A friend of mine had a 240Z that was stolen in the New York area. He got it back because the thief decided to keep it as it was such a nice car. The police spotted it. After that, he would remove the fuel injection module (I think) that was located by the passenger's feet. Removing a necessary but obscure part when you leave a car in a high risk area will stop everyone but the tow trucks and vandals. How about something that got powered from, let's say the left directional that pulled in a latching relay that reconnected a sensor necessary to run the car? It would be entirely out of the normal areas that would be checked. The car wouldn't start because the processor (I'm thinking newer cars than my old wrecks) thought it was out of oil. The disable switch is right there but who would think of putting on the left directional to start the car unless it had Lucas electrical parts. (Grudge left over from my unfortunate ownership of a Triumph Spitfire...don't get me started). -- Steve Nordhauser Director of New Product Development Imaging Systems IEM Corp. 60 Fourth Ave. Albany, NY 12202-1924 digital@nycap.rr.com http://www.iem.net Phone: (518) 449-5504x21 Fax: (518) 449-5567 Freddie says: Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 10:05:47 -0700 From: Freddie Leaf Subject: Re: [PIC]: Practical car theft schemes > Now the GPS option - I suppose this means a dedicated cell phone buried into > the car somewhere, with a little modem .This also means I'll have to pay $$$ > a month for a cell phone connection or account. Seeing as I don't even have > cell phone for my hip, I don't know how much this would cost. Circuit Cellar Magazine did an article on tracking your vehicle after a theft using GPS. The article is in Circuit Cellar Magazine Issue 126 Jan. 2001 - called "Where's Waldo ? Pinpointing Location by Interfacing with a GPS Receiver ( TF10 )". You can get the article on-line at: http://www.circuitcellar.com. LAIPAC is the name of the company that makes the actual TF10 GPS unit. I also bought their experimental board and sample PC based software. I recommend these tools to get you started. The unit works great and the company is very friendly and accommodating (I have no affiliation). The only caution is that the actual TF10 board uses a non-US connector, the pin spacing is not .1 inch. I think it amy be a European connector. http://www.laipac.com/msg4.htm -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads