GPS trackers for individual caravan vehicles

[GRAK]

Haven't dug up any threads about this. Basically when I'm "out there" with no cell signal, with a Dual GPS pod bluetoothing to the ipad for GAIA GPS maps, or using my iphone with offline maps, I want to see where the other vehicles in my caravan are. We tend to split up for half a day, explore solo or without the entire group along, but still want to keep overwatch on where everyone is for easy reconnections later.

Find My Friends requires cellular or a wifi internet connection to work. None of us have an inReach. I see these little trackers that you can attach to kids backpacks etc, but the app to find them on a proprietary map seems to need wifi as well. I'm probably missing something totally obvious here... just want to say open Google maps and see blue dots for my friends cars, wherever they are. Ideas?

 

[CUCVDRIVER]

Well with ham radio you can use APRS. Look it up might help what are you looking for.

 

[Rexplorer]

The garmin rino gps/radio can show the other users if they have rinos too.

 

[Ubiety]

You may be interested in the Beartooth radio. Have not used one but it supposed to sync with your phone (outside of WiFi) and allow messaging, tracking, etc. Not sure on the range. https://beartooth.com

I have a Rino - but only one other friend has one and their distance is pretty limited. We have since switched to HAM bands so I use it as a nice handheld GPS only these days.

APRS is also great and might be the real answer to get some distance; however terrain will limit this. The other issue with APRS is that you will need to run some software on something with a screen - unless you get fancy with your own source code...

I have been working on an Iridium based SMS system and just posted a thread on it. This would alleviate the distance issues but carries some other additional weight. My system posts APRS data into the APRS-IS (internet APRS data stream) so folks back home can track us. You would need to do some significant work to adjust my system for what you described. If others are interested in my system I'd be happy to do the heavy lifting to make it work for your scenario. Beware of a steep learning curve though ;)

 

[Drifterman]

This has peaked my interest