Tracking Devices

[Mary Ann]

But, why would you need a tracking device in something that you literally never let out of your sight? It is still inconceivable to me that what happened, happened. Inconceivable.
My father and his mother both went in severe dementia; I have the apoe4 gene (hetero, halfway) but don't have the alcoholism background, or the poor eating, etc. But I find, weekly, things that I have forgotten, and it is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. Friends who know me well say they see no difference in me but they don't walk in the kitchen and see the pan burning on the stove that I turned up to reach a boil and then totally forgot about.

[the elephant]

You are not a large, imposing hulk. It would be absolutely zero effort for a big guy to snatch your fiddle out of your hands, like a purse snatcher, shove you hard down to the pavement, and run like hell.

Just like that, gone.

That's why.

I never let my horns out of my sight when I am working. I take them into restaurants and put them in a seat at the table (or more likely I do not go to a restaurant. If I *must* leave one in the car, the car must be at a window that is very near the door, and I must be seated right there by my car.

I still have AirTags in all my bags, and will be working on cases to affix (and conceal) them to the horns. I know you can't shove an AT down an F-hole, but it could be concealed between the cloth cover and the case body, perhaps in a hollow created for the purpose.

They are not perfect at all, but they have proven very useful for me several times over the past year. I keep them hidden in my vehicles that have to be in downtown Jackson at night. The cops have helped me locate stuff AND RECOVER IT because I could prove certain things due to the AT being present and my being able to accurately identify it once it was recovered.

[bloke]

yeah...

My cars are manual shift (not totally anti-theft, but nearly), and the one that I use - in particular - has one of those vinyl-with-hooks hide-y things in the back, that covers up what might be back there (or might not be back there)...

...and I don't quite do like Wade (I think?), but do take some precautions... (perhaps not enough).
I go in to the entrance of a restaurant, get some idea of where we will be seated, exit the restaurant, and move the car to a place where it's within sight of a nearby window.

Do I pack heat? That's anyone's guess.

Admittedly, I usually don't carry instruments into restaurants...and I probably should...I AM concerned...and DO peer out the window at my vehicle...OFTEN. (I HAVE been known - very rarely - to excuse myself, to outside, and stand near my vehicle - when others seem to be standing near it a bit too long.)

What I do NOT do is to trust anyone - at the venue (rehearsal/performance) who says, "Don't worry. We're locking the place up until the next rehearsal."
When I return (EARLY) for the next rehearsal, such venues are ALWAYS unlocked, there are ALWAYS people milling around, and there is NEVER anyone who accosts me and asks me for my credentials/I.D.

I really like the airtag idea, and have spent some time trying to think of something inconspicuous that doesn't require altering parts around/near moving parts. Probably the best I've come up with (and I'm not claiming this as a "great" idea at all) is a very small nickel silver "pillbox" (probably with the instrument's brand insignia locally engraved on it) with knurling, concealed threading, and brazed into/on to/incorporated-as-part-of a main tuning slide brace. A machine shop could knock out a few (or hundreds, were it that someone wished to try to market them) of these, a pair of cross-brace (perhaps 6mm diameter) nickel silver legs could be brazed on at 9 and 3 o'clock, and two brace socket flanges could be supplied (with the nickel silver brace legs cut to length per the model of tuba by local installers).

[Mark]

Recently, a group I performed with told me to store my case in a room backstage. When I asked if they would be locking the room, they told me no, because nothing of value should be left there there. I pointed out that replacement cost of my case was nearly $2,000 and I left it in a backstage area I could keep an eye on. They didn't try to stop me...

[Three Valves]

Do I pack heat? That's anyone's guess.

A thoughtful, forward thinking man such as yourself may choose not to, because every other honest citizen may.



I keep a Tag in the car. Everyone else is tracking me, I may as well track myself.

[the elephant]

This video is interesting. I like the little watertight "vaults" for certain uses. I will get back to making AirTag cages for my horns whenever I finally get a break from what I am doing, but that may be a while. I like that you can remove the AT's ability to chime, but I would only ever consider doing this if I had an iPhone 11 or newer, which I don't. (My iPhone Xr cannot track directly, but only using the Find My map.) I also like that if someone uses an altered AT to stalk someone they can still be tracked down by the cops.

I do not like that a tuba thief or carjacker will still know they are being tracked. If there were a way to disable the anti-stalking feature then stalkers could use them, so I understand that.

So that means that a thief can monitor whether an AT is on an item they stole. To me, that renders much of the utility of these devices moot.

I will still use them because it is a way to try and get my stolen items back. But I am less hot on this idea than I was initially.

Watch the video and see what you think.

Oh, and I got these four AirTags back in July of 2021. I have had to replace one battery already, and a second one is currently in need of replacement. I am guessing that the other two will need new batteries very soon. So they seem to last about 14 to 18 months. I am not sure what Apple claims, but that is what my actual battery life has been, so far.

[bloke]

I think I just thought of a spot to put one of these things:

It's going to look like a strap ring, but can be put somewhere like on the inside curve of the upper bow. A thief won't be smart enough to realize that's a stupid place for a strap ring. One would grab the ring, unscrew the ring and a hollow area, and place the gadget inside and then screw it back down.

The only concern would be that how soldering on the concave flange and threads and then screwing that thing on top of it would affect the nodes.

[Grumpikins]

How about making a holder that would attatch over a brace that would look something like the counterweight on trombones. Make a decorative design on it. Someone not familiar with tubas woukdnt even notice it.

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[russiantuba]

How about making a holder that would attatch over a brace that would look something like the counterweight on trombones. Make a decorative design on it. Someone not familiar with tubas woukdnt even notice it.

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This is what I was thinking. I was thinking on the main slide of my CC (my F tuba doesn't have a brace on the slides), but then again, I would want one that is affixed to the horn and not a slide. Very interested in this.

[the elephant]

I am looking at removing the innards from one to facilitate a much smaller/thinner case. I would also (as per the above-linked video) remove the speaker. I have had the alarm of one of these go off unexpectedly, so any horn-mounted AirTag would require speaker removal.

Remove the white housing and the speaker could make this a very doable thing.

I will finally be getting a small lathe after Christmas this year, perhaps in early Spring. One of my first projects will be some sort of case for one of these. Due to signal attenuation, a metal case would probably not work very well, so it may end up being some sort of brass cage with a Delrin shell.

This could end up being a pretty cool project…

EDIT: I have a write-up showing how to tear down an AirTag and remove the PCB without harming the device. So taking accurate measurements and then using a lathe to cut a new housing from Delrin that matches Apple's interior and that can then be shaped externally to suit my needs *is* possible.

[travisd]

Video on silencing the audio function in the AirTag:

There's a part at the end that brings up a good point to consider for tagging horns - ability to remove it when you have a cleaning done...

[the elephant]

I shared that video above. Thanks, though. And yes, you must make these removable because they eventually will die.

[travisd]

I shared that video above.

D'oh!

[bloke]

I wonder if there are tracking devices that don't have to be associated with Apple, and can simple be assigned an IP address, rather than an apple humanoid.

Never mind.. I see that there are, and it's just less trouble to say never mind then to ask a monitor to delete my comment. I'm sure all of these things will become better, offer more options, and will continue to become more powerful as well as more miniaturized.

The main topic beyond tracking being the problem with people yanking our stuff out of our cars, etc, I've nearly made up my mind that leaving my stuff packed up (in it's hard case, defining something that weighs 50 to 75 lbs. - as so many thieves are also addicts, aren't in good health, and therefore aren't particularly strong) and sitting on the riser next to my chair - with a thief having to negotiate a maze to get it out of there - is a safer place than in the back of my car outside of a restaurant in the gig town.
I'm still weighing these options. Obviously, this isn't a trumpet or a fiddle that we can drag inside a restaurant and slip next to us in a booth.

sidebar:
In addition to having become sick and tired of suffering minor damage with these barely padded expensive sacks, another reason that I'm moving back to hard cases - even though I'm sort of on the front end of "old" - is absolutely the consideration that heavier/bulkier stuff is harder for thieves to steal (ref: "safes", banks' cash dispersement machines, etc., etc...)

NOW: BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM

[the elephant]

Tile and Samsung are hemmed in as Apple is: they depend on other users of the app to be nearby to allow the tracker to report in. The benefit of Apple's system is that the AT is not app-dependent but BRAND-dependent. If any Apple device wanders into range the AT automatically reports in. There are far more iPhones and MacBooks out there than there ever will be of the Tile app or the one Samsung is using. Samsung just has to make a few changes and it could also be very widespread and, therefore, useful to us in this manner, but again, it is brand-specific, I believe. It depends on the pickup device to be running Android on a Samsung phone using a Samsung app ————— I think.

Someone needs to release an ANDROID-specific device (and make an app that comes pre-installed in all Android downloads and that is like Apple's "Find My" app) in order to catch up with and eclipse Apple in this regard. I think this will happen, eventually. But since Android is used on so many different brands of phones it could take many years for this to happen.

[bloke]

Tile and Samsung are hemmed in as Apple is: they depend on other users of the app to be nearby to allow the tracker to report in. The benefit of Apple's system is that the AT is not app-dependent but BRAND-dependent. If any Apple device wanders into range the AT automatically reports in. There are far more iPhones and MacBooks out there than there ever will be of the Tile app or the one Samsung is using. Samsung just has to make a few changes and it could also be very widespread and, therefore, useful to us in this manner, but again, it is brand-specific, I believe. It depends on the pickup device to be running Android on a Samsung phone using a Samsung app ————— I think.

Someone needs to release an ANDROID-specific device (and make an app that comes pre-installed in all Android downloads and that is like Apple's "Find My" app) in order to catch up with and eclipse Apple in this regard. I think this will happen, eventually. But since Android is used on so many different brands of phones it could take many years for this to happen.

I suppose if these things could just be assigned to websites (rather than to individuals' phone accounts), but then - well... - they would be ripe for stalking abuse.
re: tracking of individuals without their knowledge...(ie. stalking)
I care where my cats are, but not-so-much where any peeps - in particular - are...as long as peeps ain't here went they ain't s'posed to be.

[tofu]

.

[bloke]

If there was something that didn't make a sound and was under 8/10 of an inch, it would fit inside a dummy slide tube that would match the diameter of outside slide tubes on many instruments probably deemed worthy of tracking.