Andy Ivens
The Province

A high-tech homing device helped the owner of a stolen commercial truck recover his vehicle -- and locate three other missing vehicles in the process.

Insulation contractor Praven Sorensen had installed a global positioning system on his five-tonne truck just a week before it was stolen.

"I just thought, 'I can't afford to lose that truck,'" he said yesterday.

Overall, his truck and insulation blower are worth $50,000.

Arriving at his Port Kells offices at about 7:30 a.m. last Monday, Sorensen was dumbfounded to discover the truck was gone.

He made a frantic call to the company that installed the device.

Sales rep Mike Jackson at Apex Security called back.

"He says, 'Your truck's at the corner of 84th and 206th. Meet me there in 10 minutes,' Sorensen said.

"I just said, 'You're an angel, Mike.'"

The pair spotted the truck parked behind a large workshop on private property next to a playing field in the Willoughby area of Langley Township.

They called Langley RCMP, who were on the scene within 15 minutes.

Police recovered the 1998 International cube van, its insulation blower intact.

Replacing the insulation blower alone would have cost Sorensen about $25,000 and shut him down for about three weeks, he estimated.

"I got lucky," he said, tipping his hat to Apex and the Langley RCMP.

Sorensen, who has owned and operated Fransor Insulation Ltd. for more than 25 years, admits he's no techno-wizard.

"I don't know a tonne about [GPS technology]," he said.

"It told us exactly what time [the truck] was stolen at -- Saturday night at 10:13. For a guy like me who's not up on all this stuff, it's pretty amazing."

The three other vehicles recovered at the scene are:

- a 1991 Black Chevrolet Blazer, stolen from the Port Moody area in July 2004;

- a 1997 International five-tonne truck, stolen from Surrey in 2001;

- a travel trailer, stolen from Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows in 2002.

Cpl. Tim Shields, spokesman for the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT), said the battle against car thieves is turning in the good guys' favour.

"People who have had their vehicles stolen are using the system to track their vehicles," he said.

"Thieves, beware," he said. "People are creating impromptu bait cars by installing GPS devices, and they work."

The cheapest GPS systems start at under $100. Marine systems can cost $5,000 or more.

Shields also announced six of B.C.'s 10 most notorious car thieves -- featured in a front-page spread in The Province last week -- have been arrested, and IMPACT expects to have the last four located by the end of the month.

Langley RCMP media liaison

Cpl. Diane Blain said investigators have a suspect in the Willoughby case, but welcome the public's help.

Anyone who recognizes their stolen vehicle is urged to call Langley RCMP at 604-532-3200, or, if they wish to give information in confidence, to call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

aivens@png.canwest.com

- - -

HOW GPS WORKS

When people talk about a "GPS," they usually mean a GPS receiver.

The global positioning system (GPS) is actually a constellation of 27 Earth-orbiting satellites -- 24 in operation and three extras in case one fails.

The U.S. military developed and implemented the satellite network as a military navigation system, but soon opened it up to the public.

Each of the 1.6-tonne solar-powered satellites circles the globe at about 19,300 kilometres above the Earth, making two complete rotations every day.

The orbits are arranged so that at any time, anywhere on Earth, there are at least four satellites "visible" in the sky.

A receiver locates four or more of these satellites, figures out the distance to each and uses this information to deduce its own location.

It is based on a mathematical principle called trilateration.

- from howstuffworks.com