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Comment on To win the show Alone, could someone smuggle a GPS locator inside of their anus?

You may be surprised to find that GPS signals are quite low power by the time they get to Earth. Receivers employ a bunch of trucks to extract the signal out of noise. It does not take much in the way to attenuate them to the point where they are useless. If a receiver is embedded in a body cavity it is unlikely to work well unless it has a direct full-sky view – which is especially troublesome for that particular body cavity.

It might be easier to embed a tiny receiver in someone’s skin: in their shoulder, or the nape of their neck. A strategically-placed tattoo could help cover it up. The receiver would also need power so you would either need to embed a power source in it (which may be larger than the receiver itself) or work out some RF power source nearby. (But if you didn’t know where in the world they were, how would you know where to place the power source?)

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jodanlime@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Leave the antenna sticking out a bit and do a handstand

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betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It only needs to be up there until the contestant has a chance to remove it off-camera.

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- dhork@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Then that’s more feasible. It also means that it doesn’t have to try to operate while safely stowed. The contestant can remove it and then turn it on. They might even be able to strategically bury it somewhere. The small amount of dirt above it will attenuate the signal, but if buried in a place with an open view of the sky they will get a much stronger signal than they would in a building.
  
  We are spoiled with how quickly the GPS in our phones work, but they already have a good idea where they are from the cell towers, and they can also get information on which satellites are in view from the Internet. If the GPS receiver had to work without access to those resources, it may take minutes to get a fix.
  
  Then, it also has to get communicate the position data: if there is no cell service, that would have to be some sort of satellite communication or other long-range thing.
  
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