Hello, I have a question about an idea I have about a project for a documentary film I'm working on.
The thing I'm wondering is how I can possibly send 500-1000 bottles with gps cheap.
I wan't a lot of bottles that i can follow on a map for a sort of timelapse. i was thinking if i can get dots or something like that on a map every 5 houres for a week. But how can i do it?
Thomass1237:
The thing I'm wondering is how I can possibly send 500-1000 bottles with gps cheap.
this project raises a lot of questions
first, please define cheap ...
what is your budget?
where do you want to drop the bottles?
sea?ocean?river?
What communication did you have in mind for the feedback?
Do you want interactive or real time data? (expensive -> GSM option??)
Or do you want to store gps data on a flash card and catch the bottles after a week?
I don't think the signal would be detectable from inside a bottle.
you can make an antenna through the cork 
That's a great idea.
Thomass1237:
500-1000 bottles with gps cheap.
A GPS bottle, what a great idea.
It makes it far easier to clean up (some of) the mess you made.
buy a load of old nokia phones set them up with payg sim cards register them on a site like www.followus.co.uk
give them individual names or numbers, then find some bottles big enough to get them in! (or modify to fit).
then you have some gsm trackers only issue maybe signal depending where your dropping them all.
robtillaart:
Thomass1237:
The thing I'm wondering is how I can possibly send 500-1000 bottles with gps cheap.this project raises a lot of questions
first, please define cheap ...
what is your budget?where do you want to drop the bottles?
sea?ocean?river?What communication did you have in mind for the feedback?
Do you want interactive or real time data? (expensive -> GSM option??)
Or do you want to store gps data on a flash card and catch the bottles after a week?
I don not have the budget now. Because if i know what this "project" will cost i know what to ask for 
The thing is i the botles will be released on the west coast of Norway.
The communication i want is not flash card, becaus it can take years for i can find them. I was thinking some thing there I can see on my computer ore website where the botles are. And that them sends signal every 4-5hour for a week or something.
the bottle-neck will be the communication.
There is no way I know other than the GSM network that might work for you.
So every bottle should at least contain:
If the bottles are out of GSM range they are gone. 
Adding a SD card will increase the price 10% max so if connection got lost it still can log the GPS data until the bottle is found
You should do a feasibility test how far you can go offshore and still have GSM connection.
The "SPOT" personal locator beacon is inexpensive, self contained, popular in the U.S. and very reliable. It transmits its location to a satellite every so often and the results are available on line. The manufacturer claims that it works just about anywhere in the world. SPOT Satellite Communication Devices | Saved by SPOT | US
Nick_Pyner:
A GPS bottle, what a great idea.
It makes it far easier to clean up the mess you made.
I kinda agree with this. It sounds like a wonderfully romantic idea in theory, but then you have to consider the fact that you just threw 500-1000 bottles into the ocean, along with all the associated e-waste, and will likely not have the resources to reclaim most (or any) of them. In these parts, we call that "littering".