Battery Powered Remote Bike Locator..... ?

[FIGJAM]

"And the answer is" .................................

BLACK SHOE POLISH ON THE HAND GRIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Elliot]

...
Pyrotechnic-based and very moopy with a high collateral effect. I like it, but the Borg... not so much.

Again, let me point out that we are discussing this as a matter of reading-amusement -- not with any intention of actually doing any such.

[GreyCoyote]

Rats. Why are all the BEST ideas illegal?

[Joeln]

So, back to the topic...
It seems like most of the locators on the market rely on GPS and cell phone service.
Does anybody know some hacks to one of these cheapo devices that an RDF could locate?

[Elliot]

Rats. Why are all the BEST ideas illegal?

Now.... You live in Texas.... Once upon a time... a Texan drove to the airport to meet an out-of-state friend coming to visit Texas for the first time. As the Texan led his friend out the front door of the terminal, the visitor was amazed to see that the Texan had parked right at the curb in front of the terminal, among the taxis and shuttle-buses and official vehicles.
So the visitor asked: "Isn't that illegal?"
The Texan replied: "You are in Texas now. An ill-egal is a sick bird."


(Warning. Thread drift in progress. Warning. Thread drift in progress.)

Yes, back to topic.

[GreyCoyote]

This morning I was looking at the XBee transceiver product line. There is a 250 mW version. I am liking the notion of these things coupled to a little micro and a GPS. Totalling up the draws, I get a 16 hour battery life when coupled to a 5 Ah supply. This assumes the GPS has a fix, can emerge from sleep mode in the advertised time, and the transmitter is being used in squirt/sleep mode and an Arduino micro running the show.

All we need now is video recorded to an SD card and you have a bait bike.

Hmmmmm...

[Elderberry]

"And the answer is" .................................

BLACK SHOE POLISH ON THE HAND GRIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, this ones great. Not really harmful, but makes the point.

[forty_eight]

Rats. Why are all the BEST ideas illegal?

Now.... You live in Texas.... Once upon a time... a Texan drove to the airport to meet an out-of-state friend coming to visit Texas for the first time. As the Texan led his friend out the front door of the terminal, the visitor was amazed to see that the Texan had parked right at the curb in front of the terminal, among the taxis and shuttle-buses and official vehicles.
So the visitor asked: "Isn't that illegal?"
The Texan replied: "You are in Texas now. An ill-egal is a sick bird."


(Warning. Thread drift in progress. Warning. Thread drift in progress.)

Yes, back to topic.

lol, nowadays an illegal in Texas is a jihadist from ISIS.

[trilobyte]

Just say no to playing vigilante, folks...

The trouble with a remote locator is you'd need to get within pretty close range of the thing in order for it to work. The problem (as I see it) with people losing their bike on the playa is that they're looking in the wrong place. Maybe they misjudged with streetlamp it was near (and off by a few hundred feet isn't going to be in remote range), or which camp it was parked at (it's easier to do than you think, especially when it comes to the big sound camp districts or when you're nowhere near sober).

And the trouble with boobytrapping/sabotaging your bike (shoe polish, etc) is that it's far more work than the really really easy solution to keeping people from pedaling off with your ride... run the cable from your lock through the tires.

The best advice I can give anyone for being able to find your bike is to be really creative and make your bike look distinctive. Get arty, make it look like something you can spot from dozens of feet away. Go nuts with a color, or a pattern, or some other similarly distinctive thing (my trike has my name in big letters on the side of the basket). Between that and running the cable lock through your tire, you're set.

[GreyCoyote]

The trouble with a remote locator is you'd need to get within pretty close range of the thing in order for it to work.

A 60 mw XBee at an elevation of 3 feet into a 5 dbi antenna gets you 4 miles. Put the receiver at 10 feet and go to the high power (250 mw) chip and you could hit Gerlach from the Man. This is with omni antennas. Put a stripline yagi on the receiving end and you would only be limited by the curvature of the earth. Put the receiver on one of the mountainsides and the optical horizon would be the effective limit.

But yup... A bike lock is probably more effective, albeit a bit less entertaining.

[BBadger]

Because of this thread I almost bought one of those screeching personal alarms at a junk sale. I briefly wanted to make it a bike alarm and then I came to my senses.

But what if you had one attached to a seat that had glue on it? When the thief hears it and leaps off the bike, the seat remains stuck to his ass and the only way to get rid of it is to discard the pants.

[theCryptofishist]

That sounds like every excuse I've ever heard from a shirt-cocker.

[BBadger]

Shirt cocker = pantsless bike thief?

No wonder they're playa-pariahs!

[Tin Halo]

...
Pyrotechnic-based and very moopy with a high collateral effect. I like it, but the Borg... not so much.

Again, let me point out that we are discussing this as a matter of reading-amusement -- not with any intention of actually doing any such.

"we"?

[pink]

Just say no to playing vigilante, folks...

The trouble with a remote locator is you'd need to get within pretty close range of the thing in order for it to work. The problem (as I see it) with people losing their bike on the playa is that they're looking in the wrong place. Maybe they misjudged with streetlamp it was near (and off by a few hundred feet isn't going to be in remote range), or which camp it was parked at (it's easier to do than you think, especially when it comes to the big sound camp districts or when you're nowhere near sober).

And the trouble with boobytrapping/sabotaging your bike (shoe polish, etc) is that it's far more work than the really really easy solution to keeping people from pedaling off with your ride... run the cable from your lock through the tires.

The best advice I can give anyone for being able to find your bike is to be really creative and make your bike look distinctive. Get arty, make it look like something you can spot from dozens of feet away. Go nuts with a color, or a pattern, or some other similarly distinctive thing (my trike has my name in big letters on the side of the basket). Between that and running the cable lock through your tire, you're set.

But this will help you find the bike that you left while not sober, at a different lamppost, etc.