Posted on 10/26/2014 9:22:40 PM PDT by Bettyprob
IT COULD be every crook’s must-have gadget — a device that can warn when a police car is nearby.
The small dashboard-mounted display alerts the driver by bleeping and lighting up when it senses police radio transmissions. It also reveals when ambulances and fire engines are near. The maker claims that it is useful for telling drivers that an emergency vehicle needs to overtake.
Target Blu Eye has its critics, who predict that the device will be used by irresponsible drivers to make sure that the coast is clear while they speed or use mobile phones.
Out on the motorway it gave ample warning of a police car approaching on the opposite carriageway. The LEDs slowly went from green to yellow to red. In theory this gave plenty of time to check the speedometer or stash any mobile phones that shouldn’t be in use.
“As it does not distinguish between a police car, ambulance or fire engine responding to an emergency or one that is simply driving under non-blue-light conditions, this particular device is sadly just as likely to be bought by a minority of motorists who wish to evade being caught behaving illegally,” said David Bizley, the RAC’s chief engineer.
(Excerpt) Read more at driving.co.uk ...
Only in "girly-states" like Maryland and Viriginia.
The ancient "Beartracker" was a farce in many areas because it only triggered on the highway patrol short range cop to high power car radio link. So, if the cop was in his car and did not use his handheld (why would he?) no warning.
Word was, cops learned about what was up and shut off their belt radio link to the car as soon as they could to screen themselves.
Classic electronic warfare, countermeasure is responded to with counter-countermeasure.
You’ll let me know when you find a correct one?
The CHP can follow you from your license plate alone and even shoot a clear enough picture of your face to give them the color of your eyes and distinguishing marks.
From 3 miles away...
ahh- forgot the comma. hate when that happens. although now that I am reading - comment is somewhat funny way it is written
Half the time, when I hear a police or fire emergency siren, I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from. I think the older sirens might have been more directional for some reason.
Took all the sport out of spotting them lurking back there in traffic.
Yeah, they were starting to use slick top cars and even a few Camaros on the Camarillo grade, but we figured it was still an even game.
For a while, they were about the only law enforcement anybody I knew had respect for.
Of course when I had to travel weekly to Barstow and Ft. Irwin, I went to a scanner to listen for the airplane up there. Worked like a charm.
There were many states and cities that tried to outlaw radar detectors, and the laws mostly stood under state courts, until the USSC decided that “If the state wishes to use surreptitious and clandestine means to surveille the public, that same public has the RIGHT to know they are being surveilled.”
Please don’t ask the reference, I have forgotten it, but I have successfully used the USSC decision in a CANADIAN court of law.
If I go a day w/o learning something new on FR- ‘tis a strange day indeed.
Thanks for info
I remember that radar detector from back when I rarely had to worry- just getting some of the beaters I owned up to the speed limit was a chore.
BTW, I am NOT a lawyer. I have had police officers APPLAUD my defense (the whole back row of the court in one instance) and win in traffic court, and the cops I beat personally congratulate me for showing them the error of their modus operandi too. AFTER I won in court.
Though there are a LOT of bad cops out there, when the good ones are shown where they err, they amend their ways. As for the bad ones, well, there is always the second amendment...
In line with what you wrote about the sirens... I find the frequency of the blue LED strobes in modern light bars to be particularly disorienting... nearly to the point of making me want to wretch. I believe it is by design... like a “puke light”.
It’s not about public safety... it is more about inserting confusion into the process of stepping on necks.
Maybe it also can detect police radio use....such as the mobile phones cops have.....just askin
Traffic drones don’t need radar or radio. Might as well have a sheriff’s horse sniffer-outer!
Why pay for a cop to sit when a drone with a camera will do....look at the success of city traffic cameras!
Radio stations set up a car alongside the highway and listen for the 10.7mhz offset transmission from the FM radios in the cars that pass by. They can count how many cars are tuned to their station this way. The same thing can detect other types of receivers like taxis, police, a pocket pager or a CB radio. This is how the Detect-o-Vans in England work to see if people are using an unlicensed TV in their home.
I used to use a scanner to detect what CB channel a car close by was tuned to so I could jump to the channel.
Some receivers of newer design are not so easily detected but back in the day they all were.
Receivers also are low-power transmitters... that’s why you find an FCC part 15 transmitter label on them.
Back in the late 70’s I set up a small scanner at work to act as a Boss Detector... it would pick up the IF signal from his pocket pager about 100ft before he passed by the door ;-) He never did figure out how it was that not a single soul was ever caught loafing.
Coyotes smuggling illegals on the border near El Paso used to use a scanner this way to detect when La Migra was near.
Police in NYC once got a judge to allow the automatic recording of phone calls made from several public pay phones around the Times Square area based on this simple tech... if the person on the phone had a particular model of pocket pager on them then the recording equipment picked up the RF from it and recorded the call....a War-On-Some-Drugs thing.
If police aren’t doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear, right? Seriously, if they eat from money confiscated from the public, as opposed to making their own, why would anything they do, EVER, be “private” from those actually earning the money that feeds their kids?
The Arab “spring” started over corrupt cops blackmailing & stealing from the public in Tunisia....wonder if the same could ever happen here since we know they do this all the time?
Radar Warning Receivers (passive) have been around for a long time. A basic 'radar' detector doesn't intentionally 'ping' out some signal to detect if radar is in the area. It listens for emitted radar signals from elsewhere. The better the radar detector, the more the ability it has to look for pulsed signals, normal police radar detector bands, and even when a laser is illuminating it, but it is not designed to 'emit' anything.
I think where the confusion comes in is in the design. Actually the receiver part where the incoming RF signal is down converted to a frequency more easily processed by digital means, for example. And this design can be quick and dirty or more sophisticated. Cheap designs may use detectors, (mixers) that have bad isolation between RF and LO (local oscillator signal that mixes with the RF to give the intermediate frequency - IF output).
So, in effect, the LO could be transmitted back out of the receiving antenna. Better and more expensive designs (more than 1 stage of conversion, for example) are much less prone to do this.
And even the best radar detectors have some spurious emissions that are detectable via VG2 systems and the like.
My point was that the mobile scanners that detect the mobile repeaters (the ones that serve the officer’s belt worn portables - that are found in patrol car trunks) are not detectable. Thus the agencies that ban radar detectors have no tool to use against them.
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