I've said it before:

Once the detector goes off, you might as well start pulling over. By the time the officer sees you, he tracks you, estimates your speed, and uses the radar to verify his estimate.

I took the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Training Councils Radar Training course for my job, and by the end of the class, I was able to estimate within 5 miles, usually withing 2 miles of your speed. Granted my skills are a little bit rusty, I still have the roughly 100-150 page handbook on what to do.

 

being in the electronics feild i know of a few that accually transmit a jamming signal and I have seen test data proving they work. however they are very illegal by the FCC and you can see jail time for owning one. i want one but i am afraid of getting catch.

 

Yes, they work alright: in carefully controlled tests with only a limited range of "emitters". Police radars come in many emitting frequencies, in several bands, with pulse and frequency modulations and even subcarriers designed to help identify the original beam and prevent jamming or falsing.

Show me one that works with ALL or them, or even MOST of them, Ben. "Working" for me means a piece of equipment that does the job. No really affordable units out there come close to even handling MOST units on the market.

Jamming technology is well established and of course it can work -- but a really effective unit ISN'T on the market. The really good ones are built "underground" and they are not cheap.

 

not true.... for laser thats true because its a sealed beam that only hits one car.... radar is spread wide and only has a readable range of a few hundred feet where as my radar detector can pick off radar from almost a mile away... i talk to cops, i know my stuff

also for you VA people it is legal to have a radar detector, its in the constitution.. a ltitle pamphlet came with mine that had it... its something like "the right to receive frequnecys"

 

Thats what I was referring to I know of a few that are made by "underground" companies and are on "the black market" and cost far more then reasonable. Then theres the whole going to jail part.

 

Ha ha! Yes, the jail thing would be no fun at all.

For the record, I made a working one once -- but radars were simpler in those days. I took a commercial microwave motion detector and modified it. It was pretty cool because it had duplexer cavities cast into it. You could receive the signal, mix it with another local oscillator, amplify and retransmit it on a slightly different frequency you could tune with the LO. Although you could dial in any frequency offset (and therefore speed difference), you were sending out TWO frequencies really and one made you look faster, and one slower, lol.

It also had a tendency to "bleed" through the duplexer and feedback on itself, lol. It had QUITE a bit of output power though. If you put your hand in front of the waveguide it made you palm tingle and feel warm -- a microwave food warmer?

I wanted to make one that recieved the beam, downconverted, limited, and frequency divided the signal, then used it to control a phase locked loop that would then emit a NEW beam on any frequency you wanted. I never built it though.

Since then I've seen designs that go WAY beyond what I did. I suspect perhaps somebody who's worked for military contractors has had some fun with this.

 

I too have heard very negative consumer reports about Rocky Mountain. For a while I did a fair amount of research and decided it wouldn't be worth my money. I pretty much stay away from any detector/jammer, because like someone else said, it gives you a false sense of security. However, I would imagine some of Escort's high end stuff would be more than suffcient in giving you some piece of mind. Just be ready to shell out some major cash.

 

Guys not to get in a debate if jammers work or not just show you
what i have and had it for years but havn't used it lately though.
It had saved me a # of times but did get caught once when i was doing triple digits
(142)mph in a '96 Vette it went off i slowed down
but the trooper locked on to me at 80 mph and was ticketed for that speed.
It works by blanking or scrambling the display on the police radar
unit but when you get close enuff they eventually get a readout,
it also scrambles those roadside speed displays the ones that
tell you your probably going to fast, there on a mobile trailer setup
so they can move them around.
I once sat in my car down the street from where one was setup
with the jammer on and all the cars that passed the display
just showed all different digital numbers never a solid number
'locked speed' (it was a side road with very light traffic the time
i was there so it wasn't causing a hazard although everyone
was braking & confused)
This unit will also set off all detecors within it's range
including the one i was using at the time a Escort and then
Passport models by Cincinatti Microwave Co.
It is illegal, and when i was using it i had to be ready to remove
it from the dash so not to be seen by the officer,
it is considered obstructing justice or somthing like that.
I havn't used it in years and forgot i even had it till i saw this post,
here is a pic and specs from the manual posted below;

 

 

Not bad! The specs are actually pretty good for a jammer, though the power is not very high. And it will only jam ahead of you I take it, not a surprise instant on from the rear.

Don't run these in VA or CT though -- they look for radiated energy in those bands in those states.

 

Yes John only works forward,and not to familer with the elec specs and that stuff, so thanks for the good review LOL,
and iv heard about the states that have the radar detecter detecter, i think most of the better ones don't leak microwave radiation, at least my Val 1 dosn't, i would really like to be able to remotely mount it behind the grill and have the readouts in the cab this way it's really stealth and off the dash.

 

You're right about the leakage. But your jammer emits, so it could be detected.

In the "old days" the local oscillator (the "tuning frequency", if you will) and the received signal were mixed right at the gunn diode IN THE HORN. That means that the LO signal was being emitted even as the other signal was being recieved.

However, the proliferation of microwave devices (wireless lans, phones, etc.) have made better "front end" technology affordable, and that "mixer in the horn" design is no longer required to make an "affordable" radar detector.

 

is that a radar detector???????????

 

Ha ha! You had REAL ECM, bro'!

 

Don't what that is but it sounds 'lethal'
and it kinda makes ya feel good when you can even the playing field ahh?

fletch12518, It's a X-K band radar jammer

 

make sure its as low as possible. Cuz cops aim the radar at the front bumper so if its high it wont pick it up

 

You don't aim radar at the front bumper or any other part of the vehicle. It's not a precision targeting device. Radar has a wide 'beam' so to speak and will pick up anything in it's general direction. And for what it's worth, on the off chance that someone here has managed to aquire a device that actually jams radar for real, you would want it as HIGH as possible.

Laser is aimed through cross-hairs and is a narrow pencil like beam. Laser jammers can work because it is light, not RF and the regulations on that are a lot different than radar transmitters. Those you do in fact want low. They are aiming for the hood, grill, and bumper. There is nothing to aim for above the hood unless they have come up with one that will work off of glass.

 

Look, the only way to completely defeat radar/laser is to acquire some surplus military hardware from like an F-16 or something. Next time you're speeding just throw some chafe and activate your ECM pod. The cop will be so bewildered by your "show" of force that you'll be long gone by the time he realizes or even attempts to reliaze that a Ford Ranger doing 85mph just dropped chafe and fried his handheld radar gun with 10000 watts of ECM pod-ness. For effect you can add one of those flamethrower kits to your tailpipe to make it seem like full afterburner to really shine on the cop!

Oh and don't forget your Auxillary Power Unit to power the contraption and some sort of ladder rack to mount the chafe pods on! As far as the 6 foot ECM pod mounted to your roof, the cop will just think you're the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile!

 

Police speed trap! All ahead flank, 20 degrees down! Fire port side countermeasures!!

 

I'd install that just so I could say that while driving

Now for my take on Radar Detectors, I've had 3 of them in various vehicles years back and I found them highly useful, I could find every electronic door around without even looking. As for police radar, I enjoyed the beeping as I blew past the cop at 85 mph. I must say it did get me out of one ticket though, the officer laughed at me, then I said
Me: "Officer, if I get out of this vehicle, grab my bat behind the seat, and hit this piece of "dung" into the woods would you let me go?"
Officer: "I'd love to see it so, ya go for it."
I did he laughed a bit more and told me to slow down and get out of here.
It was about the third time the POS didn't work so I was sick of the darn thing.

 

My girlfriend stole my detector, a local cop clocked me at 36 in a 25 on my lawnmower!!! No Sht.... He couldnt stop laughing and he said he couldnt write me a ticket because he didnt want to explain that one to his captain!!!!!! HAHA funy stuff...

Heres the mower

 

"Police speed trap! All ahead flank, 20 degrees down! Fire port side countermeasures!!"

In the Navy, this would say:
All stations radar, police laser off port side at 20 degrees relative 000 degrees. Deploy counter-measures and recommend full flank ahead.

I need a longer vacation

 

Arrrg!

 

i got a speeding ticket not to long ago for doin 20 over but thank god he wrote me up for 5 over well i now got a valentine one and i love it also my uncle is a cop and he is gona get me some illegal jamers for me so im set