If the two small plastic prongs on the back of the light haven't broken, you can use any GoPro mount. You might require an extension arm, of which there is a large variety available.
Thank you so much for all that information and manual. I'll see what the issue is once received. AS mentioned in an earlier post I already purchased a tracker but it just didn't work. I got hold of a new O2 SIM for GPS devices which still as credit on it. So will give that a go first. I believe GiffGaff uses the O2 network anyway? Be in touch and thanks again.
I look forward to reading all about your new practical test.
Signal the entire UK ulilising helium balloons? I believe there is a nationwide cartel of bike thieves co-ordinating the sale stolen bikes in areas far away from where they were nicked. I offer no proof of my beliefs, nor do they have any basis in fact, like the best beliefs available for all to believe in, despite reality and for the hell of it... because it feels safer to be loud certain and wrong than confused and scared when faced with decades of life's vicissitudes. Saves time and effort. Well that's what I believe anyway.
www.thethingsnetwork.org
Second hand, those are approaching money I'd risk throwing into the air:
Yep, and it's the worst coverage of any! Guaranteed when I can't get signal with Giffgaff, the person next to me can using any other network. What happened to radio mast sharing? Perhaps O2 is too tight. I might switch to EE when they get cheaper. I've read some networks offer rollover for unused credit - I'd prefer they lower prices instead, but of course they're not going to do that.
Pretty close to that.
I don't know if you are aware of the tiny (1.8gm) programmable, balloon transmitters made by Hans Summers and sold for about £50. They have gps onboard, transmit their position, altitude, battery voltage and the temperature, using the weak signal protocol WSPR on a variety of frequencies, and are used by a community of radio amateurs and tracked around the world. Some have made many complete circuits of the planet. Summers who runs a business called QRP Labs, also runs a tracking page which shows where the balloons are. I have been amazed at how durable some of these tiny balloons are and have followed some for weeks. I have built many QRP Labs transmitters and transceivers over the years the business has operated and they are far and away the best producer of such kits we have ever had.
I have kept an eye on the WSPR stuff, although tecnically not legal for UK Amateurs.
Do satellite operators offer LoRa relay services? If so, how much do they charge per megabyte? Real time GPS bike tracking will require more data relayed, but a short message sent only after a bike is stolen would be cheaper. 77,000 "HELP! I'VE BEEN NICKED!" followed by GPS co-ordinates sent every year isn't going to amount to much data. They're not all going to be stolen at exactly the same time.
I have been running a WSPR beacon 24/7 since about 2012. An OFCOM guy came to follow up a spurious interference complaint from a crazy neighbour in about 2013. The neighbour - a nutter - thought that I was responsible for every failure of cheap electronic tat in his house because I had some antennas in my garden for ultra low power communications which were mostly receive anyway. The OFCOM guy phoned me to chat and suggested WSPR and QRP modes. He came to visit and I showed him my 100 miliwatt beacon and he said if more people with transmitting licences used WSPR, he would have fewer visits to do. Obviously the complaint was rejected and the loony neighbour was charged for the investigation. Since I am entitled by my license to put out 400 watt transmissions, a few milliwatts of weak signal protocol is neither here nor there. The nutter thought his crap TV system was my fault and not his bargain basement ridiculous home done installation. He also claimed I had affected his microwave oven. Crazy fecker.
Whoops i was talking about chasing one of these :
still could be tricky to track down..It is incredible what some of the more practised balloon folk can achieve. Dave VE3CKL has had balloons which continued multiple, and I mean many circumnavigations and stayed up over six months, continually transmitting on a twenty minute schedule in daylight with about 15 milliwatts of WSPR protocol, giving first the normal WSPR data (callsign, rough position, power) and then subsequently on the next cycle the special telemetry with more accurate position, altitude, temperature and battery voltage. Of course the batteries are tiny and very soon go dead after dark. They stay that way until the sun is on the tiny, light weight solar panels and then the QRP Labs beacon wakes up, takes its GPS fix and starts transmitting again. I regard Hans Summers as an absolute genius. I have been dealing with him since he was operating out of a tiny cupboard in his flat in Japan when he was doing comms for a big bank there. He designed all of his kits himself and made them available pretty much at cost and he supported numpties like me to get them working. I can't imagine how he does it for the money he charges, but now he is selling so many that he is making a decent living. He now lives in Turkey by the sea and runs his operation from there. His kits are visionary in their capabilities and of course they all depend on his pretty special programming skills to do what they do in the various micro controllers he has used over the years. The difference between Summers' kits and most amateur radio kits is night and day. I started out in the early eighties building comparatively terrible kits which could not even hold a frequency long enough to do a morse code contact without drifting a couple of kilohertz. The current qrp labs stuff doesn't even deviate 1 htz over a two minute transmission. It is a thousand times better than what went before.
One guy, who I have met several times, runs Lacuna Space.
Does he currently own a nice bicycle? Could perhaps be persuaded to move a satellite a bit for a test, if he's got skin in the game...
).
O2 supply ends at some point in 2025.
Unlike Airtags, Chipolo doesn't have UWB. I don't know if Pebblebee does...
www.androidauthority.com
If those low bandwidth modes are turned off. I think the smart meter system in the southern half of the uk will be in trouble. I think all smart meters south of yorkshire depend on data sent over those cellular networks on 2g, i think. The far north is covered by a 430 mhz radio system run by Arquiva. I'm on that.As we know Air Tags are iOS/iPhone specific but Android are fighting back - go into youtube and search 'Chipolo and Pebblebee ' or similar to get an insight into this interesting alternative which will work with the Android Find My Device network.
(ok, so you don't use an Android smartphone! - in that case you'll have to get your oil lamp out and search that way
As has been said, a lot of existing trackers will stop working when the 4 cellular providers turn off their 3G networks most if not all be the end of 2024.
If you do manage to locate your stolen bike, unless you're prepared to take your own action for recovery, it'll still be 'good by bike' as there is unlikely to be any police action to aid recovery (but likely plenty of action if you take matters into your own hands).
This recent article here in the Sunday Times illustrates this in relation to iPhone thefts:
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Surprising how visually one can lose sight of these once line of sight is lost or are tree top hugging. Still have my lighter then air with basket stored in my garage , hasn't seen light of day for 24 years.Whoops i was talking about chasing one of these :
a lot easier to see from 5 miles away
