GPS Dog Tracker Collar

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MRMap-GPS-Tracking-Communications-Safety-Mountain Rescue-Mapping-Downloads-Free Software
An introduction to Retrieva Dog Tracker & MRMap — A GPS tracking collar for dogs.
An Introduction to Retrieva Dog
Tracker & MRMap
A GPS tracking dog collar.
A Guide for Team Communications and Training Officers.
MRMap Development Team
August 2014
MRMap & the Retrieva GPS Dog Tracker Collar.
History
We don’t really need to go into the history of this fantastic program called MRMap, you’re reading this because
you use it.
What is new is a request from a SARDA Wales dog handler, who was interested in the Retrieva Dog Tracker collar,
this then got her team techie wondering if it could be integrated into MRMap. Conversations took place between
Retrieva, MRMap & ViewRanger and after a few weeks of testing and tweaks it became clear that the Dog Tracker
collar could fit within and display the GPS location of the Search Dog in MRMap quite easily.
What is the Retrieva Dog Tracker Collar.
It’s a collar that has a GPS receiver and also a SIM card, which will report back the GPS data position of the collar to
Retrievas central servers and can either be displayed on the Retrieva website, data downloaded from the collar or
the bit we’re interested in, can be created as a Buddy Beacon with ViewRanger.
I’m not going to do a Sales pitch for Retrieva but they are a company which specialises in GPS Tracking products
for animals. There is an initial cost for the purchase of the collar and a low cost monthly SIM rental, just like a mobile phone.
The Retrieva website is – www.retrievatracking.com and also store.dogtrackerplus.co.uk
Pros
Allows control to be able to see where the Search Dog is on a map.
May allow, with some training of the Control personnel, to ID when the dog has a find and get a heads up.
Cons
As it’s a Cellular device, there will be areas of no reception or transmission of the GPS data from the collar.
Is this a problem?
We can assume that if there is no transmission or reception of the Dog Collar the Control location may also have
no cellular reception either to receive reports on the ViewRanger Buddy Beacons in its local .ini file.
One important thing to remember is that Control, be that a base, a laptop in use within a Police station or a computer within a C3 vehicle, needs to have Internet access to be able to get the GPS information from the MRMap
servers for any GPS data not coming in via a radio connected your compute, so that includes LRNet, ViewRanger
Buddy Beacon phones and the Retrieva collar.
The cost of such is another consideration. But if your Team tracks in MRMap Viewranger Buddy Beacons of phones
then they most likely already have this connection for when in the field.
If it’s at a base, then the chances are there is a broadband connection, if it’s out and about then a 3G or 4G dongle
will be required. There is a discussion on the MRMap forum about the amount of data the MRMap servers provide
and the locally running MRMap program needs to get, the current discussion is that it will be a few kb per grab,
unless you’re a very busy Team most dongles should be able to be well within their meagre data amount each
month – obviously if you start to browse Google Earth, send and receive emails then the data usage will massively
increase.
MRMap Development Team
August 2014
What do I need to do to be able to get my Dog Tracker Collar
visible on MRMap, as a Search Dog Handler?
Firstly, we have to find the Dog Tracker Collar SIM number, once found write that down.
Secondly, we have to make sure that the Collar is in Track mode ………..
Lastly, we need to pass the Collar SIM number to the person who administers your Teams MRMap entries.
How do we make the Dog Tracker appear in MRMap?
I understand that as a matter of course Retrieva sends ViewRanger the information we require for MRMap to be
able to get the Dog Tracker Buddy Beacon parameters.
These next steps would normally be done by the person[s] who administer the MRMap ini files locally and also on the
web based ini file.
On your Local PC – if that be at base, control vehicle or a laptop.
In the ini file kept locally, ie on your Control Laptop etc, there is a section about ViewRanger, like this –
[ViewRanger]
; For each phone (max of 128), have an entry of the form:
; Phone1=<BeaconID>&<PIN>=<RadioID>
; Phone2=<AnotherBeaconID>&<AnotherPIN>=<AnotherRadioID>
In this section you need to add the following information –
The Dog Tracker Collar phone number in the style of 447831179999
The Generic PIN for the Dog Tracker collar – 1234
A Radio ID within the range your Team has.
So if you wanted Phone 1 to be a Dog Tracker collar it would look like this
Phone1=<DogTrackerNumber>&<PIN>=<RadioID>
So using the above example Dog Tracker number & the Generic Dog Tracker Buddy Beacon PIN and we wanted it to
be Radio ID 12345.
Phone1=447831179999&1234=12345
Please note you do not need to put the leading ; in as shown in the text from the ini file above, as this is not required,
if you did put this in, the Buddy Beacon would fail and not be reported in MRMap and also any entries after a entry
with a leading ; will not work either, even if they have a ; or not.
Phone 2 for example could be a Buddy Beacon off a mobile phone and Phone 3 could be another Dog Tracker collar.
The important thing to note is that both the ViewRanger app on your mobiles and the Dog Tracker Collar use the
Buddy Beacon system to get the information in to MRMap, so providing you follow the above guidelines you’ll be
fine.
The only difference with the Dog Tracker is that you use its mobile number and not the Buddy Beacons username.
How do we make the Dog Tracker appear in MRMap Lite?
To users of MRMap Lite, you still use the local hosted .ini file and the above is all you need to do, the following
section is irrelevant to users of MRMap Lite, as there is no connectivity to the MRMap servers in MRMAP Lite.
MRMap Development Team
August 2014
On the web based ini file
We now need to log into the web based ini file at the following URL – ini.mrmap.org.uk
You need to select your Team name and input the Edit password that the Team has been given.
Once logged in you can then enter the Public & Private Radio ID names –
So if I was using ID 23809 as the Radio ID for the first Dog Tracker Collar I can set up 2 names.
I could use DJH as the Public Name that’s the one that all other Teams will see.
SD Izzy as the Private Name – that’s the name that you’ll see on MRMap running on your PCs.
Or you could have both setup as the same name, that bit is up to you.
You can select a colour for the Name Box in MRMap, you can add the order it shall appear to the right of the Map screen in
MRMap & you can also tick or untick the trail box, unticked means that it won’t have a trail on the map and will just be the last
reported position.
When completed you click on the Update Radio IDs button and if anyone is running MRMap 3.6 or before you can download
your Teams latest ini file entry for them to replace your teams entry in. If you’re running MRMap 3.7b and above, you get the
update via the MRMap servers, so you don’t need to do anything.
Press Logout and that’s it.
You should be able to see the Dog Tracker Collar on MRMap now.
Problems
Please refer to the how to use the new version guide on the MRMap forum, as most likely problem scenarios will be with the
change in the way the .ini file needs a secure login now.
MRMap Development Team
August 2014