From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: OT radar technicalities - was  Warning to Virginia Travelers
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 16:30:30 -0500

bill horne wrote:

> Searching for the VG-2 finds:
> -----------------------------------------------------
> A radar detector detector (RDD) is a microwave receiver used by police
> to detect signals radiated by the local oscillator of a radar detector.
> The trade name of the only RDD currently manufactured is Interceptor
> VG-2, most often simply referred to as VG-2.
> ----------------------------------------------------
> and this:
> ---------------------------------------------------
> At present the police in Virginia, New York, Illinois and the five
> eastern Canadian provinces employ VG-2s.  Because of the recent FHwA
> regulation which prohibits nationally the use of radar [and laser)
> detectors in commercial vehicles, interest in the use of VG-2 by law
> enforcement agencies has increased.
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> All of that strongly suggests that radar detector detectors exist, work,
> and are in use by some of the guys sitting in the medians - the Virginia
> medians at the moment.

Bill,

I've had a VG-2 in my grubby little hands.  It does exist and it
does work.  It's little more than a microwave field strength meter.
It has its own local oscillator that can be detected.  I looked at
the VG-2 on a microwave spectrum analyzer.  I don't recall the
numbers but its radiation was significant.  That means that a radar
detector detector detector is possible - where will it end :-)

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

As far a the jammers go, back when I was publishing Performance
Engineering magazine, we bought examples of every jammer on the
market and tested them.  I own a variety of police radar units that
are representative of every technology out there except the Stalker
spread spectrum Ka band gun.  I can condense the testing into a
blanket statement that the "passive jammers" do not work. At all.
The active jammers work out on the fringes of the radar gun range.
There are several problems, however.  First, most police radars have
speakers so the cop can listen to the doppler (he can tell when your
detector goes off and you jam on the brakes :-).  The sound of a
jammer is distinctive - either white noise or an un-naturally pure
tone.  In either case, a simple traffic stop turns into a criminal
obstruction charge.

Second, even the units that emit enough power to jam at moderate
range are VERY unreliable up close. Any cop worth his ticket book
knows to keep the radar off until the last moment, even with the
non-instant on units.  Example: My Kustom HR-3 non-instant-on gun
will power up and grab a reading in less than a second.  When the
cop nails you at close range, the best case is you get a ticket.
The worst case is you get a ticket, get arrested for obstruction and
have your case referred to the federal prosecutor for operating an
illegal jamming device.  Any RF emitting device regardless of the
power, if operated with the intent to interfere with another
licensed service is illegal.  The jammer vendors tell you otherwise
but that's what the law says.

There is only one solution to those of us who want to drive fast and
avoid tickets - learn to think like a cop and keep your eyes open.
And if you happen to get a ticket and you can't beat it or talk your
way out of it, consider it a tax on driving fast.  After all, given
the opportunity to do so, how many of us would gladly pay a hundred
dollars or so a year for a license to drive fast?  I certainly
would.