NaviGadget

Here is a problem: You are a diver and want to use a handheld GPS receiver to mark your position. Your device is not water proof and signals from global positioning satellites can not penetrate water.

What you should do is place your GPS receiver into a watertight container such as the ones from Otterbox and let it float to the surface long enough for it to get a position fix. After the fix you can pull it back down and mark your position…. read »

If you’ve been meaning to hack your Magellan 3100 GPS navigation system we’ve got the source for you. Nothing too exciting here but you can change your splash screen, add a file manager… But also you can do useful stuff such as increasing your POI’s by a small margin which now will contain 6 million POI vs. the 750,000 POI in the original, switch between map files, or even add a basic media player… via

HI-601VT from Haicom is a retrofitting GPS / GSM tracking device that works with any regular SIM card with a phone number from any regular phone. The accessories that enables you to track the device from an analog phone look like they are from the cold war era but as long as it works…

Also there are accessories which even let you control your car (more like disable) that can stop the oil pump or electricity again using any phone. And if you get the microphone kit you can also stream voice from the HI-601VT side. There’s even a vibration system that wakes up the system, or dial back when triggered.

The way it works is that HI-601VT A/C decoder can decode the GSM and send it back as dial tone in the digital GPS NMEA format which can be attached to the universal microphone cable on any phone speaker, which then transmits the dial tone back into your decoder for the decoding.

It is a universal solution which can be used with any dial tone from any phone speaker. User can track the remote object by using any traditional home phone or the latest smart phone.

We’re not sure who’s importing this into U.S. or Europe just yet but HI-601VT really is a serious GPS tracking solution which would make life a lot easier for stalkers :) The fact that it lets you listen or even disable a vehicle using an analog phone is a unique feature which is pretty much a DIY Lo-Jack system without monthly fees. Of course you’ll need a SIM card dedicated to this but HI-601VT will still probably be a cheaper solution.

We’ll be sure to let you know if this becomes available in stores. Do leave a message if you come across this for sale anywhere on the internet. Check out these rar links (manual A, manual B ) for more details.

We had talked about some other commercial and DIY GPS jammers before but here we are presenting another one today. Built by Limor and presented on ladyada.net, this device is a self-tuning portable RF jammer that can can jam many different frequency bands without the need for a spectrum analyzer. Even though the earlier version seen on left has big antennas sticking out, the later version on the right is more compact, small enough to fit inside a pack of cigarettes.

Wave Bubble has an internal lithium-ion battery that can provides up to 2 hours of jamming when using two bands such as cell phones or 4 hours if you only care to scramble a single band, such as cordless phones, GPS devices, WiFi, bluetooth, etc. The battery is rechargeable via a mini-USB connector or 4mm DC jack, however alternatively you can use 3 AAA batteries.

Even the instructions are complete don’t think you can finish this jammer in one weekend for it involves difficult soldering, obscure parts, and other necessary equipment to debug. Also keep in mind the device is not for sale here nor anywhere else for it would be against FCC regulations. Do NOT contact us or Limor for how to purchase please.

If our previous article on DIY GSM GPS tracking was too difficult for you here is another option for you. This one is from Nick at DDP who’ll explain how he managed to put together a GPS tracking device with the Telit GM862-GPS module.

I purchased the GM862 Evaluation Kit (RS232 version) from SparkFun Electronics, at a cost of $309.60 (if you are in the UK import duty of around £25 may also be due, along with shipping). There are various other suppliers of GM862 based hardware, including Area SX s.r.l., Round Solutions (various development boards available), and Sequoia however unless you really know what you are doing, the cheapest / easiest solution will be to get the SparkFun Kit, which also includes the compatible evaluation / breakout board, antennas, power supply, and serial cable.

Instructables now has step-by-step instructions for how to make your own SD GPS logger which we talked about back in March this year. In case you are wondering this device is only for recording your location on an SD card which can later be transferred to your PC by removing the SD card.

The device includes the logger, battery, case, 512 MB SD card, and cable and will cost you $175.

People at Makezine recently put together a really simple GPS receiver with an LCD screen. Its functionality is obviously limited but you can still use it for some basic geocaching.

Here are a few links you may need if you really want to build this GPS with LCD:

• Parallax GPS Receiver Module
• Parallax 2×16 Serial LCD (Backlit)
• GPS Coordinates Converter

Make sure you watch their video too…

If you are into electronics and have some extra cash laying around here is your weekend project. You can build your very own GSM GPS tracking device. The materials will cost you about $280, the most expensive piece being the GM862-GPS module for $183.

If you follow his directions carefully, in the end you should be able to switch the module on and off, send text SMS messages through the module and fetch GPS positions from it which should look something like this:

Request GPS
AT$GPSACP got: AT$GPSACP
GPSACP: 131924.999,5333.9291N,00954.8841E,2.6,34.0,3,29.78,0.32,0.17,130707,07
OK

And if you are paranoid of people who can build one of these things you should get yourself a GPS and GSM jammer…via

Two Italian hackers have found a way to hack the traffic message channel (TMC) and are able to broadcast fake ‘events’ to cars within a mile radius.

That roadblock alert on your navigation system may not be real. Neither may that warning for a “terrorist incident,” an “air raid” or a “bullfight.”

Two Italian hackers have figured out how to send fake traffic information to navigation systems that use a data feature of FM radio for real-time traffic information. Using cheap, off-the-shelf hardware, they can broadcast traffic data that will be picked up by cars in about a one-mile radius.

Hackers discovered that the system used by many navigation systems to get traffic data is not secured. The data is sent using the Traffic Message Channel (TMC) of the Radio Data System (RDS), a standard way of transmitting data over FM radio also used to display station names and program titles. TMC is used throughout Western Europe, the U.S. and Australia.

Hackers were able to write a program that decodes RDS data. Then they figured out how to create their own TMC messages and broadcast those using an RDS encoder, an FM transmitter, an antenna and some other tools… via

The BeeLine GPS from BigRedBee is a small (1 1/4″ x 3″), self contained, battery operated GPS telemetry device. GPS coordinates are assembled into an AX.25 packet and transmitted over an RF link to a remote decoder. Originally designed for high power rocketry and high altitude baloons, this device has a range of more then 10 miles and makes use of standard amateur radio receivers to decode and display the location of the remote transmitter.

It also contains non-volatile memory to log coordinates for later download and analysis with progams such as Google Earth. Check out this screenshot of a rocket’s path to 17,000 AGL (above ground level) in Google Earth.

Other uses of BeeLine GPS includes RC airplanes, UAV’s, hot air balloons, and so on. If you are interested be prepared to present your amateur radio operator’s license along with $260.