laser jammers?

[sik_bmw 0]

hey anyone out there got these things? and do they actually work? cheers

[Guest Spargo]

Shouldn't you be more concerned about carrying passengers?

[Guest Andrew]

Did a drive with a guy down to tga who had one - no one got caught.. so maybe it was sweet.

[conrod 1]

I just bought one, got it two days ago and haven't fitted it yet. It is a "Blinder extreme 20" or something, a friend of mine brought it back from overseas for me, he has had a few in the past and recommended this one. Operation is pretty simple, it transmits infra red light which blinds laser guns, and as there are no laws for transmisssion of light it is 100% legal. Unlike the radar jammer he told me about, which transmits radar waves and can jam any police radar, is made to order, and is 100% not legal!

[bravo 34]

and as there are no laws for transmisssion of light it is 100% legal.

For now...

Bro, if you spent the money for a radar jammer on driver training, you'd be better off - at least when you speed you'll be less of a tool and might not kill someone.

[sik_bmw 0]

sorry bravomikewhiskey should we be calling you bravomikeschumacher? ill do what i want to do thanks, and in reply to conrod cheers for that man its the one i was after so will prob buy one and see how it goes, cheers mate

[Guest Spargo]

Bro, if you spent the money for a radar jammer on driver training, you'd be better off - at least when you speed you'll be less of a tool and might not kill someone.

I'm going to go ahead and say Conrad's driving is up to par.

[bmwsparkle 3]

sorry bravomikewhiskey should we be calling you bravomikeschumacher? ill do what i want to do thanks, and in reply to conrod cheers for that man its the one i was after so will prob buy one and see how it goes, cheers mate

worst call evah.

[rxsumo 33]

Having as laser jammer is all good, and from what I've read most of them actually work, and work well.

The only hitch is there arent actually that many lasers out there in comparison to other radar units.

The Stalker radar units initially fitted to the Highway Patrol units and filtering generally to most other road patrol vehicles is the issue.

The Stalker unit has a very narrow and short detection beam, and it is extremely quick to lock on. In the NZ Driver or Car radar detector "road test", you cannot scrub any speed off, once your Radar Detector goes off. Basically if the cop is running on "instant on" mode, once your detector goes off the Cop radar is already locked onto you. The only time the detector is potentially any use is if there is traffic in front of you that the cop has zapped.

As for a jammer that works for the Stalker unit....good luck.

I had a fairly good discussion with the manufacturers of a US built X and K band jammer, that actually worked against the old Hawk units (most of the time!)

The problem is processing power required to receive and retransmit the "coded" signal coming from the Cop Radar, as the only real way to confuse a Cop radar is to fire back at the Cop the same signal, but at a frequency that either is varying or so fast that the radar gives a stupid reading. The old "Interceptor" unit that would block Hawk, could turn a signal around in around 10 milliseconds, the Hawk locked in 12-15 milliseconds....hence occassionally the Interceptor wouldnt jam.

I think the reaction time on the Stalker is sub 5 milliseconds, so for a jammer to work, it must recieve the cop radar signal, recreate the correct signal and transmit back at the cop probably within 2-3 milliseconds, and from the discussions I had at the time, it was not possible with the technology at the time, and also be contained within a unit that could be powered on 12V and mounted on or around the windscreen, the other consideration was the power/heat that the box emitted.

At the end of all this.... you can have a Laser jammer and it will work well, but as the majority of Police radar are stalker units, that cant be easily beaten....its only a matter of time before you get snapped.

I've been a habitual speeder, but my licence is more valuable to me than getting from A-B very quickly, I done enough research to determine that there is no easy way to beat the Stalker. And the cops are everywhere with the things......

[cainchapman 0]

I'm not going to comment on whether they work or not.

However, if it is able of jamming a Police device. It has the potential to get you in trouble.

You can be charged under the Radio Frequencies act, as the Police have control of those bands. You are not allowed to transmit on them.

Detectors, just like scanners are legal to have, as they are a passive device. However, acting on any information received from them is illegal use of that same frequency. i.e, you are tapping along SH1 at 115, your detector goes off (like rxsumo says too late now) and you slam on your brakes and scrub off speed. The can ping you under the RF act.

How likely this is, well how does he feel on the day. And most Cops probably don't understand the law. Most don't understand the limitations of their equipment anyway. They will struggle to ticket you in the rain or fog (unless right on top of you). A detector will help here or after dark as they'll will be pinging cars as they travel along. The spill of beam is much lower than previous models, so again, they'd need to be close.

If you are going to buy one. Look at the ones NZ Autocar have tested, their tests are pretty good and well documented.

As the best ones are $1000. I can pay a lot of fines with that. Being aware of your surroundings is a much better approach.

Edited June 20, 2006 by cainchapman

[nz320i 0]

i dont know if you can pay a lot of fines with 1000 dollars in an m5!! I got a speeding ticket doing 130km the other day $250 straight up, i even stopped before the bloody cop had caught up with me..saw him do the u-turn so thought may as wel pull over now!

i learnt my lesson lol, the prob is i speed more in my work van than my bimmer!

Anyway i wished i had a radar detector so i didnt speed at all (at the time anyway..)

[bumpstop325 0]

if your jamming a cops radar, make sure you only use it when travelling in a group of cars. So i they pullyou over, you can claim that is was another car, simple. just make sure you hide the unit before they see you stashing it somewhere.

remember a scanner is also useful as you know what the cops are doing. if tey are after you, tune in and make sure that you find a place GOOD place to hide for a while.

[325GRANT 0]

just make sure you hide the unit before they see you stashing it somewhere.

cant hide the unit, 2 x "jammers" are mounted on the front of the car.

[bravo 34]

Sorry if I made some assumptions, but someone who is still in school will generally have limited driving experience. So I apologise if you have extensive track and high-speed driving experience. Even so, you shouldn't be bringing that kind of driving onto public roads where none of the safety measures found on the track are in place and where other road users have no choice about being on the same road as you at those speeds.

As far as my own driving ability goes, theres heaps of room for improvement - I don't deny that or claim otherwise. I also try to keep a handle on my speed and drive within my abilities. That said people sometimes do make mistakes and I've made my share. Try to do the impossible and learn from my experience instead of doing it the hard way yourself.

Finally - check your insurance. Many policies are considered void if you have an undeclared radar dectector, and most will be void if you have a jammer. So when that idiot runs a red light and t-bones you, you better be out of your car fast and unbolt the jammer before your car is towed and the insurance assessor gets a look.

The point is is that there are few members on here with enough high-speed experience to say they are safe at 120+ unequivocally, so don't tear a strip off me if I tell you you're better off spending the money on training. That goes for nearly everyone on the forum including me.

Buy a jammer if you want - and feel free to discuss the merits of them etc - that is what a public forum is about, but when someone gives you some friendly advice, be gracious and thank them - don't act like a tool - it just proves my point.

P.S. Sam - you are certainly not qualified to judge driving ability from what I hear.

Edited June 21, 2006 by bravomikewhiskey

[OLLIE 26]

I just bought one, got it two days ago and haven't fitted it yet. It is a "Blinder extreme 20" or something, a friend of mine brought it back from overseas for me, he has had a few in the past and recommended this one. Operation is pretty simple, it transmits infra red light which blinds laser guns, and as there are no laws for transmisssion of light it is 100% legal. Unlike the radar jammer he told me about, which transmits radar waves and can jam any police radar, is made to order, and is 100% not legal!

Ok ... So A friend of mine had an Audi RS4 wagon last year, HAD being the operative word ... He didn't put in any kind of device and got his first speeding ticket in years because the thing was just so damn quick so .. he installed a valentine one and a custom made radar / laser jammer will a kill switch to flick off as soon as you drive past a cop so that his device comes back on and he doesn't realise that it had been jammed. Atleast in theory, because he simply got caught doing over 150km/hr passing a van with a speen camera who radioed the nearby highway patrol. lost his licence... Got a Nissan Navara instead

The moral of the story is, if your doing something like speeding often then you're going to get caught somehow someday, although A radar detector or whatever you choose to use will help increase the time until it actually happens. you weigh the cost up against how important it is to drive fast, (to me it's quite important) and then bobs your uncle.

A good / random question i just came up with is would you prefer a radar detector or a gprs sat nav system?

edit: the jammers were pretty well hidden, as was the kill switch.

Edited June 21, 2006 by OLLIE

[rxsumo 33]

Finally - check your insurance. Many policies are considered void if you have an undeclared radar dectector, and most will be void if you have a jammer. So when that idiot runs a red light and t-bones you, you better be out of your car fast and unbolt the jammer before your car is towed and the insurance assessor gets a look.

What insurance company do you insure with.

The only stipluation on my insurance is that I need to declare any modifications from standard, and that I should advise them of any fitted accessories valued at over $1000.

When my V1 got stolen out of the 535, in a smash and grab, the insurance company replaced it as soon as they had seen the Police report.

[bravo 34]

Yes but presumably they knew about it.

Ther ewill be a quote in your policy requiring disclosure of "anything that may afect the risk of this policy" i've heard stories of refusal to payout due to radar detectors being in vehicles during an accident. Raar detectors imply that you speed - speeding increases the insurers risk - they refuse to payout.

Just what I've heard.

As with most things to do with insurance - as long as the insurance company knows about it, you are ok.

Edited June 21, 2006 by bravomikewhiskey

[conrod 1]

For now...

Bro, if you spent the money for a radar jammer on driver training, you'd be better off - at least when you speed you'll be less of a tool and might not kill someone.

Cheers"bro" for that advice, I will keep it in mind!

As Cain correctly pointed out, any unit capable of jamming a police radar device can get you in trouble, due to laws regarding transmission on radio frequencies. The American "passive" jammers try to get around this by "bouncing" the police signal back in a scrambled form, only problem is, they are low powered and don't work on our police radar units. The only way to effectively jam these units is with a device that constantly transmits and is high powered enough to override anything the constabulary has aimed at you, very illegal and not available, as far as I know, on the open market. Laser jammers get around any laws by being infra red light transmitting devices, and as there are no laws regarding transmission of light it is unlikely you will be prosecuted.

Funnily enough, the instruction on use for the laser jammer I have just bought tells you to check your speed if the device goes off, slow if necessary then to switch the unit off, so that the police won't suspect you have a jammer fitted. The main place laser guns are used from my experience are on the Motorways, where a cop can easily sit on an overbridge or by an offramp aiming the gun at you. Out in the country you are more likely to be hit by a radar device or speed camers.

[bravo 34]

Sorry Conrad - that comment was aimed at our new member - not you. Your reputation preceeds you. :bowdown:

My PS was just a dig at Sam - tongue firmly in cheek.

[rxsumo 33]

Yes but presumably they knew about it.

err.....no

over the years I've had 2 radar detectors stolen from my cars, while the insurance company was the same, I've never declared the radar detectors.

Its never been an issue.

[rxsumo 33]

The American "passive" jammers try to get around this by "bouncing" the police signal back in a scrambled form, only problem is, they are low powered and don't work on our police radar units. The only way to effectively jam these units is with a device that constantly transmits and is high powered enough to override anything the constabulary has aimed at you, very illegal and not available, as far as I know, on the open market.

I think you will find the a unit that will actually jam using power output, will have a few other "issues".

These will be things like, the risk of microwaving anybody walking in front of the unit, the amount of sheilding required to keep the car occupants "safe" from the unit. As well as the physical size of the unit.

These an old aircraft graveyard or 2 in Arizona that might nett the necessary "goods" to do the task.

The RMR passive jammers units dont work anywhere, they have been tested in both the US (by Car and Driver), and in NZ by NZ Car, and their claims are crap. If fact the radar detector within the unit is only average for NZ conditions.

The Car and Driver article had a microwave expert gave a speel on the technical reasons why they would never work from what I can recall.

[rxsumo 33]

Heres some bits on jammer from the company that I brought my original jammer from, this might explain some stuff around the "passive" jammers........

We have received many calls from customers wanting to know the difference between an "active" radar jammer and a "passive" radar jammer. Why does an "active" jammer cost so much more than a "passive" jammer and why should someone buy an "active" radar jammer when "passive" jammers seem to offer more protection at half the price? These are very good questions and we will attempt to answer each one for you.

Principles of Radar

All radar guns use the Doppler principle to determine the speed of a moving automobile. What the Doppler principle states is that it is possible to determine the speed of a moving automobile by transmitting a signal from a radar gun at a known frequency. The signal being reflected off of the automobile and returned to the radar gun will be of a different frequency. The difference between these two frequencies is analyzed by the radar gun to determine the speed of the moving car which is then displayed on the radar gun's front panel.

Passive Technology

Marketers of "passive" radar jammers claim to alter the known signal from the radar gun by adding either "white noise" or "FM chirp" to the radar signal before the signal is reflected from the car to the radar gun. This altered signal they claim is enough to disrupt the radar gun from calculating the speed of the automobile thereby making the radar gun display a blank reading.>From Car Audio, March 1994 came the following regarding "passive" jammers. "If they worked, these jam-jammers would represent a remarkable feat of microwave engineering." "To even potentially work, the antenna would need to be at least equal in size to the vehicle's entire frontal area." "It would also need to be 1 00% efficient, an impossibility." The verdict of "several prominent microwave engineers-the same people responsible for creating most of the current police radar-passive radar jammers are a scam. "Other noteworthy independent results have been reported over the last year. Articles in Automobile, June 1993, Car & Driver, November 1993 and Truckers News, November 1993 compared different passive jammers and found passive units to be ineffective, while an article in the June 1993 BMW Roundel found these units to be as effective "as a box of Kleenex." A recent report in Radar Reporter, a nonprofit newsletter, states "the passive jammers had no effect whatever on any of the radar's (six different guns). With every model radar we could clock the target car at will." Finally, Car Audio, March 1994 reported the results of different types of passive jammers against six different radar guns. As stated, "in 65 passes, none had the slightest effect on any of the radars. For all the jamming they were doing, I might as well have placed jelly doughnuts on the dash. "What about the newer "passive" radar jammers currently being advertised in well known magazines? We have received many calls from customers who have purchased the newer "passive" radar jammers and tested these units. After testing, customers discovered, like the independent results reported in Autotronics, March 1995, the Phazer and Mirage 2001 are as ineffective as the older models they replaced and that "these newer models served no purpose whatsoever. "It appears this year's models of "passive" jammers are nothing more than lastyear's technology with newer names. The end result is the same-they just do not work! The marketers of these units are hoping you will not have access to a radar gun to test their unit and therefore, you will have no choice but to believe their test results. So why do independent reports and purchasers of "passive" radar jammers who have tested these newer "passive" jammers state these devices do not work while marketers of "passive" jammers state their units work and can prove it?

Passive Jammer Testing

Before understanding how "passive" jammers are tested, we need to tell you about mechanical interference, which is interference from the reflected signal of any moving object other than the signal reflected from a moving automobile. Radar measures the speed of moving cars. Tuning forks are used to measure how a radar gun responds to any other type of moving object other than a car. Let us explain by example. Imagine you are looking at a spring. Tuning forks vibrate at a specific frequency. Comparing this frequency to the spring, the spring would be in a stationary position. Doppler signals reflected from moving cars behave in a different manner. If a car is moving toward a radar gun the reflected signal would have a higher frequency, like a compressed spring. If a car is moving away from a radar gun, the reflected signal would have a lower frequency, like a spring being stretched. By testing a radar gun with a tuning fork, you can only confirm whether a radar gun is working by checking to see the gun's response to undesired mechanical interference. Mechanical interference is not a Doppler signal! How does a radar gun respond to mechanical interference? A tuning fork is sued to create a specific vibration. This vibration produces a signal of specific frequency. This specific frequency is not a Doppler signal like the signal being reflected from a moving car. Instead, this frequency is a constant frequency as described above. This constant frequency will cause a radar gun to display a reading and this is how an officer checks the operation of their radar gun. A tuning fork of specific frequency known to cause a specific speed reading to be displayed on the radar gun's front panel is used daily to check and calibrate a radar gun. What is important here is the following. To obtain the speed of a car, a radar gun

responds to an altered frequency being reflected from a moving car(the Doppler principle). With tuning forks, the radar gun is responding to a constant signal or non-Doppler signal. Therefore, there are two different ways you can cause a radar gun to display a reading on the gun's front panel. One is using the Doppler principle and the other is by using a non-Doppler signal. So what does all of this mean? Marketers of "passive" jammers

claim they test their units and "can prove ours works". But how do they do this when no one else can seem to get a "passive" jammer to jam anything? The answer lies in their method of testing. It would seem easy to mount a "passive" jammer in an automobile and start driving toward a radar gun-a real encounter like you want to avoid and why people buy a jammer in the first place. However, if a "passive" jammer is tested in this fashion, they will always fail! Instead, marketers of "passive" jammers test their jammers by using the second method discussed above, the tuning fork method. They place a "passive" jammer on a table or other suitable object, power the unit up and then stand some distance away from the unit and aim a radar gun at it. The radar gun cannot respond to a moving signal (Doppler signal) because there isn't one. The jammer is sitting on a stationary object. So what do they do? They excite the radar gun with a tuning fork thereby creating a signal. Remember this signal from above? Tuning forks create vibrations of specific frequencies, or non-Doppler signals. The radar gun displays a blank reading because there is no moving or Doppler signal. When mechanical interference is used to excite the radar gun, the "passive" jammer blocks this non-Doppler signal. Hardly proof that a "passive" jammer will work against a radar gun even though the results reported in advertising will be a successful test of a "passive" jammer. The bottom line is this: "passive" jammers have no effect against any radar gun. They only affect the specific frequency produced by a tuning fork, or non-Doppler signal. Radar remember works on the Doppler signal. Another method used to test and report "passive"

jammers work came from Autotronics, March 1995. "The VP of Sales and Product development for Phantom Technologies bristled at the idea of our testing his Mirage 200 I at atypical radar ambush range of 600-800 feet. No, he insisted, officers usually begin clocking target vehicles beyond 2,700 feet." For a radar ticket to be upheld in court, the officer must first observe the target vehicle speeding and then confirm his visual estimate of its speed with a radar gun. What is important to keep in mind is the idea of anyone being able to visually identify and estimate a speeding vehicle from 1/2 mile away so they can then confirm their visual estimate of speed with a radar gun! As you can see, "passive" jammers are also tested by beginning a test run towards a radar gun from outside the range of a radar gun. The time it takes for the speeding car to travel from the beginning of the test and outside the range of the radar gun to when the vehicle is within the range of the radar and its speed is captured by the gun is the time reported to the unsuspecting consumer as the amount of "blanking time" or protection provided by a "passive" jammer. The interpretation is clear-clever wording and testing to dupe the consumer into believing a "passive" jammer offers protection from a radar encounter when in fact it doesn't. The test was initially conducted outside of the range of the radar gun to begin with!

[conrod 1]

The American "passive" jammers try to get around this by "bouncing" the police signal back in a scrambled form, only problem is, they are low powered and don't work on our police radar units. The only way to effectively jam these units is with a device that constantly transmits and is high powered enough to override anything the constabulary has aimed at you, very illegal and not available, as far as I know, on the open market.

I think you will find the a unit that will actually jam using power output, will have a few other "issues".

These will be things like, the risk of microwaving anybody walking in front of the unit, the amount of sheilding required to keep the car occupants "safe" from the unit. As well as the physical size of the unit.

These an old aircraft graveyard or 2 in Arizona that might nett the necessary "goods" to do the task.

The RMR passive jammers units dont work anywhere, they have been tested in both the US (by Car and Driver), and in NZ by NZ Car, and their claims are crap. If fact the radar detector within the unit is only average for NZ conditions.

The Car and Driver article had a microwave expert gave a speel on the technical reasons why they would never work from what I can recall.

Yep, I do have a pretty good understanding of how these things work, I have just tried to simplify my explanation a bit so it doesn't turn into a novel! For an active jammer to be effective against police radar, it simply needs to send back a signal more powerful than the one the police are blasting at you- none of the jammers on the market even come close to this. I think the old "Hawk" police radars were around 7 watts output, the newer systems will be a bit more. We are not talking about levels of power that will heat your lunch up, or render you incapable of having babies! I do know of illegal jammers that will effectively work against police radar in NZ. (but don't bother pm'ing me 'cos I won't tell you where you can get one!)

While I agree that we have a serious problem in this country as far as driving standards go, the LTSA's approach of targetting speeding drivers as a wholesale solution to all of the deaths and carnage on our roads is in my opinion very narrow minded.

[rxsumo 33]

Actually from the information given to me the Hawk is actually 60mw in power output, and that the new units are lower in power output, rather than higher

The power output of the units needs to be relatively low as there are health and safety issues with the emissions of the units.

I have more documention from the Guys at ARC regarding jammers, and their approach was that high output jammers dont necessarily work as the cop radar can effective detect high outlet splatter type jamming, if fact I think the new units will ignore the signals from this form of jamming.

There approach to jamming was to replicate the incoming signal and vary the frequency of the "returning" signal to confuse the police radar.

While the information is old, the principles havent really changed that much.

If there are jammers out there that actually work, I'd like to see the road tests for them.

A mate of mine was involved with testing the Hawk units with the Police at Ohakea.

Depending on the car, depended on how soon the car was actually detected.

One of the cars being used was an old Ferrari 400, on black number plates. This car was virtually invisable to the Hawk radar, down to a couple of hundred metres.

Why?....nothing reflective of the front of the car. The radar relies on good reflection for a good lock......nice reflector number plates....big headlight assemblies and chrome grilles all help the cause.

[conrod 1]

One of the cars being used was an old Ferrari 400, on black number plates. This car was virtually invisable to the Hawk radar, down to a couple of hundred metres.

Why?....nothing reflective of the front of the car. The radar relies on good reflection for a good lock......nice reflector number plates....big headlight assemblies and chrome grilles all help the cause.

A stealth bomber, for the road- Yeehaa! Just need to paint it matt black, that would really F$%K 'em!