1. What is the best
radar detector for me?
This is usually the first question
people ask when looking at all the different radar detector models
available. Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule that works
for everyone as it depends on the individual, and their
circumstances. Are radar detectors legal in your state? If
not, then consider a FULLY stealth model. WA drivers should consider
a detector that has the best detection range on Multanova Photo Radars, as these photo radars emit a very low power signal
that is difficult to detect. If you prefer a custom, hidden design,
consider the Bel RX75 model.
If I can give you any honest, unbiased
advice though, do not waste your money buying a detector brand that
isn’t either a Bel, Escort, Whistler or Valentine.
Especially DO NOT buy something:
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2. Will a radar
detector pick up all police cars and bikes?
NO. Your radar detector will only pick up police (vehicles)
that are transmitting a radar or laser signal. In other
words, unless a policeman is actually using some form of speed
measuring device, your detector won’t pick them up.
Unfortunately police radar guns aren’t the only things that
‘transmit’ or ‘broadcast’ a signal that is picked up by your
detector.
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3. Will my detector
false alarm all the time?
Earlier models of radar detectors tended to false alarm all the
time, to the point I wanted to through my Cobra Trap-Shooter out the
window back in 1993! These days, radar detectors still false
alarm, but the newest models we sell here are the best at minimizing
these false alerts. You see, radar is also used by automatic
opening doors, such as those found at petrol stations, shops etc and
so these radar signals will often set off a false alert on your
detector. “False alerts” can also be from other radar
detectors – older/cheaper models that set your unit off as they
drive past your car. Mobile phones can also set off the
sensitive antennas on your detector. Whenever I’m on the
phone, my detector often likes to “join in on the conversation” and
say “hello!” Lastly, there are radar transmitters set up for
safety such as road works, on some ambulances and black spot areas.
These will set off your detector, although some detector models can
decipher these safety messages as part of the SWS (Safety Warning
System) programming.
I find that after a while you get to
learn which signals are “real” ones and with the new mute button on
the smart cords of the Bel RX65 & Escort X50, it’s simple just to
hit the mute when you’re driving through a street of shops etc.
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4. What are the “different
radar bands” all about?
Currently there are two ways police can
electronically measure your speed:
Radar & Laser
You need to understand the difference between the three radar bands plus laser to get the most out of
your radar detector. Police radar comes in three
different bands, or frequencies. Similar to different radio
stations, different radar bands occur at different frequencies of
the spectrum.
‘X-band’ radar was the first type
(frequency) used to measure speeds of vehicles and this can be
compared to a radio station on the AM band. X-band radar is no longer used in Australia (or most parts of the world) so you
can essentially turn this feature off with your radar detector.
Some older detectors are not able to turn off X-band, in which case
you need to ignore signals on X-band.
‘K-band’ radar was the second frequency of radar to come out. K-band is definitely used in
Australia, but unfortunately there are many other things that also
share this frequency (such as automatic opening doors at petrol
stations, shops and banks). K-band has a 5 – 10% chance of being
police radar in the city, but up to 95% chance of being police radar
on the highway or country roads.
‘Ka-band’ radar is the latest frequency of radar to come out, and is also used in Australia.
Ka-band was developed as a more accurate, less powered system used
by police. Ka-band has a 90 – 95% chance of being police
radar.
Radar works on
the Doppler principle, which explained simply is a bit like how a
dolphin uses its echo sounder. Radio waves are transmitted
from the radar gun, hit the moving object, and are reflected back to
the radar gun. The gun ‘listens’ to the change in pitch of the
radio waves and can determine the speed from this. Like when
of a train blows its whistle as it passes you – you can hear the
change in pitch of the whistle, as it goes past.
Laser is completely different to radar.
Laser works by
calculating the time it takes ‘packets of light’ to be sent from the
gun, reflect off the target, and then return to the gun. The
gun calculates several ‘packets of light’ over time to calculate
your speed. A Laser alert on your radar detector has a
95 – 100% chance of being a police gun.
Radar bands in Western Australia:
X-band - Not Used – Turn this off!!
K-band - Used by Dash Mounted radar systems on some police car
(all highway patrol
cars) and the older hand-held radar guns
Ka-band - Multanova Speed Cameras
Laser
- Hand-held laser guns (“Ultralyte Marksman 20-20” in WA)
How to interpret
these signals:
Driving around the CITY, you will get MANY K-band radar signals. With a bit of experience, you
can tend to recognise what is and isn’t police radar (remembering it
is probably only a 5% chance of being a police radar in the city).
Particularly if you drive regular routes each day, you’ll learn
where the false alerts occur, so getting a K-band alert where you
don’t normally on a particular section of road is more likely police
radar. Typically the radar will go off on K-band as you drive
past automatic doors, Servos etc. I always mute the detector
during these times, but am also mindful of my speed. Only once
was I caught-out where I muted the detector as I drove past shops –
yet a police car was sitting up ahead! (no – I wasn’t speeding and
no, didn’t get a ticket).
If you’re on a road that isn’t near shops /
buildings, the likelihood of it being police radar is dramatically
increased, and on a country road, extremely likely it’s police
radar. Another thing that uses K-band radar on the roads is the SWS
(Safety Warning System) being trialled at some road works sites, and
ambulances. The Escort X50 detector will go off on K-band as
you approach some of the road works sites on the freeway. You
can see the small white cylinder mounted underneath the sign with a
black cable coming out of it. This is the radar transmitter.
If you have a Bel RX65, it will also speak to you saying “Highway
work Crew Ahead” or something similar. Some Ambulances are
also equipped with a SWS transmitter, which will set off K-band and
on the Bel units, an “Emergency vehicle in transit” voice alert.
Some other, older radar detector brands also set
off the K-band on your radar detector as you drive past a car with
one. This is because the leakage from some old detectors occurs at
the same frequency of K-band. And finally I find my mobile
phone also sets off my detector, particularly as I first make a
call, just as I hang up, or send/receive sms.
The K-band dash mounted radar on police cars is
the easiest one for you to detect with ample warning because the
police usually leave the radar ON – blasting down the road as
you approach them. You can detect this signal long before they
are close enough to get a reflection signal on your car and hence a
reading. The only exception to this is when they try to be
cunning and have it switched off until you are close, in which time
they turn the system on and get a reading quickly. If you are
the only car on the road for miles, you may get caught by this, but
if there are other cars in front of you (even a km in front), you
should detect the police signal as they target the car in front
(assuming a straight road).
Ka-band and Laser alerts should be dealt with seriously and immediately.
This is for reasons two-fold; the chance of it being a police speed
measuring device is extremely high, and the time it takes to obtain
your speed with these two devices is VERY QUICK.
Ka-band is used
by the Multanova speed cameras in WA, and apparently uses one
quarter of one watt of energy; therefore the power output is very
small and hard to detect. Most detectors only give a few
seconds of warning (at best) against a Multanova. For this
reason I recommend the Escort X50 detector, as in my experience and
research, it has the best warning on Ka band. If you get a Ka
band signal – immediately check your speed, and look out for the black tripod
on the side of the road!
Laser, unfortunately, is a very difficult system to avoid a ticket (without
a jammer). Laser operates at the speed of light and usually
only takes half a second to acquire your speed – they have your
speed before you even hit the brakes! I have, from personal
experience however, had a situation where my radar detector saved me
from a fine with a laser gun. I was driving down the freeway
and the detector went off on laser alert. I immediately
checked (slowed) my speed and whilst the detector kept screaming, I
saw the police car on the freeway overpass. This would probably be
the exception rather than the rule, so I always recommend combining
the Valentine One radar detector with the Blinder Laser Jammer.
To summarize:
X-band - Turn off
K-band - In the
city: Probably not radar, but check your speed & mute
Out of city: More
chance of being a dash mounted system in a police car
OR the older
type hand-held gun
Ka-band -
Multanova, act immediately
Laser
- Act immediately, better in combination with a jammer
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5. Will my
radar/laser detector protect me from laser?
No matter what
anyone tries to (sell) tell you, a radar detector with a laser detector built
in, offers LITTLE or NO PROTECTION against a laser gun. The
time it takes for a laser gun to acquire your speed is approximately ½ a second!
Less time than it takes you to realize you’re being ‘lasered’ and hit the
brakes! Essentially this type of laser detector is actually a “speeding
ticket notifier”. Watch the video to the left to see how fast the laser
clocks your speed.
There are fundamental differences between radar and laser.
Radar sends out a pulse of electromagnetic (EM) energy, also
referred to as RF energy. The radar beam starts out as a small
diameter pulse when it leaves the radar gun, but grows quite rapidly
as the distance increases from the gun. At a distance of 300 metres, the radar beam is now 100 metres tall and 200 metres
wide! If 6 cars were hit by a radar beam (six vehicles driving down
the freeway), 6 pulses would come back to the radar gun, and the
radar gun would detect the largest signal of the 6 signals present.
Because the radar beam is so large traveling down the road, a radar
detector could be located nearly anyplace around the vehicle, and it
will detect the radar signal. However, laser can only be
detected at the point where a laser gun is aimed. This is because a
laser beam is much narrower; about 20cm wide at a distance of 200
metres. If a laser gun is aimed at the license plate, the beam is so
small, that most times, none of the laser signal would
actually “spill over” up to the windshield, where your detector is
mounted. Thus, a radar detector with laser detector mounted on
the windscreen would not even detect the laser beam targeted on the
license plate (or headlights or bumper for that matter). This means
the beam of a laser gun is accurate enough to target a single
vehicle out of, let’s say, six vehicles driving down the freeway.
The laser gun can target and detect that single vehicle in less than
½ second after the trigger is pulled, while the surrounding vehicles would not detect the laser beam as it passed right beside their
vehicle! Read the test results from SML (Speed Measurement
Labs) that confirms these statements.
There are only two real defences against laser guns. The best
defence is to instantly jam the laser gun as it attempts to target
your vehicle speed. Whilst there are several products around
that claim to do this, we only sell the world’s number one laser
jammer, the Blinder X-treme as confirmed by SML (Speed Measurement
Labs). If you don’t have the money to outlay for a Blinder
Laser Jammer, the other alternative is to combine your current
radar/laser detector with Veil anti-laser paint. When combined
with the added protection of VEIL, your laser detector will actually
be useful! VEIL effectively counters laser by reducing the IR
signature of the surfaces of your car that the police target with
their laser gun.
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6. Where is the best
position to mount my radar detector unit?
This is another highly debated topic.
Unfortunately, again, there is no one simply answer. The best-case scenario would be that you have one
of the remote radar detector kits such as the Bel RX75 remote, as
featured in the PRS3-B Prowler Remote package. This radar
detector has the antenna mounted, hidden, in the front grill, and
the Visual Display Unit (VDU), hidden
in the driver compartment.
If you have a Blinder laser jammer already installed, or
intend to purchase one, then you should mount your
detector up high on the windscreen, usually above your
rear vision mirror. If you have a Valentine One
radar detector, you should mount it here also.
If you don’t have a
Blinder laser jammer
then you should mount your radar detector LOW on the
windscreen (but not too low).
Why?
There are two types of technologies that are used to read your
speed: Laser and Radar.
Radar is the most common of the two, although police
departments everywhere are buying more and more Laser speed guns.
As aforementioned, Radar sends out a pulse of electromagnetic (EM)
energy, also referred to as RF energy. The radar beam starts out as
a small diameter pulse when it leaves the radar gun, but grows quite
rapidly as the distance increases from the gun. This radar
beam can normally penetrate glass, plastic, cardboard and even your
body. What radar does have a problem penetrating are metals,
including some window tints that have metallic layers or
properties.
Laser, on the other hand, is an infrared beam much narrower
in diameter; about 20cm wide at a distance of 200 metres.
Because the beam is so narrow, and because it is a beam of light,
the beam can be affected (reflected / blocked) by virtually anything
you put between the laser gun and the detector.
For this reason, it is advised, that
without the use of a
laser jammer
,
you should mount the detector as low as possible, in the middle of
the windscreen, but not behind physical objects such as bonnet
scoops or windscreen wiper blades. In this (low) position it
gives you the best chance of detecting the pencil thin beam, when it
is targeted on your license plate (the primary target for a police
laser gun). If the radar detector is mounted in the center or
high on the windscreen, it will be too high to receive any of the
“splatter” that may indicate you are being targeted by a police
laser gun.
The Valentine One is the exception to this rule, because its high
quality optics allow for it to detect off-axis laser that is
refracted off the bonnet. See SML for their results on being
able to detect a laser signal, when mounted on the windscreen.
The other two points to consider are
rear protection, and also the legality of detectors in your state.
Whilst the chance of detecting a laser gun fired at the rear of your
vehicle from a detector mounted anywhere on your windscreen is very
slim, you may wish to consider it. And finally if radar
detectors are not legal in your state, you don’t want to have one
blatantly obvious by mounting in the middle of the windscreen.
In this case, consider the Bel RX75 remote, as
featured in the
PRS3-B
Prowler Remote package, or the fully stealth
Bel Sti
detector.
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7. How do I protect
myself from laser speed guns?
There are only two real defences against laser guns. The best
defence is to instantly jam the laser gun as it attempts to target
your vehicle speed. Whilst there are several products around
that claim to do this, we only sell the world’s number one laser
jammer, the Laser Interceptor as confirmed by GOL (Guys of Lidar).
If you don’t have the money to outlay for a Blinder laser jammer,
the other alternative is to combine your current radar/laser
detector with Veil anti-laser paint. When combined with the
added protection of VEIL, your laser detector will actually be
useful! VEIL effectively counters laser by reducing the IR signature
of the surfaces of your car that the police target with their laser
gun. LIDAR is an acronym for LIght Detection And Ranging. A police
laser (LIDAR) gun emits a highly focused beam of invisible light, in
the near infrared region of light, at 904nm of wavelength, with the
beam being around 50cm in diameter at a distance of 300m from the
laser gun. Unlike RADAR which determines a vehicle's speed by measuring its Doppler shift, police laser (lidar) calculates speed by
observing the changing amount of time is takes to "see" reflected
pulses of light over a discreet amount of time.
After many hours of testing this product with
different cars and different police laser guns, the manufacturers determined
five primary contributors to police laser's effectiveness. They are (ranked
most important to least important)
1. Whether or not a license (number)
plate is mounted on the front of a vehicle
2. The surface-area of headlights, fog
lights, and park lights that are positioned on the front of the
vehicle.
3. The amount of large sections of
chrome that are perpendicular to the road facing the front
4. The shape of the vehicle -
specifically how much of the vehicle is vertical or perpendicular to
the road
5. Finally the colour of the vehicle
(white being the easiest to detect) and type of automotive paint
(metallic being the easiest to detect.)
Let's examine each one of these factors which contribute to a
vehicle's "visibility" to police laser / lidar.
First
All states in Australia require the use of a front & rear license
plate. These plates are mounted perpendicular to the road
surface, thereby acting as a strong reflector of light energy.
Furthermore, most current plates are made of “retro-reflective”
material which, in effect, magnifies or intensifies the amount of
reflected light. We have found that even on black cars that have
hidden head lights, such as Porsches, when they have a front-mounted
license plate, effective laser targeting range increases as much as
four times! Personalised number plates can often be ordered in
“polycarbonate”. This material offers a much lower reflection
than “retro-reflective” plates.
Second
Head/fog lights and park lights are also strong reflectors however
they are typically spaced farther apart and since the LIDAR beam
only strikes a portion of them at any one time, they are the
secondary contributing factor.
Third
Vehicles that have large sections of chrome are easier to target
than do vehicles that do not or have complex thin chrome grills with
a lot of space in between them.
Fourth
The frontal shape of a vehicle plays a large role in effecting the
targeting range of the laser gun. Porsche’s, RX7’s and many sports
cars have steeply raked front-ends that have fewer surfaces that are
perpendicular to the road. Therefore, cars which are more
aerodynamic looking, are likely to be harder to target with laser as
these kinds of vehicles reflect laser light away from the gun
source. These types of vehicles stand to benefit the most when
'Veiled'.
Fifth
The colour and type of paint contributes to a vehicle's stealth
nature. Metallic and/or light cars are easier to target at longer
range than darker, non-metallic cars. You may be surprised to see
that colour is not higher on the list of importance, however, we
have found that all laser guns have improved, since their debut, to
the point that the other factors play a more important role in
contributing to the overall visual signature to laser. However,
darker vehicles will tend to benefit the most when treated with Veil
because once the reflected portions are obscured with Veil, the
car's colour will be the only source of any remaining reflectivity.
How can I avoid a
Laser speeding ticket?
Drive a darker car!
Seriously, if you happen to own a light-coloured
car or truck, consider putting a protective bra on the front. These
bras are generally black and will reduce the effective targeting
range and maximize you chances to avoid laser speeding tickets.
Buy some clear licence plate covers and coat both sides with veil
prior to installing over your number plates. If these type of
clear plates are prohibited in your state, then simply paint two
coats directly over your number plate. Paint all reflective objects
(head/fog lights, chrome, park lights).
Your car as seen by the laser gun
(the red indicates the laser beam)
Without With Veil
Another essential device to use is a
good radar detector in
combination with
Veil
.
But for the ultimate protection against
police laser, consider using
Veil
in
conjunction with a reliable and proven laser jammer
.
These two products used together will transform your car into a F117
Stealth vehicle!
One again we invite you to review the
test results from SML (Speed Measurement Labs) which state:
