Bounty Raised to $50,000.00!

Sometimes you just couldn’t ask for a better encounter, that was the case at this years SEMA show…..
Last year when I issued my $5000.00 challenge to Rual, the head engineer at RMR, while tv cameras were rolling, the RMR staff were a little gun shy at the CES show, held just a few months later. When I was spotted near their booth at CES in January, CEO and President Mike Churchman would quickly duck under the display leaving his staff to handle any questions.
So at this years SEMA, Mr. Churchman manned a booth for a new company that he just formed, KAT radar detectors and he never went close to the RMR booth.
On November 2nd I just finished off a great dinner at the top of the Stratosphere restaurant and was meeting with a few associates at a lounge on the casino floor. Don, who is the business rep for Cheetah USA nudged me and pointed to the bar. Standing there was my nemesis in the speed counter measure industry, Michael Churchman.
Mr. Churchman is the founder and CEO of Rocky Mountain Radar, the main retailer of those radar scrambler devices you hear blabbed all over the radio and e-mailed to you in junk e-mails. I get countless phone calls and e-mails each day regarding these devices from customers that found out the hard way, that these devices just don’t work.
In 1998, when I started in this industry, I offered my first $5,000 challenge to anyone that could show me one of these products that worked.
Now I had my chance to personally offer my challenge to the huckster himself!
After getting a glass of wine at the bar, Mr. Churchman walked directly toward me and my table. As he passed I said “Hi Mike”. At first he seemed surprised that someone would call out his name at a bar, but as he made eye contact the surprise seemly turned to shock.
I invited Mike to sit down and introduced him to other attendees at the table and made small talk. After a few minutes I then dropped the question that I have been waiting to ask Mike for over 8 years, why he wouldn’t take me up on my $5000.00 challenge.
He responded that my test was rigged and that it had to be performed by Carl Fors at Speed Measurement Laboratories. I responded that was not the case, that Carl Fors had no involvement in his challenge and that I would even let him hold the radar and laser guns, that all I asked that there would be an impartial party involved to judge the test.
At first Mike seemed taken aback and replied “Let me think about this” but then quickly responded, I don’t have anything to prove to you, just to my customers and they already know my product works, so no, your $5000.00 means nothing to me.
I then offered to raise the challenge to $50,000.00 and Mr. Churchman stated “I don’t care if you make it five million dollars” I have nothing to gain. I then responded by saying that potential customers would have something to gain, knowing that a product actually worked as advertised and that I would get off his back in seeing for the first time, an actual product that worked.
Mr. Churchman related that my challenge had no effect on his operation, other then perhaps losing a sale here and there. Even letters that I had written to DBL and Cabellas about him selling illegal jammers had no effect.
I then asked if I had no effect, why would he dispute my video right on the home page of his website. Mr. Churchman related that my video was all rigged and that you could tell that by looking at the lights on the detector, they were not on. Mike related that he had since removed my name from his homepage, and that I was just a footnote now, buried on the site.
Mr. Churchman was also asked why his products were removed from the Radio Shack stores and he related my actions had no effect what so ever, that his detectors were outselling the Radio Shack brand and only had a 2% return rate.
Since I personally raised the challenge to $50,000.00 to Michael Churchman, I have decided to let that offer stand. Here are the details if ANYONE can show me a passive radar jammer that works in scrambling the speed of a vehicle so equipped with such a device.

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SEMA 2006 Observations…

The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) is the premier automotive trade event in the world. Held each year in Las Vegas, the event provides seminars, product demonstrations, special events and more. As I am involved in the speed counter measurement industry, it is a great opportunity for me, to network with others in the same industry.
This year we met with manufactures and reps from Escort, Beltronics, Cheetah, Blinder, RAM, Whistler, GSG Technologies, KAT (Kick Ass Technologies) and even Rocky Mountain Radar.
Our first stop was at Blinder, where we met with the CEO of Blinder International Torbin Anderson and Leon Gruner of Blinder USA. One pressing question we had involved the recent laser jammers that have been selling overseas that Blinder a ledges infringe on their US patent. Torbin explained that they are actively enforcing their patent here in the USA and if they become aware of any retailer within the US that sells and/or promotes these jammers, that they will take the proper legal steps in not only shutting the merchant down, but also seizing the merchandise and filing for restitution. Blinder International was just successful in obtaining the patent for their product design in South Africa and are also active in obtaining other patents in other countries.
Torbin also explained that Blinder is also in the final stages of development of a new parking sensor product, that is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2007.
Blinder also hinted to watch for information on new product releases within the next few weeks regarding their line of laser jammers.
Next stop was with the Whistler Group, where we got to see some new detectors that will be coming to the market soon. Two new cordless models that have spun off their popular 1788 model are the XTR 185 and the XTR 190. The XTR185 has a new feature in that it is the first “solar enhanced” radar detector. The top of the XTR185 has a solar panel,  that will extend the lifetime of a set of batteries several hours, if the detector is left mounted in the windshield.
Although Escort did not have an “official” presence at this years show, company representatives were present at the Beltronics booth. They were all very tight lipped about any new devices coming to market, and would not confirm rumors that we had heard of a new Escort model that would debut at the January CES show. However we did learn that their SR7 would be paired with an improved laser jamming device, but that the RX75 would not be sold with any active laser countermeasure device.
I then had lunch with Speed Cheetah and was blown away by the interface devices that they plan on offering the first quarter of 2007. The first was a helmet display module that had six different LED lights and an audio output. There was one LED light for each radar band and laser band, with the other two LED lights that would interface with either laser jammers and/or GPS devices.
They then had a clip on rear view mirror that had a built in GPS based safety camera alert system with the interface for remote mounted radar detectors and laser jammers.
Each of these interface devices will interconnect with any high end detector from Bel, Escort, Valentine or any laser jammer from Blinder, Lidatek or Drive Smart.
GSG Technologies was next on our list, and we learned that they had completely redesigned their VF Photo Jammers. Their product successfully passed the testing at the 2005 Speed Measurement Laboratories test of successfully blocking the photo of safety camera devices. However many of the cameras in the Scottsdale Arizona now use the Redflex Traffic Systems camera. Because this system uses a double flash the VF Photo Jammer could not recycle in time and block their photos. They explained that their new design allows them to block these cameras and we will be arranging a retest with the Scottsdale cameras in the near future.
Perhaps our biggest surprise was seeing CEO and founder of Rocky Mountain Radar Michael Churchman, sitting in front of another display, KAT Inc.
We learned (and later confirmed) that Michael Churchman founded his new company, Kick Ass Technologies, because of all the pressure Rocky Mountain Radar has been under involving the sales of radar scramblers. Mr. Churchman related that by removing the radar scrambler function from the KAT line of detectors he could then get his products into the Auto Zone type of stores more easily.
Although he may had removed the scrambler from his KAT line, he still used outrageous marketing claims to unsuspecting customers. These are just a sample of some of his claims to attendees at his booth:
1:  That his KAT detector can detect and jam any laser gun up to two miles away.
2:  That he purposely reduced the overall range of his radar detectors to only 2 miles ahead, because if you picked up any further away (like a Bel or Escort will) you may feel that it was a false alert.
3:  He was kicked out of Radio Shack because his products were outselling the Radio Shack detectors, and Radio Shack was not making any money on their product line.
4:  That his radar detectors were immune to the new Spectre IV and that they were now designing a new Spectre in Australia just so they could detect his detectors
On Thursday night during the SEMA show, I spotted Mike at a Las Vegas lounge at the Stratosphere casino and invite him to sit down with me. Our (video taped) conversation about his products and my $5000.00 challenge will follow in a new post..

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