Conference back40::soapbox

    
    
    
    If radar detectors are illegal then radar should also be illegal.

    Legal as a practical aid to avoid the criminal proceedings of revenue
    collectors skulking around on the highways and byways looking to extort 
    monies from the citizenry.  

A CB works better. You get the warning miles ahead, instead of coming around
the corner.

I don't use either... I drive 65 on the highway (pretty much regardless of
limit), and 75% of the cars are going faster than me.

    They are illegal in some states aren't they?

    I know that Virginia is big on nabbing people with detectors.

    I wish someone would come out with a totally passive radar detector or
    at least one that doesn't have a detectable oscillator.

    
    well they didn't help Iraq much a few years ago.
    
    Mark

How fast was Iraq going?

 8^)

    Virginia and Connecticut though CT may have lifted the ban.  VA has
    detector detectors and will nab you for merely possessing one.  Turning
    it off avoids detection but defeats the purpose of having one.  There
    are units that are supposedly undetectable but I haven't seen this
    proven.  I like Mike's answer best.

Used to be banned in CT, VA, and Washington, D.C. (everything is banned in
D.C.), now just VA and D.C.

BTW, did you know that until recently, it was legal to receive and listen to
any radio wave, as long as you didn't go spreading secret information around?
We now have laws that make it illegal to listen to certain transmissions,
even if they do happen to be passing through your home, and can be received
on common consumer electronic gadgets. I'm not talking about radar detector
bans only here.

New York State also now bans the use of radar detectors in vehicles over
a certain weight limit (18klb gvw?).

  Anyone hear anything about a laser radar detector?

  I have no idea what that means but someone suggested that it was the newest
and hottest thing.

  Is there any disadvantage to having your detector detected in Massachusetts?

  George

I think CT still bans them for big trucks.

re: .9

You are obviously referring to the law that makes it illegal to listen to
cellular phone frequencies.

re: .11

Laser <> radar, therefore there is no such thing as a laser radar detector.

There are however units that contain both radar detecting circuitry and
laser detecting circuitry.

Bob

 I saw a thing on Next Step on the Discovery channel that demo'd a Laser
 device for measuring speed of a vehicle.  they also demo'd a laser detector
 that is new to the market that, from what I could see, appeared to be useless
 in that once it figured out the laser was there, you were already nailed.




 Jim

    I've had one for several years...haven't turned it on for just about as
    long.  Generally, go as fast as I want.  If I get a ticket, I just
    consider it another cost of doing business (road tax).  The odds are in
    your favour of not getting caught, unless your blatant about it(insist
    on speeding up an down in front of the local station).
    
    	If your insurance rates go up...well think of it as investment in
    futures...This way the insurance companies can make lots of money and
    do developmental studies on things like:
    
    		Front bumber mounted Brake lights!
    		Side Window Wiper/Washers!
    		External Air-bags for pedestrians!
    		Three more brake lights for the rear of your car!
    		Automatic ticket registry tied into the speedometer!
    		New ways to use plastic in automobile construction!
    		Air bags for busses!
    		New ideas on how to make bicyclists and pedestrians pay
    		insurance!
    		Figure out a way to make everyone pay for mandatory automobile
    		insurance, and then keep them from driving!

    
    
    
    
    Just paint your car stealth.  Problem solved.
    
    
    
    

    Yeah, at $3,000 a quart it would be a bargain compared to what the
    insurance co.s will do to ya' :-)
    
    My detector has save my butt a number of times and then again there
    were the times it alerted me to get my lic. and registration out.  They
    are definitely not infallible but the ROI has been very good for me.  

>    <<< Note 355.13 by ROWLET::AINSLEY "Less than 150 kts. is TOO slow!" >>>
> You are obviously referring to the law that makes it illegal to listen to
> cellular phone frequencies.

Ayup. Ban radar detectors (10 GHz receivers), ban scanners that can receive
cellphone (800 MHz receivers), and now very recently, ban more scanners
because they can receive cordless phones (49 MHz receivers). Some police
radio systems are now designed to hang up scanners on inactive frequencies,
to make listening difficult.

Where are we going here?

    
    Ahem.
    
    I'd like to go on record as saying I do NOT belong to the second group of 
    Road Misfits as described by Mr_Topaz.
    
    Signed,
    
    Female Fiero driver who uses her mirrors extensively because neck
    swiveling pulls her hair 8^)
    

    It's all a big game. If governments were _really_ concerned about
    highway safety, they would not allow the manufacturing of cars that
    could surpass the speed limit. For less than 20K, you can by a car that
    will do close to 150 mph. So, this is supposed to encourage me to max
    out at 65 mph?

    It's a cat and mouse game. 

re .18,

don`t look at me, daddio, I stick to a constant 90mph on motorways.  I do
actually use my rear view mirror to see if there`s any jam sandwiches
lurking behind.

At least you Shermans don`t have to put up with the latest blight that
has appeared over here (at least I guess not as no-one`s complained about
it yet), the bloody Gatso camera.  This evil contraption lurks in the
bushes beside the road and phototgraphs any vehicle passing it too quickly.
Several days later the photo appears in the post along with a 40 quid fine
and three points.  Fair enough in town centres I suppose, but too many
police forces are using it as a means of raising revenue (anybody in central
England may have noticed the proliferation of cameras along a straight
stretch of the A40 through Oxfordshire)

Chris.

    Are detectors panned in the UK?

panned?

It`s legal to own a radar detector in the UK, just not to use it, as it
contradicts some ancient law prohibiting receiving radio signals.  They`re
not much use with the Gatso cameras, laser-based speed detectors and various
other tricks such as induction rings hidden under the road surface, pressure
sensors, etc.

Chris.

    Good heavens.
    
    Are they starting to do the same things in Germany?

    	But if you have your radiator mounted at an angle, then police
    	can't "see" you with radar.

Did anyone else see that "Stealth" car, in the style of the bomber, designed
to avoid radars?  I think that`s going a bit too far!!

Chris.

    There is another group of Road Misfits are who have yet to unlock the 
    secrets of looking in their blind spots by swivelling the necks to find 
    out what's happening beside them, these Members of Society choose to
    rely upon the limited visibility afforded by their rear view mirror. 
    Now, this has a few interesting consequences: 
    		
    For one, they are no longer able to see what's going on beside their 
    Camaro/Fiero/Trans Am/Chevette.  For another, because they are too
    friggin lazy and or stupid to check the blind spot so the 
    aforementioned Camaro/Fiero/Trans Am/Chevette generally careens into 
    the next lane clueless to anyone that might be there.  Extensive research 
    indicates that this driver is not versed in the correct procedure for
    knowing what is going on around them and therefore is a meance to
    driving society.  
       

    They're a menace too!

re: .28, Joe

<low_chuckle>

:^)

    Joe, please.  You will resurrect the ghosts of the Netpest and Boris
    and we can all be entreated to the effects of doppler radar on crop
    circles again.  

    re .18- 
    
    yeah, Chelsea, he's _ancient_.
    
    DougO

FWIW, I know of at least one State Police department that is currently
testing digitized audio, and one city PD that uses a scrambler on tac
frequencies.

Digitizing is easy, and if they all adopt it, that'll be goodbye scanner
eavesdroppers.

    It is a statistical fact that users of radar detectors are involved in
    fewer accidents per capita than are people who do not use radar
    detectors.  It is also a fact that two independent studies commissioned
    by the US Department of Transportation both reported that on average,
    highway speed limits are between 10 and 15 MPH too low.
    
    That said, I will remark that California cops are very much in favor of
    people who use radar detectors because these people, relying on the
    alarms they receive, average slower speeds than do people without
    detectors.
    
    In the USA, only Virginia and Washington, D.C., have outright bans on
    possession of radar detectors.  New York prohibits their use in vehicles
    over 9000 lb gross vehicle weight.  Connecticut lifted its ban a year
    or more ago.
    
    New York polices its restriction with a device called the VG-2 (the
    infamous radar detector detector), which detects the local oscillators
    in radar detectors.  If you're not in a vehicle for which detectors are
    banned, you're just fine when a VG-2 sees you.
    
    Modern radar detectors have a circuit in them that does to the VG-2
    what the VG-2 is doing to the detector, i.e., detects the VG-2's local
    oscilator, in effect operating as a radar detector detector detector. 
    When the RDDD detects a VG-2, it shuts down the detector's local
    oscillator - usually for 20 seconds - then it restarts the local
    oscillator and takes another peek for the VG-2.  This stuff is VERY
    effective.
    
    Most modern radar detectors also have laser detectors in them.  Since
    the laser guns are so narrow in their view, it's true that when your
    laser detector goes off, basically it's telling you that you've been
    had.  But the laser guns rely on backscatter (reflection of the gun's
    beam back toward the gun) from your vehicle, and virtually all of the
    backscatter comes from your license plates, which are designed with
    that intent to increase their visibility.  You can buy clear covers for
    your license plates, at about $40 a pair, that absorb the infrared
    radiation that the laser guns use, effectively cutting your visibility
    to almost nil - at least it's good enough that you can slam on the
    brakes with a fair chance of success.
    
    As for legality, the Federal Communications Act of 1934, reaffirmed in
    1992 by the SCOTUS, says that you have the right to receive whatever's
    in the air and do with it what you can.  Specific laws have been
    enacted prohibiting you from receiving cellphone transmissions, but
    other than that you're still within your rights to receive anyting -
    including radar and laser emissions.

> This stuff is VERY effective.
    
Not to mention complex - geeziz, I had to draw a diagram just to keep track
of it! :^)

(I think the NYS weight limitation is 9 tons, as I stated previously, not
 9Klbs, though. At least, that's what the sign said last time I crossed
 over from Vermont - 9/94.)

    > But the laser guns rely on backscatter (reflection of the gun's beam
    > back toward the gun) from your vehicle, and virtually all of the
    > backscatter comes from your license plates, which are designed with
    > that intent to increase their visibility.
    
    Is there an insignificant amount of backscatter from the reflector
    panels covering taillights and parking lights?  I'd expect those to
    provide big beacons of backscatter.
    
    DougO

    .39
    
    Taillights, parking lights, etc., do provide backscatter, but not
    nearly so much as the license plate seems to provide.  Probably there's
    something being dealt with by the colored plastic.

re .33:

Stealth radiators anyone?

re .39/.40:

The reflectors are covered with colored lenses that do a good job at filtering
certain frequencies (colors) of light while letting others pass.  The yellow
ones filter the red and this PROBABLY extends to the infrared but this isn't
guaranteed.  The red is less certain, it may pass a wide range into the
infrared.  The yellow is more important as the red is restricted to the rear
of the car.

-Madman

Remember,  unlike radar, the laser guns must be 'aimed' at a target.  Because
the beam is so narrow, the target can't be 'whatever wanders down the road' or
even 'that car'.  It has to be something like 'the license plate of that car'.
If the officer aims at the license plate and gets no reading, he then has to
aim at another part of the vehicle and try again.  Flat reflective surfaces are
the best targets.  Of course the target may be past him by that time.  All in
all, laser is not a good revenue enhancement technology as it takes too much
effort on the part of the operator, thus lowering its revenue $$$/hour ratio.

Bob

    
    
    i own a radar detector (a cheap one, too) and tend to only use it when
    driving long periods of time on the highway...it has saved my butt a
    few times, but then again, there are times when it didn't work.
    
    
    and also, for the record, i use my rear-view mirror, my side mirrors,
    AND the head swivel thing...even tho i am a female 'stang driver...so
    there...
    
    

  When we got our new car they gave us two sets of Mass plates, one for the
front and one for the back. Is there a new law saying we now need plates in
the front? If not, then are they there just to make the laser radar work?

  Where is the best place to get a radar detector in the greater Boston area?
Is there some place to go where the guy selling the stuff really understands
these issues and is not just out to say anything to sell anything?

  George

If you have the redwhiteandblue plates, you need to put one on the front.

    
    Yes, you need two plates but you will only get a sticker to put on the
    rear plate.
    
    ed

George,

What's 'laser radar'?

Bob

P.S.  My experience with BEL has been bad, while others had great experiences.
I've had great experiences with Cincinnati Microwave (The Escort Store) but
don't care for their present offerings.  If you want great engineering AND
the old Cincinnati Microwave quality, try ...whoops I've forgotten the name
of the company, but it is run by one of the guys who invented the orginal
Escort at Cincinnati Microwave.  Oh yeah, all this is covered in great detail
in SCAACT::CARBUFFS.  KP-7 or Select to add it to your notebook.

    My RD is a Whistler.  X, K, Ka, and laser, plus VG-2.  It's not one of
    the very top line, but it's not a cheapo, either.
    
    I use it most of the time - not so I can speed, but more as sort of a
    companion.  My driving isn't different whether I have the RD running or
    not, but it talks to me, as it were, and keeps me alert to the road.
    
    My experience with BEL was so-so, my experience with Maxon poor, and my
    experience with Whistler (presently a 1270) very good.

    
    as stated earlier, you only need two plates if your license plate has
    red/white/blue lettering on it...when i renewed my license last year, i
    asked the man at the registry is i had to get (totally new plates) or
    if they would just give me a second plate...he said because my plates
    had the green lettering, all i needed was one plate.
    
    i do believe that all new plates are red/white/blue, therefore you will
    get two...
    
    
    
    

    
    <-------
    
    >as stated earlier, you only need two plates 
                                      ^
                                      |_______________
    
    
     What?? They used to issue more than two??
    
     Where did you have to put them... in the back windows???
    
     :) :)
    

    .50
    
    There is a semantic difference, subtle but real, between "you only need
    two plates" and "you need only two plates."
    
    NNTTM.

Better to have said "you need two plates only if..."

    
    
    andy, remind me to {smaq} you saturday...
    
    

    Valentine, the compnay founded by ex CM employees?  High ratings,
    expensive.
    
    I have had good luck with my Escort 4500.  

    I hear they have a detector that you can install in your nostrils.

    ... and now for something completely different, a man with
         a radar detector up his nose...

    
    How would such a device indicate the presence of radar?
    

    It makes you sneeze.

re: .55

Yep.  That's the one.

Bob

	Why detect when you can jam?

   RADAR JAMMERS (All units are legal under current FCC rules... they say)


	http://www1.trib.com/ADS/RADAR/index.html

    
    	From what I've read about jammers, they're pretty much useless.
    
    	"Automobile" magazine tested a handful of them and decided that
    	at best they were very inconsistent and at worst actually inc-
    	reased the clocking distance of the car they were mounted in.
    

    
    
    Yo !!!!!
    
     Has this been asked before??
    
     I saw an ad for a thingie that you put over your license plate that is
    supposed to deflect (absorb?) the laser beam fired at you...
    
     It seems (from the ad) that the laser reflects back from the plate and
    that's what times you....
    
     Just curious...
    

    Snake oil at best.  The laser will reflect off any surface.  The plate
    cover was meant for photo radar.  The surface supposedly distorts the
    photo so it is illegible when the film is developed. The effectiveness
    in that situation is even questionable.  
    
    Brian

    
    	And the angular range at which it is effective is too small to
    	keep the camera from getting a picture of it.
    

    .64
    
    You are behind the times.  There is a plate cover product that is very
    absorptive of IR in the frequency range used by kops' lasguns.  It
    works because the lasguns rely heavily on backscatter, and the cover
    prevents virtually all of the IR from hitting the plate and further
    filters out virtually all of what little did get through on its return
    trip.

    Possibly, but the plate is such a small target compared to the rest of
    the vehicle that protecting your plate is like wearing only a fig leaf
    in a hurricane.  It the license plate is the target to paint for laser,
    many vehicles are immune in the PRM anyway as there are still a lot of
    the single, rear green and white ones kicking around.   
    
    Brian

    .67
    
    > Possibly, but the plate is such a small target...
    
    Not so, Brian.  The plate is the principal source of reflected light,
    specifically because of backscatter.
    
    > many vehicles are immune in the PRM anyway...
    
    Lest we forget, a kop can point a lasgun at the tail end of a receding
    vehicle, too.  My detector scored once on one of those.

    Hmmmmmm, they must be pretty accurate when pointing then.   At distance
    and speed, I would think targeting the plate would be pretty tough.  I
    have yet to pick up laser on my detector yet so I have no practical
    experience here, thankfully.  

    
    
    I just wear my aluminum foil cap......

    What do you wear on your head then?

    The March 1996 issue of Car and Driver has an article on radar jammers,
    laser jammers, and laser defusing license plate covers.  The sound-bite
    summary is:  Passive radar jammers work about as well as fuzzy dice
    hanging from your rearview mirror.  Active radar jammers are
    inconsistent in their functioning and are illegal.  Laser jammers don't
    work very well.  License plate cover laser defusers don't work very
    well by themselves, but work reasonably well in conjunction with your
    bright lights.  Why the emphasis on license plate covers?  Because the
    police are taught to aim the laser unit at the license plate to get the
    best reading.
    
    Bob

    Anybody know how those radar gizmos work?  Specifically, do they go for
    the strongest return signal, or do they go for the signal with the
    highest speed value?
    
    I wonder how one would respond if you had a good radar reflector in/on
    your car that would produce a nice strong return, and made it vibrate
    so that it would add some off-the-wall apparent speed to the returned
    reflection?  The object would be to make the cop's radar display
    impossible numbers, so he would not have anything to nail you with.
    
    Back in 1976 or so I heard there was a guy working for DEC who had been
    a radar engineer in a former life, and who worked part time repairing
    traffic radar for the town he lived in.  Supposedly he built a powerful
    radar transmitter for his car (yes, it's illegal), that would be
    triggered by his detector, and that was powerful enough to burn out the
    detector in the cop's radar unit.  Got lots of extra business and no
    tickets as a result.  At least that how the story went.  :-)
    

    
    	For the most part, the radar gun looks for the biggest target in
    	the clocking range.
    
    	And a radar jammer does basically what you describe ... takes the
    	gun's signal, supposedly garbles it, and returns the signal using
    	the same frequency that the gun is looking for.  But they really
    	don't work too well.  Supposedly they return a value of 0 or a
    	value that's ridiculously high [like 175].
    

    Microwave radar is a fairly simple doppler device, the radar "gun"
    sends out an unmodulated carrier at either 10.525 (x-band) or 24.150
    (K-band) GHz, (thousands of Megacycles). The reflected signal will
    be offset by the approaching or receding vehicle's velocity, and
    this reflected signal, even though much weaker than the transmitted
    signal, re-enters the "horn" antenna of the radar unit, gets mixed
    with the outgoing signal, and the resulting frequency difference
    gets filtered, amplified and counted, resulting in the digital 
    speed display. The doppler shift for X-band is 31.4 Hz/MPH and 
    72 Hz/MPH for K-band. Some radar guns have a small speaker to that
    the operator can monitor the resulting audio tone, which sounds
    like a rising or falling whistle. The radar gun's transmitted power
    generally falls between 50 and 200 milliwatts, and the transmitted
    "beam" is fairly narrow, like that of a flashlight, so that it is 
    relatively easy to focus upon a single vehicle. 
    
    I am not real sure of the technology behind the laser "radar" but
    I would presume that the process is similar, using an interferometer
    as the "mixer" and higher speed logic circuits to display the speed.
    
    K-40 makes a "laser-proofer" license plate frame which has some infrared
    LEDs behind a red plastic lens located at the top center of the device.
    My SWAG is that this "jammer" just floods out the returning laser beam
    with background noise, and so allegedly defeats the laser unit. 
    Or at least, it is supposed to. Having an infrared "flashlight" 
    is not yet illegal, but then I doubt it is very effective, either.
    
                                    

    >like a rising or falling whistle. The radar gun's transmitted power
    >generally falls between 50 and 200 milliwatts, and the transmitted
    >"beam" is fairly narrow, like that of a flashlight, so that it is 
    >relatively easy to focus upon a single vehicle. 
    
    I disagree.  One of the problems with radar is that the beam is
    relatively wide at anything other than short distances, making it
    difficult to pick out one vehicle.  This is one of the reasons radar
    detectors are so useful, especially if the officer is lazy and drives
    around with the radar on constantly.
    
    Bob
    

    
    	Yes, as I understand it, the radar beam IS like a flashlight beam,
    	but not in that it's narrow ... rather in that it widens as it gets
    	farther away from the flashlight.
    
    	So from maybe 75' away, you could have 3 cars in the beam at the
    	same time ... and it's basically a guess as to which car you're
    	clocking.
    
    	A laser detector is supposedly a very fine beam, such that you're
    	almost positive which car is being clocked.
    

    }}	A laser detector is supposedly a very fine beam, such that you're
    }}	almost positive which car is being clocked.
    
    You mean like a laser beam?  Supposedly?  
    
    8-P

    
    	Yes, but with the low power they use [to avoid frying people's
    	eyes out on an errant sweep of a crowded highway], I wasn't sure
    	if the beam would disperse as the clocking distance increased.
    
    	I'm no laser scientist, you know.
    

    "I did not know that."

    
    
    Must be the blonde hair...... ;')

    You mean strawberry blonde.
    
    8)

    
    Strawberries are red.
    
    

    Correct.  2 points Deb!!
    
    8)
            

    
    I knew my college education would come in handy some day.
    

    
    	You be sure and let us know when that day arrives, Deb.
    

From:	US4RMC::"wsu02@barney.poly.edu" "Wei-Jen Su" 30-JAN-1996 14:19:33.06
To:	skunk-works@mail.orst.edu
CC:	
Subj:	FWD>"In a hurry are we, sir (fwd)


	Not very skunky but still deal with radar...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From the net, somewhere in England:

Two members of the Lothian and Borders traffic police were out on the
Berweckshire moors with a radar gun recently, happily engaged in
apprehending speeding motorists, when their equipment suddenly locked-up
completely with an unexpected reading of well over 300 mph.

The mystery was explained seconds later as a low flying Harrier hurtled over
their heads. The boys in blue, upset at the damage to their radar gun, put
in a complaint to the Royal Air force, but were somewhat chastened when the
RAF pointed  out that the damage might well have been more severe.  The
Harrier's target-seeker had locked on to the 'enemy' radar and triggered 
an automatic retaliatory air-to-surface missile attack.

Luckily the Harrier was operating unarmed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Oy!

    cool.

    The typical radar gun has a beamwidth of 5 to 10 degrees, so it
    will spread out over distance, and signal degrades as a cube 
    of the distance. A little trig will tellyou how wide a swath
    the radar will cover. There can be uncertainty of a target at a 
    distance, but if the officer keeps aimed at the moving vehicle, 
    he can be relatively certain, but there is still the element of
    doubt. Unfortunately courts tend to side up with the cop and 
    not the defendant. The laser is a pinpoint, does not spread out
    like microwaves, so the certainty is greater. But it still boils
    down to the cop's word vs yours.
    
    I had heard the "zapper" story quite a few years ago, except that
    the perp was a Sanders employee, and one claimed that he was the
    same guy who got busted for selling drugs at Bill's Guns and
    Gifts in Nashua, NH, last week. Methinks it was just a local
    urban legend. There were some deccies who were using low powered
    10.400 GHz gunnplexer transceivers legally in the ham radio band, 
    which just happened to set off radar detectors. But then, these
    automatic doors in Wal-Mart and in some DEC buildings use sensors
    which operate in the same bands as police radar, and they also 
    will make a detector give a "false" reading.
    
    VASCAR or a pair of well-calibrated eyeballs is immune to any 
    consumer electronic counter-measures.