In a bit of a hole here. I'm trying to figure out away of tracking vehicles in a convoy over say a stretch of 5km. The idea is to have each unit have a GPS in it to send a location to the lead vehicle to make sure no one in the convoy is falling behind and if so everyone can slow down or do a checkup. The problem I'm having is that one of the areas in question is the Karoo/Cederberg in South Africa so two problems arise. One been there is no cell signal so the units can't communicate that way and there area is hellava mountainous so something like a LoRa wouldn't work (or would it?).
Any suggestions on a dependable method of getting unit info from one unit to another that doesn't require Cell network? I would only really need to send GPS co-ords and maybe a unit ID to the lead unit so packet size would be small.
You started a topic in the Uncategorised category of the forum when its description explicitly tells you not to
Your topic has been moved to a relevant category. Please be careful in future when deciding where to start new topics
I would google the various radio options to see what would give you the range you want and cope best with the environment. .
Buy a pair and try it on the route.
Many of the radios are line of sight as they work at fairly high frequency .
A CB radio , at lower frequency , might be the best option ( and speech ).
Satellite communications ?
Starlink ?
Sounds … beep beep
Flags on very long poles.
As usual the question is why ?
What is the issue you are trying to fix , if a truck falls behind what actions would you take ??
This might lead to a different solution . Stop regularly and wait for others to catch up ? What else can you do ??
I do like the long poles 
If the individual vehicles in the convoy were not too far apart, a LoRa mesh might work, relaying messages from the back to the front. Especially if the LoRa nodes were atop long poles.
I was thinking this. Just sticking one in the lead car and the end one and check the connection. And the radios are also a good idea. At the moment we use two way radios to check up but people just sometimes don't answer so you never know if they're out of range or just been idiots lol
I'd need a starlink on every vehicle. Also South africa has some political nonsense with starlink so we don't really have the rights to use it. It's a very sore spot for a lot of people =P
Haha Low tech is usually always the best option 
But naa, tight corners, dust, distance to last vehicle is annoying.
Usually we have a rule. If you cant see the car behind you then slow down till you do. Eventually this would have a chain reaction all the way to the lead vehicle. In theory it works but people can be idiots. Had a situation last year where someone shredded their tyres and the people in front of them didn't notice, 20 min later we stopped and it ended up been a 40 minute drive back to find them. After this the radios came into play but still. We have people that sometimes just decide they want to stop for pictures or something and it would be nice to have some kind of headsup without having to do a checkin all the time.
This project looks like you will need to do some experimenting.
Can I suggest you get a coupe lof Lora modules and Arduino controllers and try it.
I'm not sure what the regulation Lora frequency is in S. Africa but it shouldn't be hard to find.
Tom.. 
I was kind of thinking along these lines. Even if there wasn't complete line of sight the distance between two vehicles wouldnt be THAT far apart. I could get away with a sort of chain system like you're mentioning. I'll get a couple of units and just play around with them.
I think they're pretty relaxed here. I have played around with Loras before so I'll just find my previous notes on what's allowed. This idea just generally seems to be the best course. Also a lot of fun playing around
Bagpipes come to mind... or drivers who follow formation protocol.
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.