As a heads up I want to tell you about a tracker I bought on Amazon.

Because of all the fly-aways, I decided to buy a cheap tracker to velcro on my Phantom.  I got the TK102B because it was cheap, worked from a sim so low running cost, and will also use GPRS should the GPS satellites fall out of the sky - lol

I would like to say to anyone else who is tempted to buy this type of tracker to be wary. This type of tracker is made by quite a few companies and is extensively cloned.

The result is a device that looks and is named the same or similar to the original device, but run different software.  Not all the devices will do the all the things as the original, and the command set is slightly different.

I have tried for many hours following downloaded PDF instructions for my device, only to find out that my version either does not use that feature or the command and syntax is slightly different -  despite the manual being for my device (or so I thought).

Types to watch out for are

TK102
TK102-2
Tk102B
Also there are iphone and android apps paid and free that help you program these trackers, be careful just because it says (or detects) your tracker as a 102b etc (which it was in my case) does NOT mean it will work with it - due to the extensive cloning and firmware tweaking these manufacturers are doing.

Now the positive bit.  Once you get it working its rather jolly good !  I'm looking forward to testing it in the field once the whether is clement.

One other point, it did come with a manual - however the text was sooooooo small I could not read it.  I have since had to scan and enlarge it.  Thats when I found out that 50% of all the good commands like continual tracking are not included in my version.

Buyer beware. Ok Thank you for heads up.

The original tracker you mentioned is produced and sold by a  company in China called XEXUN. On their website you can enter the serial number of the device and check if it's an original or not. If sold as one but it's clearly not, is fraud and should be returned. However, some rebuilds work pretty fantastic too, considering they are so much cheaper. By the way, drone pilots only need it in the case of a loss of the phantom. Who cares about the other features anyway?

markus@egide.de Posted at 2015-1-2 18:32
The original tracker you mentioned is produced and sold by a  company in China called XEXUN. On thei ...

Yes precisely my thoughts.  Thats why I was not to bothered.  Just thought I would try and save someone a few hours trying to send commands that wont work.  You don't even get an error it just ignores you - lol.

On the plus side I did get a power converter so in theory at least I could power the tracker from the Phantom.  It seems like its a device that you will forget to charge, and will fail when you most need it - lol.

umpa Posted at 2015-1-2 02:36
Yes precisely my thoughts.  Thats why I was not to bothered.  Just thought I would try and save someone a few hours trying to send commands that wont work.  You don't even get an error it just ignores you - lol.

On the plus side I did get a power converter so in theory at least I could power the tracker from the Phantom.  It seems like its a device that you will forget to charge, and will fail when you most need it - lol.

Hi umpa !  

I hope your thread will be maintained yet !

These days I bought one unit of TK102B-Tracker via internet (it's a chinese clone).
It works as expected with one exception: when calling the tracker by phone it responds with sending one SMS to my phone - that's o.k.   B u t  my internet provider charges me 3 (!!!) SMS-messages for each tracker response which are sent with about 2 seconds delay between each other to my phone !?!
It's rather costly (about $ 0,8 for 3 SMS) and it happens in case of any response (e.g. low battery, out of fence etc.)
How can I solve this problem ?  Have yuo any idea to overcome that problem ?

Your kind response is highly appreciated.

Many thks in advance / Hans-Peter

Efly2005 Posted at 12-4 01:14
Hi umpa !  

I hope your thread will be maintained yet !

The user 'umpa' posted those messages in 2015, so he or she may not be a member any longer. I certainly have not seen any posts by that member in recent years.

He was last online 2015-8-30 or 30-8-2015 in real money ;)

True, I have moved on to other things, and had totally forgot about this forum.  I still have the drones, but not used them in over two years.  I suspect the battery packs are no good now.  I can't advise you on anything, I have forgotten just about anything I once knew about drone flying.  Sorry....

I’m using the tk102, it’s working perfectly!

Flysafely
Alex

umpa Posted at 12-5 01:34
True, I have moved on to other things, and had totally forgot about this forum.  I still have the drones, but not used them in over two years.  I suspect the battery packs are no good now.  I can't advise you on anything, I have forgotten just about anything I once knew about drone flying.  Sorry....

Thks for your reply / Hans Peter