When assets go dark, positions drift or reports stop coming in, the tracking company usually blames the install, the SIM or you. An independent RF engineer finds out what's actually wrong — because unreliable tracking is nearly always a fixable RF problem, not bad luck.
A tracker that drops out now and then is harder to deal with than one that's plainly dead, because everyone points at everyone else. The supplier says the network; the network says the device; nobody measures the radio. That's the gap an independent diagnosis fills — turning "it's unreliable" into a specific, proven cause.
Getting a fix — antenna siting, sky view, reception quality.
Reporting the fix — backhaul signal at the depot, shed or yard.
Where assets predictably go dark — dead-spots, not interference.
A tracker has two jobs: get a position, and report it. Most failures sit in one of these — and they look alike from the dashboard, which is why measuring matters.
A unit mounted where it can't see enough sky — buried in a cab, behind metal, poorly sited — gets a weak or intermittent fix. Often the single biggest cause.
The tracker gets a fix but can't send it — poor mobile signal in a steel shed, basement car park, rural yard or container. The data backs up or never arrives.
Assets that always vanish in the same place aren't being jammed — they're hitting a coverage hole. Mapping it tells you where, and what to do about it.
A damaged feeder, a loose or wrong-type antenna, water ingress, or a unit browning out under load — all produce the same flaky symptoms as a network problem.
The deliberate case — a jammer blinding the tracker, often before theft. If that's what's happening, it can be detected, located and proven. See GPS jammer detection →
Reporting intervals, sleep modes and firmware settings can make a perfectly healthy system look broken. Sometimes the fix is configuration, not hardware.
The point is to find the real cause with instruments, not to sell you a different tracker.
Measuring the quality of the satellite fix where the unit actually sits, and whether its mounting and antenna give it a fair chance.
Measuring mobile backhaul signal at the points where assets report from — the yard, the shed, the loading bay — to find where reporting fails.
Walking or driving the site to map where tracking holds and where it drops, so dead-spots are located rather than guessed at.
Inspecting and testing the antenna, feeder, connectors and power feed on the unit itself for the faults that mimic a network problem.
A spectrum check for jamming or local interference — ruling it in or out with measurement rather than assumption.
A plain report of the cause and what resolves it — re-siting, an antenna change, a backhaul fix, or escalation — with remedies fabricated in-house where one's needed.
I don't supply trackers or subscriptions, so the finding is the truth about your RF environment — not a reason to switch you to a different product.
Reception, signal and coverage are measured on site, so you end up with a documented cause — useful when supplier and customer are blaming each other.
An RF engineer who understands GNSS reception, cellular backhaul and antenna systems as one chain — because that's where tracking problems hide.
Tell me what's happening and I'll tell you what it's likely to be — and what proving it would take. UK-wide.