I recently lost one of my quads during an FPV outage in Auto, it had Bluetooth LE beacon on it but I never picked up the signal walking around where I thought it should be. I really wanted to find a way to get the exact location of a lost craft in case of fly away, pilot error or mechanical failure, especially in our deep Florida woods and swamps.
I thought I would share a little device I found this week and purchased. It's a fairly small stand alone GSM GPS for $44, simply send it a text and it replies with a link to google map location.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GNU5DM6
It's my stick on piece of mind for my TBS Disco now.
It's water resistant, 100 hour standby, text to wake up.
During a crash it may not survive but you can have it send last location, or text you while moving the location over intervals.
I purchased a $10 pay-as-you-go h20 card so there is no cost, monthly or otherwise unless I send it a text.
Just thought I would share to the group, its a little insurance for a total of $54.
Ed,
Replies
What depression lost it, but don't lost the hope to find, please return to the place and looks again with friends better, We found a friend copter lost in a forest, it was incredible, another friend found his skywalker three months later and recover many things and I listened many other incredible found histories; tell Us if you find, good Luck ;D
Thank you, I will go out this weekend too and look a bit more.
I found your Tower forum and and now following it too.
Thanks again!!
What I do: I have FPV with minim OSD and a cheap DVR, I record all the fligths and if I crash; I can read the last position on DVR, copy to a handheld GPS (or cel with gps) and go for it, I have a tablet with Tower too, there, if you have good radio modem signal, you have a recorded tlog too and Tower shows your exact position and your copter position and you can find .........tested ;) .Perhaps looks exagerate security but during an undesirable Land for compass problem, when I check the DVR it was frozen and tablet let me find the cuad inside a soybean.
Yes that has worked for me in the past, but this time at 380 feet I lost all signal and contact, fpv and tower too, my tower signal was spotty during flight so maybe there was an issue all along. I walked with tower in the woods but I was never able to get a final coordinate with tower to my phone, maybe power failure on the main power supply. Either way this is simply a cheap backup solution to tower that has unlimited range other than cell towers and has an independent power supply over the battery pack.
Thanks Cala, I like the DVR thing.