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I came across this earlier….
http://www.spybug.org/catalog/i6.html
There may be some engineers that may perhaps be interested in such a device. 😉
K.
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
That would have pleased my old boss, he once rang me to ask why the vehicle hadn’t moved for three days.
Cos it was in having a repair you authorised. :rolls:
BSH staff and their computors. 😆 😆 😆 😉
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
No good for me as half the time I don’t know where I am anyway. 😉
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
Well these GPS jammers have been around for 2 or 3 years now and the multiband ones that offer pretty much UK wide coverage and cost around £200, so not cheap. I’ve never fully grasped why people buy them TBH and any fleet owner for example would instantly sus out any of his vehicles that were’nt responding on his system. So pretty pointless in that regard I suspect.
Vehicle thieves on the other hand do have the edge if they steal a BMW X5 or Chris Evan’s Ferrari even? Then again if its got a VHF Tracking device on board instead, then the thiefs luck will run out sooner than later.
There is also a downside to any smart ar$e that plugs one into his motor in that his Tom Tom won’t work so he’d best have old-fashioned maps in his glovebox just to be on the safe side lest he get lost? The multi-band ones do have quite a ‘blocking range’ too, about 15 or 20 meters in fact. So in heavy traffic can interrupt vital emergency services own devices as well as some GSM devices that share the bandwidth. :rolls:
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
They have been out there for years. However any decent tracker system will put a marker on the screen if there is a transmission error.
All my vans have trackers, they are mainly used when customers are chasing appointment times or engineer progress. Apart from when an engineer draws attention to himself, I rarely look at them.
I had an issue regards something similar with the signal being “compromised” I quickly identified the problem & dealt with it.
Alex
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
Martin wrote: The multi-band ones do have quite a ‘blocking range’ too, about 15 or 20 meters in fact. So in heavy traffic can interrupt vital emergency services own devices as well as some GSM devices that share the bandwidth. :rolls:
Great, time to go out and spend some time in the shed inventing a GPS tracker jammer over-rider to be purchased by all emergency services (huge market!):D Probably big sales potential to the military too. Although they’ve probably already got a GPS tracker jammer over-rider blocker.:(
Mike.Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
Ther is also another problem with this device…your mobile wont work either…lol
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
Sometimes i don’t think that would be a problem at all.
Bring back the old days no trackers and no mobiles the job was a lot less stressful then.phil
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
on the flip side….. i would have no problems having a tracker in my van….. i do 12-14 hours a day with a 5 hour return trip in london…. when the call staff try to slip another extra into my day whilst the london engineers refuse to do more than 10 cos they have to be home for ready steady cook at 4pm, least they can see how hard i am working!!!
i have nothing to hide!…i think opposition to trackers are for engineers who swing the lead !
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
bigchrisoioi wrote:i have nothing to hide!…i think opposition to trackers are for engineers who swing the lead !
Never a truer word said. About 3 years ago a friend who I used to work with at Comet was a right lazy so and so, silver tougned git who always seem to come out smelling of roses.
Anyway, He was due to go and live abroad and 4 months before he went he told Comet what to do, went to work for a local company as a Sparky – blow me 3 weeks later he’s back in his Comet blacks…. strange.. he wasn’t giving owt away. Eventually, a few days before moving abroad he comes and has a beer spills the beans. He couldn’t hack it as a sparky as they had a tracker on his van and he was on his final final final warning before he left. They were making me work a full day….. showed his true colours then. He’s now skiving abroad.
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
I have had vans with trackers and vans without. Personally to me it didn’t make one bit of difference ( i could not care less what anyone thought as long as i had done my job right) if you do 10 calls or whatever a day to the best of your ability then who gives a hoot what time you finish? you have done your days work end of story.If i meet my figures and i have no complaints and i finish early then i am happy it was a good day!! It does not automatically mean your work shy a skiver swinging the lead or whatever bull you want to come out with in a vain attempt to make yourself look better then any one else. That’s just vanity it does not mean you work harder it means you have worked longer!!! You are no better or worse then the other engineers. It’s just some days are good some are bad. Someone who as say 20yrs experience is obviously going to finish a lot early then someone who has 2yrs experience. When i first started i finished on average between 7and9 at night now its between 3.30 and 4,30 and i do more calls and i think i work harder now being self employed in fact i know i work harder! So would that make me work shy if i was employed by someone else????
If i was still employed and someone said you finished early i would say yeah i know good ain’t it? and then laugh at them. Why would i want to be scrawling around some dirty floor when i can be with my family and freinds or even in the pub. Work to live not live to work!
All the gaffers i have ever known have said the same thing “its swings and roundabouts” but to a degree i suppose they’re right. You can do 2hrs over one day then have a couple of early finishs so it does work out in the end.
I can see how some people would get peed off with the thought of work having the ability to see what they do in their private life if they have personal use of the vehicle although apparently they’re not meant to watch you like that.
I can see how some engineers wouldn’t like trackers and it is another added stress thinking are they watching me? are they going to dump another call on me? etc etc.
I think engineers are under enough stress already cut them a bit of slack and trust them to do their job properly.Rant over
Phil.
Re: One For The Tracked Engineer
hey phil i agree with you…….i have being doing the job for 24 years and have worked as a service manager for a big manufacturing company….. yes it is swings and roundabouts, i am quicker now than i was 24 years ago and i am in the top 5 out of 60 for 1st time fix in my company…
however, we all have engineers who demand to finish early, who drop calls, who ‘bomb’ calls and order parts…all company’s have them …and its up to the management to performance manage them…
trackers and real time laptops are a great management tool…i agree as a service manager and also an engineer…i have no problem with finishing early if the stats are good and the customers happy,….however i have found the most moaning, stubborn and tracker hating engineers are the ones who actually are not that good and have all to hide.
i have found in this business esp if you are employed by a service department- the statement ‘ i will do my best’ , or ‘ if i get time to complete the call’ has become a thing of the past…you live or die by your performance figures and hopefully this keeps the cowboys or slackers out of the game
i was once told by an old wirey service manager at Hoover many years ago ‘ son, make sure your performance is good and also never let a complaint about you land on my desk…….. keep the job clean and tidy and the only time you will see or hear from me is once a year on field accompliment when i come out and buy you lunch!’… and yes he was right!!!!!
trackers are a management tool, keep your nose clean and you have nothing to hide!
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