Friggen Thieves

[badgixxer]

My bike and trailer have been stolen out of my garage at my apartment complex - some how they got my garage door open..... cut the lock off the hitch and took my shit - the dumb asses left the front and rearstand behind
i'm so fucking pissed - i have over $1000 woth of stuff on the way for the bike

any info i just want my bike back no questions asked

http://forums.sportbikes.net/forums/showthread.php?t=264763

[251am]

 What kind of trailer is it, what did the bike look like, track or street skins, what did the trailer look like, license plate on the trailer? Oh, and where was it stolen from?

[EX#996]

more details please!

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

     Did your garage have a garage door opener on it? If so I may know how they got in. A technique thieves have been using around northern Illinois is to utilize the emergency door release rope that hangs down from the overhead track. They push in on the top of the garage door then slide a pole with a hook or loop on the end over the top of the door and catch the release cord. They then pull and release the door from the garage door opener track, this leaves the door able to be lifted. Some thieves actually reattach the quick release after they are done stealing to try and confuse people as to how it happened. Usually there are some marks left at the very top of the door, or on the garage door frame, most likely in the center of the door. My brother luckily had heard of this being done and had removed our release cord immediately (All my brothers tools, numerous toys, and his quarter mile race car are in there). This summer I noticed that the frame of our garage was all scratched in the center where it was apparent someone had tried to do this to us, luckily we were prepared.

     Unfortunately my advice comes to late for you, but for everyone else: Remove your garage door quick release cord! Not only can this protect your garage from being ransacked, but I have seen way too many people that don't lock the man door to the house from the garage which would be easy access for thieves without having to break anything. :-/

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

What kind of trailer is it, what did the bike look like, track or street skins, what did the trailer look like, license plate on the trailer? Oh, and where was it stolen from?

If you use the link he provided it will go to SBN and it shows a picture there, along with the thread going there as well.

[cornercamping]

Ya know, my industry is GPS and telematics.  I bet that if enough people showed interest, I could swing a deal with some heavy hitting AVL (automatic vehicle locator) company to custom build you guys a self contained GPS tracker.  I'd just have to show that it would be worth their while.   IF let's say the pricing was right, would you guys be interested?   Let's say it was something really simple.  A self contained box with no antenna's, no wiring, and the size of a pack of cigarettes.  It would run on a battery and would last 5 years without replacing the battery. Let's say it cost $99.00 for the hardware, and $19.99 a year.  You guys think you'd be interested in that?  The way it would work would be if your trailer was stolen, you would email the black box, and it would reply back with it's NEMA string (GPS cooridnates.)  So, your bike, trailer or whatever gets stolen, you'd email it, and it would reply back it's location in coordinates.  You would then take those cooridantes, and type them into mapquest or whatever, and it would show exactly where your trailer or bike is.  If for some reason, a real time location isn't available, because lets say the stuff is in a garage or something, you would get the last good known fix.  So, the last time it was outside in view of satellites.  
Realistically, it could be done at that cost or cheaper.  The thing that you need to avoid is having an online interface for mapping.  That is where the cost is incurred on a monthly basis.  Therefore, just get the coorrdinates, and enter the location data yourself in mapquest.

To summarize,

$99.00 for the hardware. Completely self contained with no wiring, and no external antennas.  Form factor of around the size of a pack of cigarettes. Battery life of 5 years without battery replacement.

$20.00 a year with no other charges but can only be tracked let's say 5 times a year.

To track it, you would send an email to the box, and it would reply back to your email with it's GPS latitude, longititue, speed, heading, and altitude.

Would you guys like me to research this and see if I can find it for you?

[cornercamping]

To give you an idea of how it would work, let's say your stuff got stolen. You would send an email to your devices pin number.  It would be formated like this:

5463322@mobilemessage.com
Subject: Locate
Body: Locate

Then, within a minute, the device would reply to your email with a string that looks like this:

$GPRMC,074324,A,3726.0855,N,12212.1938,W,000.2,017.0,130803,015.4,E*66

You would then take some of those numbers, enter them into Mapquest or Map Point, and that will give you a map with an address for reference.  

You found your bike, trailer, or whatever.  :D

[cornercamping]

Alright, get this.   I made a phone call just to see where something like this would stand.  I have a company willing to build it if 100 people will commit.  They even beat the pricing.  $85.00 for hardware, and $15.00 a year.  TThey are a well established company, and have been around for a long time.  If I show them 100 people, the CEO said they will build it for you guys.   Let me know if you guys are interested.  I'll set it up so you guys can call a specific person, tell them I sent you, and they'll hook you up from there.  Each unit will be built to order, and they will more than likely do COD.

 :D

[larryg]

Sounds like lojack for bikes...I bet you could sell thousands of those things if you marketed them to street riders. Heck, insurance companies would probably offer discounts for having one.

Just a thought.

[cornercamping]

Kind of like LoJack, but it doesn't require the police to have any equipment to locate it.  LoJack requires police to buy hardware for thousands of $.  The system I'm describing uses Cellular networks instead.  This way, it's like a text message.  It's kinda like sending a text message to a cell phone.  You send it a message asking "where are you" and it replies back with it's current GPS location data.  If for some reason it can't get a good fix from GPS, for instance it was indoors, it would reply back with it's last good fix.  This is kind of like the system we build for Law Enforcement Sting Vehicles.  What they do is put a "dummy car" out there and wait for someone to steal it.  The minute it's stolen, the device starts sending out location messages every 35 seconds.  They watch it and log where it goes, so then they know where the chop shop is, ect.   Pretty neat. The way it works is called Geo-fencing.  For instance, I could set a perimeter on your trailer.  Once you know the trailer isn't going to move all winter and is parked, you could set a geofence where if the trailer moves 20 feet, it would automatically send out GPS reports to you with an emergency notification of movement.  It works really well.  Kinda like your trailer moves, and you get a text message to your cell phone and an email letting you know immediately.

[cornercamping]

Actually, after spending some time on the phone, the way it would work would be the customer, meaning you, would be assigned a PIN number.  When your stuff gets stolen, you would give the police the PIN number for your stuff, and they would  call a 800 number.  The cops would then call the 800 number, give them the PIN, and they will give the cops the exact address of where your stuff is, and then the cops could go get it, or track it.  This way, nobody is liable in the instance you get pissed and go over there with a shot gun or baseball bat.  Liablity is an issue.  So, they'll only tell the cops where it is, but who cares, you'll get your stuff back, and the crooks will get busted.  

[OmniGLH]

I could be interested in that, but my biggest question is:  how durable is it?

I've got a pretty good habit of throwing my bike down the track.  It's got to be able to reliably withstand impacts.  And I wouldn't want to have to remove it and reinstall it every time I loaded or unloaded the bike - it would have to be permanent.