transponder tracker

[occido]

Does the transponder tracker only allow you to track something for a limited ammount of times? I've put a node on a quetzal last night, came on today and I could see it with the tracker, I get my quetzal with a cage, go over there, when I'm on about 500 meters away it just failed on me, every time I used right click to see where is was it did nothing. Now a couple of hours later I still can't see it, what do I do wrong? (I'm on a private server with nobody online at the moment so unless it randomly despawned when I got near it should still be somewhere, couldn't find it)