Networking automobile Radar detectors

[JeffsSig]

ESCORT Live - Escort Inc.

Now here is something I had thought about years ago and I like this setup.

It would work almost 100% if there was a lot of others using it in a given area.

Live real time alerts from a network of those ahead of you up the road. LOVE it.

[Guest 73challenger]

Ha I have also thought about this before. Would work super well if enough people used it. I wonder how much data ESCORT will be selling from this... Maybe that paranoia comes from being a IT student.

[Pain103]

Go ahead an spend the money. Most detectors don't pick up quick enough if a good radar or lidar operator is working the speed measuring device. I just like turning off and on near people with detectors to drive them crazy with the noise.

[Caster]

It took me a long time to get to where I understand this, but there is a MUCh better system than this or any other detector.......

...obey the dang speed limit. If you're running late, well, you should have left earlier. I hate blue haired grandmas driving 30 in a 55 too, but there's never a legitimate reason to speed unless someone is bleeding.

[jtmaze]

I gave up on radar detectors years ago. Hint to not get ticket. Don't speed. I guess it's old age but wherever I am going will be there when I get there even 5 minutes late.

JTM🔫

Sent from my iPhone

[E4 No More]

I wonder how useful it'd be with so many other RADAR detectors out there. I'd hate to rely on someone that isn't there.

[mikegideon]

Go ahead an spend the money. Most detectors don't pick up quick enough if a good radar or lidar operator is working the speed measuring device. I just like turning off and on near people with detectors to drive them crazy with the noise.

Yep. The only thing fast enough would be a jammer. I have to admit that I noodled on it some in my younger days. Now, I just drive the speed limit.

[E4 No More]

Go ahead an spend the money. Most detectors don't pick up quick enough if a good radar or lidar operator is working the speed measuring device. I just like turning off and on near people with detectors to drive them crazy with the noise.

"good radar or lidar operator"

As a former RADAR instructor as qualifying my statement...those are few and far between - particularly in Tennessee.

Edited December 8, 2011 by SWJewellTN

[G27]

Yah, my detector works great - 99% of the radar operators I've come across in the southeast just sit there with it on all the time - you can see them for miles.

Even the instant-on guys are usually spotted when they hit someone in front of you.

LIDAR seems to be used very, very little.

[E4 No More]

Yep. The only thing fast enough would be a jammer. I have to admit that I noodled on it some in my younger days. Now, I just drive the speed limit.

There are LAZER blinders out there. They blind the LAZER and sned an alarm long enough for you to slow down.

[E4 No More]

LEO's are some of the most frequent speeders out there - even while on duty.

[RobertNashville]

Go ahead an spend the money. Most detectors don't pick up quick enough if a good radar or lidar operator is working the speed measuring device. I just like turning off and on near people with detectors to drive them crazy with the noise.

I would suggest that most of the problems with detectors not picking up radar quickly enough has less to do with any failing of the detector and more to do with users overestimating what a detector can actually do!

[RobertNashville]

I gave up on radar detectors years ago. Hint to not get ticket. Don't speed. I guess it's old age but wherever I am going will be there when I get there even 5 minutes late.

JTM

Sent from my iPhone

Personally, I drive the speed that my abilities, road conditions and traffic allow as "safe". Many times, "speed limits" are set based on bureaucratic policy/politics rather then common sense or measurable criteria.

For similar reasons, I tend to ignore the "car pool" lane restrictions as well.

[JeffsSig]

True Robert. There is learning curve and a proper way to use a RD. But with this Networking it can increase your detection many miles away. Just have to get others to use it also.

They just started shipping so maybe in a years time it will catch on.

[Guest BungieCord]

From the day it was opened until 1974, the speed limit on I-40 through Tennessee was 75 mph. Before radial tires, before "Bott's dots," before anti-lock braking, a 16-year-old whose only qualification was that he'd managed to make one lap around the block with the licensing examiner on board without breaking any laws or crashing in to anything could legally drive 75 mph on the Interstate highway. Most two-lane state highways were posted 65 mph with magic signs that changed to 55 mph when the sun went down. Those limits were set testing real motorists under the 85th Percentile Rule. But state and municipal governments stopped setting reasonable speed limits when the "Energy Crisis" of the 1970s showed them how much revenue could be generated by combining unreasonably low speed limits and radar guns.

Let's play a game of hide-and-seek. In the dark. You go and hide in Neyland Stadium. In the dark. I'll give you a 10 minute head start, then I'll enter through the tunnel of my choice. Carrying a flashlight. In the dark. And I'll come to find you. Carrying a flashlight. In the dark.

To win the game, I have to find you, illuminate you with my flashlight, and identify you. To win the game, you only have to detect that I have begun searching for you.

Can I win? Not no, HELL NO (unless you fall asleep waiting).

Why? Because the energy from my flashlight flies off toward eternity. Your eyes can detect that energy without ever coming anywhere near it, which means long before I can detect you. If I am still some distance away, even shining my light directly at you might not be enough to enable me to identify you. I have to get close enough so enough of the energy it is firing off toward eternity bounces off of you and is returned to my eyes. Enough of that reflected energy has to reach my eyes so that they can interpret that that signal carries an image of you.

That, in a nutshell, is the analogy of the operation of a radar gun versus a radar detector. If you get caught, the vast majority of the time it'll be because you got careless or weren't correctly employing your "anti-radar countermeasure." But anyone who tells you your detector can't "see" the radar gun until its beam has "hit" you is blowing smoke up your skirt.

Then there's the Inverse Square Law. Because radar and sound and light and magnetism and gravity and most other forms of energy disperse or "fan out" as they travel through the air, the energy gets less and less concentrated the further it travels. They spread out so much that each time the distance doubles, the concentration of energy falls off by 75%. Double the distance means x2. And the inverse square of 2 is:

(1/2)^2 = (1^2)/(2^2) = 1/4 = 0.25

The RF always travels the exact same distance from the car back to the radar gun as it first traveled to get from the gun to the car: 1 + 1 = 2. The inverse square of 2 is 0.25. That means that the best the policeman ever can hope for is that his gun will receive a signal 25% as strong as what bounced off the target car. At worst, the car's radar detector gets a 4:1 advantage.

Except the detector's advantage NEVER works out to be that slight. There's Ghost Effect and Cosine Effect, and cars are not shaped like a radar dish so they make an imperfect reflector. And the highway is not a laboratory so the radar is never employed in perfect conditions.

The cherry on top is superheterodyne sensing. Mike Valentine created the first superhet radar detector (the "Passport") while he was chief of engineering at Cincinnati Microwave in the late 1970s. A superhet receiver has sensitivity an order of magnitude greater than a non-superhet receiver. But radar guns can't use superhet because the gun's receiver would view the signal from the local oscillator as RF interference.

Game, set and match, Mr. Detector.

But a detector is not a magic bullet. As JeffSig notes, the key is in learning to use it properly. The more you understand about the capabilities and limitations of both devices, and the more you learn about how the police employ radar, the more you reduce your risk.

[Curiousgb]

I just started slowing down. It is a heck of a lot less stressful.

[TGO David]

My Passport 8500 works great and has warned us to check our speed on several occasions that might have otherwise ended in an obligatory contribution to the state coffers. There are good detectors out there, but as Robert said, you have to know how to use them and what their limits are.

The problem I see with the idea of networked radar detectors is that anything networked can be compromised, and that just means at some point someone will start screwing with folks who rely upon these detectors. Just a matter of time and a question of who those people will be.

[Guest TargetShooter84]

I just started slowing down. It is a heck of a lot less stressful.

Agreed

[ls3_kid]

One word, Jammers. 99.9% of the detectors just inform you that you are about to get tickets. On the other hand I do not drive like an a-hole. I do tend to go a little over but nothing outrageous. Now in Georgia I never, ever go over 85 anymore. This is due to the "Super Speeder Law" which is a new fine that slaps a cool $200 on top of your ticket fine.

[kieefer]

When I'm in my truck I seldom speed and more relaxed but when I'm on my bike it's a different world. I'm much more observant/defensive and have an eagle-eye out for blue and whites and unmarks, not to mention arrogant a-holes who think I can dodge any obstruction in a split second.

It's hard for me to run the limit on my bike, speed limit that is. I run a Escort 8500 and it has saved me a few times but I've also gotten a few tickets with it. Having a keen eye helped more often than the detector.

Now that I think about it, this is the first year in several that I haven't gotten a ticket on my bike. Heck, one year I had to park it in Oct. to keep for losing my license.

[Guest lostpass]

Then there's the Inverse Square Law. Because radar and sound and light and magnetism and gravity and most other forms of energy disperse or "fan out" as they travel through the air, the energy gets less and less concentrated the further it travels. They spread out so much that each time the distance doubles, the concentration of energy falls off by 75%. Double the distance means x2. And the inverse square of 2 is:

(1/2)^2 = (1^2)/(2^2) = 1/4 = 0.25

The RF always travels the exact same distance from the car back to the radar gun as it first traveled to get from the gun to the car: 1 + 1 = 2. The inverse square of 2 is 0.25. That means that the best the policeman ever can hope for is that his gun will receive a signal 25% as strong as what bounced off the target car. At worst, the car's radar detector gets a 4:1 advantage.

That's some weird physics man. Pretty much sure that gravity is not actually energy, that magnetism is a closed integral and that light and sound waves are completely different. One is mechanical and the other is not. The conclusion is a bit weird also. So the car's detector has a better signal to report? Why does that matter? If I throw a golfball at a brick wall and it comes back to me and I measure the return speed I know, despite the dissipation of energy, how hard I threw the golf ball. If I'm the brick wall I can measure the impact directly but it doesn't mean the secondary measurement is invalid.

That said, I've found radar detectors are guaranteeing a ticket once you are pulled over.

[ls3_kid]

Also most of these products that are made to protect from the law, make their products too. So to me it is kind of a "Scam".

[kb4ns]

One word, Jammers.

Keep in mind, those are illegal in TN. Class B misdemeanor to use one to jam a speed measuring device and the jammer is subject to seizure. Personally, I'd rather have a speeding ticket than be arrested. Many radars & lidars (including the ones I use) have a little thing that pops up on the screen when it's being jammed.

39-16-610. Radar jamming devices.

(a) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1) "Radar jamming device" means any active or passive device, instrument, mechanism, or equipment that is designed or intended to interfere with, disrupt, or scramble the radar or laser that is used by law enforcement agencies and officers to measure the speed of motor vehicles;

(2) "Radar jamming device" includes, but is not limited to, devices commonly referred to as "jammers" or "scramblers"; and

(3) "Radar jamming device" does not include equipment that is legal under FCC regulations, such as a citizens' band radio, ham radio, or any other similar electronic equipment.

( It is an offense for any person to knowingly possess or sell a radar jamming device.

© It is an offense for any person to knowingly operate a motor vehicle with a radar jamming device in the motor vehicle.

(d) It is an offense for a person to knowingly use a radar jamming device for the purpose of interfering with the radar signals or lasers used by law enforcement personnel to measure the speed of a motor vehicle on a highway.

(e) Any radar jamming device that is used in violation of this section is subject to seizure by any law enforcement officer and may be confiscated and destroyed by order of the court in which a violation of this section is charged.

(f) The provisions of this section shall not apply to law enforcement officers acting in their official capacity.

(g) (1) A violation of subsection ( or © is a Class C misdemeanor.

(2) A violation of subsection (d) is a Class B misdemeanor.

[E4 No More]

Keep in mind, those are illegal in TN. Class B misdemeanor to use one to jam a speed measuring device and the jammer is subject to seizure. Personally, I'd rather have a speeding ticket than be arrested. Many radars & lidars (including the ones I use) have a little thing that pops up on the screen when it's being jammed.

A RADAR jammer is against federal law too since it is a radio transmitter that would be unlicensed by the FCC. Light, on the other hand, is a different story.

[NRA]

Does anyone really think a radar detector will save you from getting a ticket?