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Zoombak GPS tracking

757 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  AZgl1800, 
Bagmaster
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I received a new J C Whitney car catalog in the mail today and found this GPS tracking system in it. It's called the Zoombak and has all the same tracking features as the Spot systems.

On their website it doesn't list any specs of the sat receiver so I don't know if it's better than the Spot system or not. It does it's reporting by a cell connection to T-Mobile. Now the T-Mobile system here in my area isn't all that great as far as coverage and has a lot of gaps The universal model is only 99 bucks and then of course there's the tracking subscription you have to buy for 9.99 a month or you can pre-pay by the quarter or year to save more bucks.

It's a USA system only as they shut down their European version.

It's got a lot of mixed reviews on Amazon.

http://www.zoombak.com/
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Bill Connor
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Tried it, sent it back as it don't work in many areas even though it should.
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Bagmaster
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Bill Connor wrote:
Tried it, sent it back as it don't work in many areas even though it should.
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Yea, I looked at their coverage map with T-Mobile and it's real sparse in a lot of areas. They would have better coverage if they had went with AT&T or Sprint.
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AZgl1800
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Anything that relies on the cellphone system is bound to be a failure.

A good part of the Metro Phoenix area is a barren waste land when it comes to cellphone coverage.

I deal with it everyday because our fire dispatching system uses the cellphone towers on a dedicated IP based circuit to dispatch to laptop computers that have cellphone modems.

The firefighters complain the instant they loose the connection, which is on just about every call they go out on.

The cellphone system is a joke when it comes to 100% reliability. It is just impossible to cover every nook and cranny. Large buildings cause dead spots, a little hill top blocks the cell sites.

If you want reliable emergency reporting from a GPS unit, you must buy the satellite versions. ie, the ones that talk back to a satellite, not a cellphone tower.

even that is not 100%, atmospheric effects, and the satellite not being within view at any given time. But the units like SPOT over come that by repeating the transmissions until the GPS unit gets an ACK signal back from the satellite.

It's not real time, all the time, but knowing where you were 15 minutes ago beats not knowing where you went at all.

Evidence the biker up in Idaho last month. If his bike had been equipped with SPOT, his family would have known the route he took, and where that route stopped. Even if the SPOT were destroyed in the crash, it would still have left cookie crumbs showing his route.
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R
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This unit I don't know, but look around and Spot can be bought for $79 or the newer improved model for $149. There's people that love Spot, and some don't like it. Personally mine works fantasic. Of course it is $149 a year to use it. I get that much enjoyment just seeing where I've ridden, not to mention the safety thing after Don was killed up in Idaho and missing for 2 weeks.
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AZgl1800
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You can't help but wonder?

If Don had a Spot gps with him, would it have changed the outcome?

Would surely depend on the nature of the off experience, but still, I wonder.
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R
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I wonder too, and the thing I think the most about is not a real pleasant thing. I don't think anyone knows, or at least I haven't read it. Did Don get killed instantly or did he lay in that ditch all battered up for who knows how long which is a real sad thought when possibly he could have been found.
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AZgl1800
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You said what I was implying, and trying to avoid :crying:

IF, and we won't ever know, the autopsy will be kept close to the family; but IF, he did indeed survive the initial OFF experience........ would a Spot GPS have kept him with us?
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