Okie Hunter
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: Mounds, Oklahoma
Posts: 1070 |
quote:
Originally posted by garminguru
Well, first off, I hope the fact that you are tracking the vehicles of your "buy here pay here customers" is being fully disclosed to them. I understand why you are doing it. It is one of those deals where if they had paid their loans in the first place they would not have to come to you and pay a down payment equal to the worth of the vehicle and then 24 monthly payments of 300 on top of the down payment. Then, when they are 2 days late on a payment you run it down and do it all over again.
The problem with this technology is that it has to use the cell tower infrastructure to communicate the GPS findings back to you. You may say you can track any vehicle anywhere on earth but that is simply not true. No cell service and you will not track that car 1 mile down the road. I can literally take you five minutes from my house and drive you a span of about 15 miles and you will only get cell service in three very short spots and it will still be very bad when you do have service. And, when you use those towers, it comes with a fee. I prefer my astro and DC30 where it is paid in full, and I am not relying on a cell tower.
Your statement should be amended to say anywhere there is cell service. What do these devices cost your dealership a month?
Wow! Do I sense an attitude coming from you "garminguru"?
First, I am not going to get into the nuts and bolts of the nature of my car biz with you on whether or not I tell them they have a tracker on their unit. I find it to be none of your business. Furthermore, you are delusional if you think the car biz is comprised of selling cars with a cash value of what I have as the down payment plus 24 payments of $300 per month.
Now back to the topic at hand. I will give you your point that the cell service may in fact play a part in the equation. I did not say I had built one of these yet, only that the technology is there if someone wanted to exploit it. There would be limitations with both systems. While the cell signal may play a factor in certain situations, I am willing to bet your Garmin will not pick up a signal of my hound being transported by a thief traveling down the highway thirty miles away. I am sure the enfotrace unit would be able to do it as I have seen the enfotrace unit do just that many times when I needed to locate an asset.
I cannot tell you an exact figure of what I pay for my enfotrace units I have installed on my inventory because I buy them in bulk and I have a contract with them. I will tell you that these units cost me less than $200 each, much less actually. I get the first year of reporting and logging in to find each particular unit for free with up to 100 "locates" allowed per year. Again, this is for the car business side of vehicle tracking. I am sure it can be modified to suit a hunters needs. After the first year, my cost is $12.99 per year for each locating device.
With the cost of an Alpha at basically $800, it would take me forty-six years (almost twenty-nine years with an Astro 320) in paying the yearly fees to equal the cost of these enfotrace units. So, go ahead! Own your Garmin Alpha outright for $800.
If someone has the divine intervention to incorporate this technology for hunters, I am sure the enfotrace will be sold for a lot less and give much better service than a Garmin. I know it will beat the Garmin hands down in several different situations when factoring the current limitations of the Garmin devices of today.
Again, I didn't bring this up to start some kind of flame about the Garmin being an inferior product. It isn't. The Garmin is the best thing going right now in GPS tracking for hunters today. But, if we should call the Garmin the do it all, end all when it comes to dog tracking units, we are limiting ourselves at making a good thing that much better. Sometimes, better ideas come from looking outside the box.
It is my opinion that the technology is at our fingertips to make hound tracking equipment the best it could possibly be with very little limitations. If I can track a 2003 Buick Century from my cell phone when it is sitting in a town forty miles away, surely the technology is available to do it with a hound tracking unit?
Respectfully,
Freddy Wells
Mounds, Oklahoma
Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged
|
01-02-2013 12:41 AM
