parnass@ihuxf.UUCP (06/24/83)
The following query recently appeared on the net:
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At the beginning of the year I purchased an 83 Chevy Blazer (full-size).
It has been great, well built, good gas mileage, ...
Well, a dark cloud has arisen. This vehicle seems to be a prime target
of thieves. This past weekend mine was broken into and the stereo, among
other things, were stolen from it. A friend of mine had his stolen, lock
stock and muffler, a few months ago. I need advice, how do I get protection
from these vermin?
.
.
.
well, anyone know of some protection??
i was thinking that a pocket pager would be nice, but to be any good
it would have to transmit a fair distance, and maybe the horn would
have to be silenced quickly (or not blow at all). And maybe a small
transmitter installed in a piece of equipment that you could use to
point the cops to the right house.
A couple of sticks of dynamite was also a possibility...
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I have a 1980 Blazer and am happy with it. I purposely
bought one that looked as plain as possible. It has
neither chrome, nor trim, nor two-tone paint, just a
pair of 1/4" thick steel bumpers with hard rubber
pieces I designed. Part of the reason for this is that
I didn't want the truck to attract attention from the
criminal lower life forms.
Here's what I have done to avoid theft problems:
o+ Moved to a "low" crime area.
o+ Avoid parking the truck in high crime areas (like
cities). This would be difficult for city lovers,
but I'm not a city person myself.
o+ Installed theft-resistant knobs (finger pulls) on
the door locks.
o+ The stereo in my truck is one I bought from Sears
(made by Sanyo) in 1974. It's not fancy. If I
had a fancy one, I'd put a piece of black felt
material over it when I wasn't using it.
o+ I don't wash my truck very often, so it looks like
a truck, not a show vehicle. I do hose it down
after off-road driving.
These suggestions are not for everyone, they're just
one guy's approach to the problem.
Sure, I might like to have a neat, clean, chromed
truck, with a trick paint job, or a 'vette for that
matter, but so would alot of others who would steal to
get it. I've thought about this quite a bit. Isn't is
rotten that you:
o+ want something badly.
o+ have the money to buy it.
o+ won't buy it because some dirt bag will steal it?
Many ham radio operators like to install amateur radio
equipment in their cars. In Chicago and northern New
Jersey, theft of this type of equipment has prevented
hams from enjoying this aspect of the hobby. Some
remove their radios when not using the car.
Out here (Naperville, IL area), many hams find that
covering their mobile equipment with dark black, non-
glossy material is sufficient to hide their stuff from
view, and this deters its theft.
If your truck had a paging type tamper detection sys-
tem, and your pager alerted you one night, how would
you interact with the gang of thieves you intercept
messing with your Blazer?
Robert S. Parnass
Bell Laboratories
Naperville, IL
ihnp4!ihuxf!parnassnorskog@fortune.UUCP (06/26/83)
#R:ihuxf:-53800:fortune:1500021:000:130 fortune!norskog Jun 25 16:26:00 1983 One slight misconception in your message: Cars are not stolen to drive. They are stolen to recycle, i.e. into the parts market.