Based on the recent experience of some others, I wanted to post a short warning about purchasing GPS equipment from unknown/unreachable sellers on eBay.
It turns out that there is quite a bit of new equipment sold in other places that is Geo-Fenced. That is to say, it will work really well in the intended destination (say China or South America) but it will not work at all in the United States.
I believe that the intent of this is to allow companies to sell products inexpensively in emerging markets, but not have this equipment 'leak' back into the United States and Europe where people will pay more for hardware and software.
We have found out that that you can do to fix this. It is what it is. And it is GPS equipment that has been specifically designed to NOT work in the United States. So when it does not work in the United States, it is actually working exactly as intended. My recent experience has been that the manufacturers are not sympathetic to the end purchaser and it is not possible to return, in spite of what the listing says.
Such equipment appears to be a great deal when offered for sale, NIB (New In Box) at prices that are 45% under new costs.
Beware!
Like they use to lock phones until someone figured out how to unlock em.
As they say, the devil is in the details.
What do you mean, won't work? IF you download the correct, O, I forget what they are called, the Geoid files, then they will work? This is true, even if you travel from Rockensaw, to Calahatchee.
Or, is it the 450 mhz radio?
I have not been burned by this, BUT insurance companies, have tried this to keep from paying out large sums of money, for equipment. That is, they have said "I found your unit for XXXX.XX dollars, on ebay, so all we will pay is XXXX.XX, which is 90% of replacement cost, or something like that.
So, if you have an ins co trying to wiggle on you, beware.
Hmmm
What about gas? I hear that in the Philippines, you can buy gas for around $ 1.20 american a gallon.
Maybe we should get us a boat, and ship it over here, and sell it.... 🙂
N
The GPS will not provide a solution when turned on in the United States.
I suspect that there is a code number you can add to unlock it, but they won't give it out because that is the point.
Insurance not an issue as these are brand new.
The Topcon receivers we have sold for years that are a product of their now no longer in effect liason with Javad have always and still have an set of lines in the Options Authorization File that could be used to define a lat/long range inside which they will work and outside which they will not.
They normally do not have that limitation as far as any I have seen here.
@Nate the Surveyor...
If you may recall the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman decided they would get rich by collecting deposit cans and bottles and hauling them (in Newman's mail truck to save the cost of gas) to a state that offers 10 cent deposits instead of 5 cents. The plan was foiled however when the truck caught fire after hitting a 55 gallon barrel that Kramer had left in the road on his "adopted highway". Ahh, good times.
Another way that this can happen is that in some countries, the equipment is sold cheaply, but it's programmed to only work for a set amount of time, like 1 or 3 years, then you either have to re-up your subscription or it becomes a paper weight. I think CHC sells their GPS like that in China. Not sure if anyone else is. Some sellers might be trying to unload with equipment just before it "expires". When I use Ebay, I'll only buy from people with a long history of selling surveying equipment and a "Shop" located in the U.S.
The Asian countries reverse engineer most everything.
They will offer a product that in all appearances looks exactly like a name brand item in America. The guts of the product will be cheaper and inferior quality boards and chips that will not perform or last like the original.
I remember the episode where Denozo bought an Iphone from some third world street peddler and turned out it was actually just the case of an Iphone.
bottom line is that it may turn on and the lights and buttons work, there will be no tech support and you are not getting the real thing.
😉
