Tracker pinpoints the spot
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• Surrey Police showed CM how Tracker works. A car carrying a transponder used for training was sent to hide a few miles from our position. PC George Dobson switched on the homing device mounted in his Vauxhall Senator patrol car and waited while it went through its self-diagnosis procedure. All was well, so we set off.
The detector picked up a signal almost immediately. "It's best to let it settle, see if it's moving and go from there," Dobson explained. We stopped to let the signal stabilise. The display shows 16 points of a compass. Four small aerials on the roof pick up the signal and display the direction of the stolen vehicle relative to the police car. In this case the slightly erratic signal and the weakness of its bleep indicated that the target was still some miles away. "The beauty of this system is that you don't have to rush," said Dobson as we headed off again. 'We know it's still some distance so we won't go down any side roads just yet." We arrived at a crossroads with three ways to go, but the signal—stronger and louder by now—indicated almost straight ahead. The transponder's five-digit code had by now appeared, too, indicating the vehicle's identity. The first of 10 range indicator lights came on so we knew we were within iwo miles.
A few minutes later the "local" warning light came on, telling us that we were within a mile. We slowed down as all the lights start to glow. The direction finder said straight ahead, but it suddenly swung round to the nine-o'clock position. We stopped, within arms length of the 'stolen" car. "It's so accurate you can tell which garage it's in in a set of lock-ups," said PC Dobson. Sure enough the direction finder swung forward again as we reversed a few feet: the whole search took less than half an hour.