Corporate customers tend to have an account manager they can escalate to so they can then call in favours in the mobile NOC to at least indicate the servicing cell plus panel and rssi. Then a directional antenna plus sdr having a poke around 900 or whatever Vodafone are running their 2g on these days. Then it's a case of making sure the box is generating some noise as if it's just attached then the pings are very infrequent. Getting it to make a voice or data session for a period of time is what you'll really need while you triangulate it. On 21/07/2016 12:22, "Brian Gibbons" wrote:

I would guess that the NZ Police would know the answer to this, they must need to track cell phones as part of their job.

Perhaps you could report the buoy as missing, maybe mention that it is marking something valuable dropped at sea, they may be able to locate it for you.

On 21/07/2016 12:00 p.m., Travis Baird wrote:

Hi everyone.

I am posting here as a last resort and this isn't really relevant to to this group, but more than anything I am hoping someone here may have some more knowledge about cellular technology than me. I have a customer that has lost a fairly expensive Buoy off the cost of Otago and it's GPS has stopped working. Vodafone have confirmed they are still seeing it connected to their cell tower (2G only) but the Vodafone helpdesk people aren't particularly helpful when we start asking them about options for finding a rough location at sea so we have an idea where to look for it.

Does anyone know if it's possible to triangulate a location of a cellular device these days? Is there a cutoff distance from the tower that the device will no longer be able to connect (e.g. if there is this helps narrow the search area at least)? Does anyone have an contact details for someone at VF that might be able to help?

If anyone has any info that might help, please contact me off list.

Thanks in advance.

Regards -- Travis Baird | Managing Director [image: Unifone NZ ltd] http://unifone.net.nz a. 7 Kitchener St, Dunedin https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=7+kitchener+st+dunedin e. travis(a)unifone.net.nz m. 029 763 8911 <+64297638911> t. 03 974 8233 <+6439748233> ------------------------------ This e-mail message has passed virus scanning by Outersite Technology.

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I can come up with tower co-ordinates if you can get the cell_id Stan Rivett ------------------ Netspeed PO Box 5691 Dunedin P: +64 3 481 7245 C: +64 21 323 841 ------------------ On 21 July 2016 at 15:25, Craig Whitmore wrote:

You could use

AT+CENG=2

Get the results and do the triangulations yourself. (If you know where the Towers are)

*From:* nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz [mailto: nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz] *On Behalf Of *Pieter De Wit *Sent:* Thursday, 21 July 2016 3:06 PM *To:* Travis Baird *Cc:* nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz *Subject:* Re: [nznog] Trying to locate a cell device of the coast of Otago

On 21/07/2016 12:00, Travis Baird wrote:

Hi everyone.

I am posting here as a last resort and this isn't really relevant to to this group, but more than anything I am hoping someone here may have some more knowledge about cellular technology than me. I have a customer that has lost a fairly expensive Buoy off the cost of Otago and it's GPS has stopped working. Vodafone have confirmed they are still seeing it connected to their cell tower (2G only) but the Vodafone helpdesk people aren't particularly helpful when we start asking them about options for finding a rough location at sea so we have an idea where to look for it.

Does anyone know if it's possible to triangulate a location of a cellular device these days? Is there a cutoff distance from the tower that the device will no longer be able to connect (e.g. if there is this helps narrow the search area at least)? Does anyone have an contact details for someone at VF that might be able to help?

If anyone has any info that might help, please contact me off list.

Thanks in advance.

Regards

--

Travis Baird | Managing Director

[image: Unifone NZ ltd] http://unifone.net.nz

a.

7 Kitchener St, Dunedin https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=7+kitchener+st+dunedin

e.

travis(a)unifone.net.nz

m.

029 763 8911 <+64297638911>

t.

03 974 8233 <+6439748233>

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Hi Travis,

If you have "AT" command access to the device then you can query the Tower ID/connection info using AT+CREG (from memory - a quick Google showed this to be correct) - Vodafone should then (hopefully) be able to tell you where that tower is :)

The above command will also show signal strength.

Cheers,

Pieter

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