Circuit Lake

“My goal is to build a kind of a mobile tracker. There are many different use cases you can think of but one of the obvious is a device, that is able to report where it is. This device can be put in your car and it could trigger an alarm, if the car got stolen. Actually it could tell you where it is.

There are already mobile tracking devices out there, but they seemed to be too expensive and too closed for my needs. Another option is one of these new Nokia N95 which have built-in GPS. They are really nice, but about 600€, which is not a bargain. So I decided to do my own.” alex said

Materials

The first idea was to combine a microcontroller with a GSM and a GPS modul. There are a lot of these modules over at Sparkfun, for example. Finally he choose Telit GM862, which is a GSM modul with an built in GPS receiver. Sparkfun sell great break out boards to make it easier for hobbyist to access these modules.

Here are some of the features of this GSM-GPS module:

* Quad band GSM
* 17mA average stand-by, 3.5mA in low-power mode
* 250mA average operating current
* SiRF III GPS Receiver Built In
* Data, Voice, SMS, and Fax
* Data speeds up to 57.6kbps
* Supply voltage : 3.4-4.2V
* CMOS Camera Capable
* Python Interpreter built-in

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