Tonight(Feb08)'s brand new Law & Order featured a G-Class owned by a rich family.

The police got a warrant for the arrest of the priviledged son. The family is nowhere to be found. Cops found out the family drives a G.

Apparently, the cops made the folks at MB make the car's GPS computer spit out its current position. Cops caught them at their vacation home.

Car dealers rarely educate you on the fact that your car can transmit. So now I am doing you the honor.

Currently I drive a car with no trasmitting capability. One day I may not be able to buy a mute car. When the day comes, I am going to destroy the antenna amplifier box as soon as I sign the purchase paperwork.

 

Just for clarification, it's the cell phone in the vehicle that called in the geographic location, not the GPS unit. Not that it matters all that much in this case, but GPS unit gave the location to the cell phone and the phone called it in. GPS units don't transmit, so make sure you destroy the cell phone antenna and not the GPS antenna on that future car of yours.

I have a similar system in my Silverado called OnStar. The system is disabled because I don't pay the annual fee. OnStar could activate it with a court order, though, and I wouldn't know about it. With it activated, they could determine my location. I guess I won't escape in my truck if I break the law.

 

i also think so because as far as i understand it, GPS antenna and control module can only recieve and not transmit. it is the GSM that can do transmission.

Lugnut, if the GPS cannot transmit signal, how can the car know it's current position by just recieving data from satellite?

 

The GPS unit receives signals from multiple satellites. There are 24 total GPS System satellites orbiting the earth. Each satellite constantly transmits the time. A GPS unit also stores the time.

When it gets a time signal from a satellite, it compares the current time to the time the satellite sent the signal. Based on the time difference, it can calculate the distance between itself and the satellite. If it gets signals from at least three satellites, the GPS unit can calculate, by triangulation, latitude and longitude and track movement (2D position). With four or more satellite time signals, the GPS unit can calculate altitude in addition (3D position).

Once the GPS unit has determined its position, it can calculate other information, such as speed, bearing, track, and more.

 

so that's the reason why MB GPS needs at least 3 visible satellite in order to work well.

 

The perk of having an older is that you don't have to worry about that stuff.

 

If I'm not mistaken, a LoJack system installed in an older car could be used as the TV show suggests. I don't know how the cops could find out whether or not a car had one, but I doubt it's impossible.

 

What is LoJack?

 

Plus wouldn't the vin number tell you?

 

the only tv show i know is kojak.