CARMINDER GUIDE > TECHNOLOGY BEHIND CARMINDER

CARMINDER TECHNOLOGY

A brief overview of the Global Positioning System (GPS)

GPS is the most sophisticated system of pinpointing a position on earth so far developed by man. The idea was conceived in 1960, and was developed by the US military. The system was declared fully operation in 1995.

GPS is based on the principle of radio navigation, which has been in use since the early 20th century. Radio navigation uses a minimum of three radio transmitter towers all broadcasting a signal at exactly the same time. The transmitted signals all travel at exactly the same speed, and therefore each of these signals is detected by a receiver at a slightly different time. A calculation of these time differences is made by the receiver to determine how far the receiver is from each transmitter. With this information, the receiver can determine it’s exact position.

Some vehicle location systems still use this method, but their usefulness is limited to areas within range of the company’s transmitter towers. This method is also expensive to run, and these high costs are inevitably passed on to customers.

The difference with GPS is that the transmitters are satellites orbiting 20,200km above the earth. There are 24 of these satellites, all transmitting signals, and are free for the public to use.

All CarMinder units contain a GPS receiver, and are able to determine their location to an accuracy typically better than 30 meters. The combination of GPS and mobile phone technologies is what enables us to provide you with accurate vehicle location with no on-going fees.

Car alarms and immobilisors are great, but let’s fact it – a determined thief will always get around them. And once your car’s gone – there’s not much you can do about it except wait days or weeks for police to call you can let you know that you can pick up whatever’s left of your car.

And then there’s the insurance to deal with. Anyone who’s had their car stolen can tell you that ‘fair market value’ will leave you with much less car than you started with.

With CarMinder, the thief will be arrested before he’s had time to even think of trashing or stripping your car.


NO-ONGOING FEES

CarMinder is one of the few products available that does not rely on an expensive monitoring service. Instead, you use your mobile phone to communicate directly with your car. If your car is stolen, you don’t want to have to rely on someone else’s communications infrastructure for your car’s protection. With CarMinder, you take control – and no-one’s going on to be taking money from you every month. The only cost is to keep the GSM Sim card active.

SIMPLE TO USE

CarMinder is simple to use – just call your CarMinder’s phone number, and it will reject your (free) call. The unit then replies to you via sms text message displaying location, direction, UBD map number & grid numbers and speed of your car. If your car is stolen, it sends you a text message automatically.