I have been using APRS since it was first conceived back in the 80s or 90s. The Town Car has a Tracker in it and many have followed me to Dayton and back the past 4 years.

This year I had a HARD failure, and I stopped beaconing at Tulsa. I use a Byonics Tiny Trak 3 module which works great, but for some reason, the uP locked the transmitter ON for 8 hours and just about blew it. Imagine transmitting in a sealed box for that long at full power! The radio was just WHITE HOT!!! But, God Bless Kenwood! The TM-261A somehow survived!!! I didn't get it all fixed until I got back to San Diego. The TinyTrak3 IC had failed, and cost me $18 to replace!!!

I use APRS as a Ham Radio lojack! In fact, I even built a Wakeup timer that wakes up every 2 or so hours and gets a fix. Then it beacons out the location a few times and goes back to sleep. Works great, and the car stays on the map 24/7.

The nice thing about it is that I can look with my Smartphone and see where the car is at all times.
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=WA6MHZ-9

The car CAN'T be stolen, unless they cram it into a metalized Shipping container and even then, it would show WHERE that is (or was). So if the car ever does get stolen, I just show the police where the car is within 10 feet or so.

I don't use the Receive function very often. I had a APRS computer in the Radio shack, but it flaked out. I used WINAPRS, and everytime there is a power failure, U have to reload Zillions of parameter! And, I can't get the APRSDOS to work right on it.

SO I just use the Cellphone for APRS RX. Works wonderfullly.