The Transit County of Essex!

[Eugene Speed]

Must be worth a visit to North Weald then

To be honest Alan I wish I had the time to get to a few meets, work is keeping me very much busy at the moment. I will be aiming to get to the Ace Cafe meet in September purely as it will be the last chance to go before the LEZ comes into force.

[AlanN]

Ill see you there then, or on the streets Southend

[Eugene Speed]

A couple more free hours came my way today, so got a couple more jobs done.

Step light salvaged from an old Leyland bus, now grafted into the side loading door step area.


First test fitting of the refurbished dash pod.


Securon four-point harness fitted to the Cobra Monaco bucket seat.


Not much chance of any free time for the next week or two, then hopefully I will have a few days to get some of the bigger jobs done!

[Eugene Speed]

Finally got round to fitting the CB and PMR radio sets today. Both are on slide mounts so I can take them out of the van when I have to leave it parked.

[Herts]

Hi, what is a PMR radio.

Andy

[AlanN]

Hi, what is a PMR radio.

Andy

Personal or Private Mobile Radio

[transitandy]

I would not mind getting a cb for my van

[AlanN]

Ive got one and never use it, I could never find anywhere suitable to put it, soo I took it out when Nick painted the van. Will think about putting it back

[Vandalism]

county - your number plate bacwards spells HUNI (HUNNY) or HUNI'S (hunny's)

[transitandy]

Ive got one and never use it, I could never find anywhere suitable to put it, soo I took it out when Nick painted the van. Will think about putting it back

im gonna have a look on ebay

[Eugene Speed]

Hi, what is a PMR radio.

Andy

The PMR radio is an Icom IC-F410 that covers UHF 410-470Mhz, I have it covering the PMR446 channels, the FRS channels and the local ham repeaters. I also have an Icom IC28-E that covers VHF 136-170Mhz that is going in the van when I can find space to put it!

[Eugene Speed]

Today I successfully fitted my GPS Tracker unit to the van. Took a bit of fiddling about to get it connecting to the GPRS service, but now it reports the position of the van to my PC, which then plots it in real time onto Google Maps. Also, I can arm/disarm the alarm and disable the engine via SMS. The unit will also text me if the alarm is activated, if the ignition is tampered with, or if the van is moved. Finally, I can dial into the unit and hear what is going on inside the vehicle from my mobile.

Great value unit for £45, but a lot of head scratching to get the realtime GPRS tracking feature working.

[dieselhead123]

Hi fella,
where did you get the tracker gadget from? If you don't mind telling
I would like to have a go at fitting one myself, just in case I have to park my van in Essex

[Luke]

yeah me too is there a subscription fee on it

[Eugene Speed]

The tracker is a TK103, loads of them on ebay. No subscription fee as such, just pop in a SIM card and go through the setup sequence. The real-time tracking feature uses GPRS to send information over the internet to your PC, it helps to have a fixed IP address or at least an IP forwarding address from no-ip.com or DynDNS to make the service work.

The control and command of the unit is mainly by SMS, and the unit will communicate back via SMS and/or the GPRS web tracker software. It takes a bit of tinkering to get it all running smoothly, but once it is set up it works great.

I chose to use a PAYG SIM from giffgaff.com, as a £10 topup gives unlimited texts and unlimited internet access.

Wiring the unit is simple enough. There are two antennas, one for GSM and the other for GPS. There is a wiring harness that has all the wires for power, sensors and switching. There is also a microphone for remote monitoring, and also a panic button.

The instructions were not the clearest, although better than some of the 'chinglish' manuals I have had the displeasure of having to use! The unit also comes with GPS Tracker software on CD, again not the best bit of software I have used but works OK.