-in system through which customers can automatically share their GPS tracks when they connect their device to their PC.
The database provides information about actual average speeds for every five minutes of the day on any day of the week on all of the roads in 23 European countries and 90 percent of the roads in the United States. “To achieve this kind of accuracy, those 18 million kilometers of roads had to be driven and measured on average more than 2,000 times at different times of the day and during different days of the week”, said Tele Atlas.
“[previously existing] estimates ignore many things that influence how people should drive to their destinations, such as the frequencies of traffic lights, lunch breaks at large schools, speed bumps, stop signs and awkward railway crossings, ” said Tele Atlas CEO Bill Henry. “Speed profiles actually contain this very specific and important local knowledge, enabling our customers to deliver unprecedented navigation quality-much better routes and much more accurate estimated times of arrival.”
TomTom already used this database to improve its routing algorithms in its mid- to high-end products under the name “IQ Routes”.
This new database is the first product based on the closed cooperation between TomTom and Tele Atlas since the acquisition was completed. HD Traffic and Map Share are two other technologies that will benefit to Tele Atlas; it is likely that more announcements will be made in this area before the end of the year.
credit:gpsbusinessnews.com
Teen Challenge of Texas Relies on JETT-Track GPS Tracking to Monitor and Recover Stolen Vehicles
Solana Beach, CA - Teen Challenge of Texas, a non-profit, which operates recovery centers throughout Texas for people struggling with drug addiction, recently installed JETT-Track GPS tracking units on their vehicles. For several months they have had students and interns take vehicles without permission. Vehicles are sometimes returned or found in impound yards, but mostly they went unreturned.
"We operate solely on donations and we cannot afford the disruptions caused by missing vehicles or the cost to replace them. We purchased JETT-Track as a deterrent and to track usage," said Lonnie Bear, Corporate IT Specialist, Teen Challenge of Texas.
"Recently, a staff member noticed that a van had not returned for the night. We were able to track the location of the vehicle online and contact the Bexar County Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department, with cooperation from the San Antonio Police Department, was able to dispatch officers to follow the vehicle and apprehend the driver at a safe location. All of this took place in under two hours. We are very pleased that we have our vehicle back and the driver was safely apprehended before he caused further harm to himself or others," Bear said.
More and more companies are realizing the benefits of GPS truck tracking and most see a return on their GPS investment within the first six weeks. Visit www.jett-track.com to download a FREE research report and see how much GPS truck tracking can save your company today.
About JETT-Track
JETT-Track gives trucking companies the ability to manage, locate and track their service vehicles in real-time. JETT-Track is based in Solana Beach, CA. Additional information and a live, hands-on demonstration of our GPS tracking capabilities are available at www.jett-track.com.
"We operate solely on donations and we cannot afford the disruptions caused by missing vehicles or the cost to replace them. We purchased JETT-Track as a deterrent and to track usage," said Lonnie Bear, Corporate IT Specialist, Teen Challenge of Texas.
"Recently, a staff member noticed that a van had not returned for the night. We were able to track the location of the vehicle online and contact the Bexar County Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department, with cooperation from the San Antonio Police Department, was able to dispatch officers to follow the vehicle and apprehend the driver at a safe location. All of this took place in under two hours. We are very pleased that we have our vehicle back and the driver was safely apprehended before he caused further harm to himself or others," Bear said.
More and more companies are realizing the benefits of GPS truck tracking and most see a return on their GPS investment within the first six weeks. Visit www.jett-track.com to download a FREE research report and see how much GPS truck tracking can save your company today.
About JETT-Track
JETT-Track gives trucking companies the ability to manage, locate and track their service vehicles in real-time. JETT-Track is based in Solana Beach, CA. Additional information and a live, hands-on demonstration of our GPS tracking capabilities are available at www.jett-track.com.
An Easy Primer on GPS
Let's start with the acronym: GPS stands for global positioning system. Originally a DARPA-funded joint project of the Air Force and Navy, this satellite network tells ya where stuff is, like bombers and cruise missiles in decades past, or you as of mid-2000 when the government made GPS of decent accuracy available for civilian electronics. (It was available before then, but wasn't good enough for reliable turn-by-turn app.) The soul of GPS is the constellation of at least 24 satellites way out in orbit. Signals from four separate birds are usually needed for a standard GPS receiver to peg your position.
The GPS goods most people are familiar with are ones you mount in your car (though like we said, GPS will fit just about anywhere now) with the biggest players being Garmin, TomTom and Magellan. They used to be a lot more expensive, but now you can get basic namebrand models for not much more than $200, and cheap knock-offs for even less.
At a basic level, these all operate the same way, with variations in feature sets and UI: Your GPS receiver picks up signals from orbiting satellites and plots your position accordingly on pre-loaded maps. (The maps themselves typically come from one of just two companies, Navteq and Tele Atlas.) More recently, live traffic info (or something close to it) to avoid the Monday jam courtesy of an overturned 18-wheeler of pig lard has been the goal, with the pricey (but awesome) Dash Express delivering the up to the minute goods via GPRS cellular connection.
While GPS has gotten better in your car and on your wrist, the real excitement is its movements into cellphones and other gadgets such as cameras for location-based services (and maybe ads) and tricks like geo-tagging. Sprint's Instinct phone, for instance, makes a big a deal out of having real GPS while the iPhone has less accurate triangulation via cellphone towers, since being accurate to within several blocks isn't nearly as helpful as knowing where you are within a couple of meters. Friend finders and kid locators are options on pretty much every carrier.
As GPS modules get smaller and less power-hungry, you can expect GPS to keep showing up in ever smaller and crazier gadgets, since it'll be cheap and easy to cram it in. Manufacturers on everything from laptops to shoes are getting in on GPS mania, so even if you never owned a GPS device, odds are, you soon will.
GPS Tracking On CTA Buses - Track Your Route Here
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- More CTA riders can track their bus routes now and figure out what time to get to the bus stop.
Starting today - the CTA has added 18 more bus routes to its Bus
Tracker program. That makes 32 of the CTA's 154 routes available
online. They’re mostly on the south and west sides and come out of the
CTA's Archer and 74th Street garages.
Starting today - the CTA has added 18 more bus routes to its Bus
Tracker program. That makes 32 of the CTA's 154 routes available
online. They’re mostly on the south and west sides and come out of the
CTA's Archer and 74th Street garages.
Buses on the 32 routes have GPS systems that let you track them.
CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney says there are a number of different
views, including looking at a particular bus stop and getting the
estimated arrival times for all buses that'll stop there in the next 20
minutes.
Gaffney says new routes will be added to the bus tracker program throughout the spring and summer.
Before today when 18 more routes were added, she says the bus
tracker web site was getting three thousand hits a day. With 32 routes
online today…Gaffney expects many more..
She says feedback has been positive with most riders asking when will the program be available for *their* routes.
Routes now available are: 20, 35, 39, 43, 49, X49, 54B, 55A, 55N,
62, 62H, 63W, 94, 165, 9, X9, X20, 21, 44, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52A, 53A,
55, X55, 59, 60, 63, 67 and 75.
Elements of GPS
GPS has three parts: the space segment, the user segment, and the control segment. The space segment consists of a constellation of 24 satellites plus some spares, each in its own orbit 11,000 nautical miles above Earth. The user segment consists of receivers, which you can hold in your hand or mount in a vehicle, like your car. The control segment consists of ground stations (five of them, located around the world) that make sure the satellites are working properly. The master control station at Schriever Air Force Base, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, runs the system.
Ground Stations
The GPS control segment consists of several ground stations located around the world:
• a master control station at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado
• five unstaffed monitor stations: Hawaii and Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean; Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean; Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean; and Colorado Springs, Colorado
• four large ground-antenna stations that send commands and data up to the satellites and
collect telemetry back from them
• a master control station at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado
• five unstaffed monitor stations: Hawaii and Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean; Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean; Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean; and Colorado Springs, Colorado
• four large ground-antenna stations that send commands and data up to the satellites and
collect telemetry back from them
A Constellation of Satellites
An orbit is one trip in space around Earth. GPS satellites each take 12 hours to orbit Earth. Each satellite is equipped with an atomic clock so accurate that it keeps time to within three nanoseconds—that’s 0.000000003, or three-billionths of a second—to let it broadcast signals that are synchronized with those from other satellites.The signal travels to the ground at the speed of light. Even at this speed, the signal takes a measurable amount of time to reach the receiver. The difference between the time when the signal is received and the time when it was
sent, multiplied by the speed of light, enables the receiver to calculate the distance to the satellite. To calculate its precise latitude, longitude, and altitude, the receiver measures the distance to four separate GPS satellites.
Military Uses for GPS
Although the GPS system was completed only a few years ago, it has already proved to be a valuable aid to U.S. military forces. Picture the desert, with its wide, featureless expanses of sand. The terrain looks much the same for miles. Without a reliable navigation system, U.S. forces could not have performed the maneuvers of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. With GPS the soldiers were able to go places and maneuver in sandstorms or at night when even the Iraqi troops who lived there couldn’t. More than 1,000 portable commercial receivers were initially purchased for their use. The demand was so great that before the
end of the conflict, more than 9,000 commercial receivers were in use in the Gulf region. They were carried by soldiers on the ground and were attached to vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft instrument panels. GPS receivers were used in several aircraft, including F-16 fighters, KC-135 aerial tankers, and B-52 bombers. Navy ships used them for rendezvous, minesweeping, and aircraft operations.
GPS has become important for nearly all military operations and weapons systems. It is also used on satellites to obtain highly accurate orbit data and to control spacecraft orientation.
end of the conflict, more than 9,000 commercial receivers were in use in the Gulf region. They were carried by soldiers on the ground and were attached to vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft instrument panels. GPS receivers were used in several aircraft, including F-16 fighters, KC-135 aerial tankers, and B-52 bombers. Navy ships used them for rendezvous, minesweeping, and aircraft operations.
GPS has become important for nearly all military operations and weapons systems. It is also used on satellites to obtain highly accurate orbit data and to control spacecraft orientation.
The Aerospace Corporation
The Aerospace Corporation is a private, nonprofit company established in 1960 to serve and support U.S. national-security space projects and programs. We operate a federally funded research and development center specializing in space systems and technologies. Aerospace provides systems engineering, architecture, and development support to the U.S. government, principally the United States Air Force. We also perform national-security work for other agencies in the national interest.
Our primary resource is people. Technical and scientific professionals of the highest caliber are responsible for a corporate tradition of excellence. Nearly half of our employees are members of the technical staff. Two-thirds of the technical staff hold advanced degrees in a broad range of disciplines, and about one-fourth of those staff members hold doctoral degrees.
Our corporate headquarters is located in El Segundo, California, next to Los Angeles Air Force Base. Regional offices exist at Air Force launch sites on the East and West coasts; at Johnson Space Center in Texas; at satellite operations and technology centers in California, Colorado, and New Mexico; and in the Washington, D.C., area.
Our primary resource is people. Technical and scientific professionals of the highest caliber are responsible for a corporate tradition of excellence. Nearly half of our employees are members of the technical staff. Two-thirds of the technical staff hold advanced degrees in a broad range of disciplines, and about one-fourth of those staff members hold doctoral degrees.
Our corporate headquarters is located in El Segundo, California, next to Los Angeles Air Force Base. Regional offices exist at Air Force launch sites on the East and West coasts; at Johnson Space Center in Texas; at satellite operations and technology centers in California, Colorado, and New Mexico; and in the Washington, D.C., area.
Receivers
GPS receivers can be carried in your hand or be installed on aircraft, ships, tanks, submarines, cars, and trucks.
These receivers detect, decode, and process GPS satellite signals. More than 100 different receiver models are already in use. The typical hand-held receiver is about the size of a cellular telephone, and the newer models are even smaller. The commercial hand-held units distributed to U.S. armed forces personnel during the Persian
Gulf War weighed only 28 ounces (less than two pounds). Since then, basic receiver functions have been miniaturized onto integrated circuits that weigh about one ounce.
These receivers detect, decode, and process GPS satellite signals. More than 100 different receiver models are already in use. The typical hand-held receiver is about the size of a cellular telephone, and the newer models are even smaller. The commercial hand-held units distributed to U.S. armed forces personnel during the Persian
Gulf War weighed only 28 ounces (less than two pounds). Since then, basic receiver functions have been miniaturized onto integrated circuits that weigh about one ounce.
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