Well it's not mechanical, cosmetic nor ICE, so lets start it here

 

 

Just want to know people's opinion on aftermarket alarm pagers. Who's got one, and do you think it's worthwhile? How good is the range really, when you park your car then sod off down the road into your house?

 

There seems to be two types of pager sold on ebay frequently, this one:

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...7911794101&rd=1

 

And the 'Toad' pager, which clearly has absolutely no links with Toad whatsoever-

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...7911200884&rd=1

 

 

The 'Toad' pager seems very bulky, whereas the first one looks a bit slimmer. Anyone have pictures of their receiver unit in their hand etc so I can get an idea of the scale. If I can't be arsed to carry one around, then there's no point in having one at all

 

Anyone with decent prices & shops for pagers too, feel free to post!

This one is gonna be a lot better than the ones your looking at. I doubt spending £30 will get you anything worthwhile

 

Pager

 

Ask Rich where he got his because his one is pucker. He said is a piece of Pee to fit. If you ask him nice he may fit one for ya.

the trouble is the insurance companys don't like the engine starter ones!! and if they find out you have one they ain't gonna payout!!

Ta Dunk mate - only problem is, that is an alarm with pager built in, and I've already fitted a Toad alarm to my Escy - literally just want a pager to tie onto one of my auxillary outputs, incase I'm out of hearing range of the two battery backup sirens I put in!

 

I've seen quite a few different variants of that 'Toad' pager, which just seem to have different shaped buttons - apart from that look identical and very bulky Most pagers on their own seem to be in the £30 to £60 range, so not really sure on the quality...

best ones i seen r clifford pagers but that comes with the alarm and dont think u can buy em seperate.

Simion_levi we are on the same boat!

 

I've googled some installation instructions... some pagers claim that you don't need to link up to the alarm? How does it know whether the alarm sounds then?

Imagine it must just have a microphone, pages you when it hears the horn?

 

This pager idea is just trying to be lazy and avoid doing what I should - I really want to hook up an ancient phone to the alarm under the dash, and have it text me if the alarm goes off. I've always got my phone on me, and it removes the need for a separate pager - plus range can be across the world. I've even got a 5110 that I'd be more than happy to wire up to permanently charge from the battery and leave hidden within the car with a PAYG SIM card with a few quid of credit on - this could also double for a primative tracker with that text location service, but that's an afterthought. Problem is getting a negative pulse output from my alarm to tell the phone to send a message!

 

Only real way I can think of with that particular phone (i.e. no way of writing software and using the pulsed output to activate it) is fit it up with a motor over the SEND key, have a message already written and ready to go, and then the motor will push the button when the earth is provided :D

 

I might try it - only issue is resetting the message once the alarm has gone off, so I might just have to bolt it up behind the glovebox so it's easy to get to

Oh, plus I can't remember what happens when the phone receives a message - as it'll get spam from time to time. If I've got the 'HELLLLP!' message ready written, and it then receives one I imagine it'll clear the message i've got there. I'm going to have to play around with this idea some more before it can be made to work

The way i see it is that the alarm/immobiliser is the final deterrant/protection that stops a thief from having your car away. Now this may just be me, but i'd rather spend more for a decent alarm system, than try and do it on the cheap because at the end of the day, not only will they have your car away, but you'll also be kicking yourself that you didnt pay that extra £30 odd - or whatever the difference.

 

You can buy a kit ready made with the phone that txts you etc and you can txt it at anytime to find out the location of your car. It may cost a bit more than doing it youself but at least if it goes tits up, you have something to fall back on.

 

That is assuming you're not some sort of electonic whizz kid that works with alarms day in day out.

That is assuming you're not some sort of electonic whizz kid that works with alarms day in day out.

Not quite, but I can read wiring diagrams and my alarm seems to work well Let's just say I'm more profficient (or lucky ) with electronics than with mechanics, but I'll still have a go at most things under the bonnet.

 

I've already got the decent alarm system as the deterrent and the immediate protection, so no cheapskating there - except for properly fitting myself, rather than letting a potentially certified monkey do it - but it's the secondary system of me being able to 'intervene' in an attempted theft and then be arrested i'm after, which is only ever going to be of use if I'm near enough to do anything about the message I get.

 

 

No, appreciate what you're saying about the pager - but TBH, I haven't seen them for more than £70-80 for unit only (I've absolutely no problem wiring in myself) and seem to be nearly identical to the £30-40 ones. However, I've been playing around with the 5110 and found that it doesn't erase the message if it is rung/receives texts etc etc. I really can have the message ready to send and then just have it permanently waiting to hit the send key with a single triggered solenoid. Therefore I might run with this a bit further, as in my honest opinion a text message is more reliable than a pager message, especially with their warnings about 'normal day-to-day radio interference may render this product useless over more than 3 metres range...' etc

 

I've seen the £300 setups that use a sim card too - but have an inbuilt sense of loathing when really being ripped off, so can't justify that

lol @ the last bit.

 

Sounds like a pretty good idea you got going. Let us know how it goes as i'd love to see it in action. Ive thought about the pager systems but a 1km range just doesnt seem that much when you can have a phone that texts you the location of the car where ever you are.