Imagine owning a car so unique, so special that SEMA decided to give you one of the premier parking spots to show off your ride, right at the front door of the Las Vegas convention center.

This is exactly what has happened to a good friend of mine, Jim Cozzolino.

Jim owns this 1991 FXMD FX TA 1 Wide body NSX that is powered by a custom 3.3, forced induction FXMD FX 500 turbo charged engine.

Jim and his NSX has been featured in various competitions including the Castrol Top Car Challenge, Modified Magazine Tuner Shootout, Super Lap Burnouts and is a regular at NASA-AZ TTU and UMS time attack competitions.

Oh and one more thing, just so when Jim is out on one of his weekend cruises around Phoenix Jim has one of our Escort 9500ix radar detectors installed on the dash and a set of Blinder laser jammers installed in the grill.

Congratulations Jim and on your ride back home, please fly drive safe.

If you have a laser-jamming device in your car or truck and if you drive in Texas, beware. Effective September 1^st laser jamming devices such as the Escort ZR4, the Blinder and Laser Interceptor’s LI will be illegal in the Lone Star State!

Here is the new Laser Jammer Law:

ec. 547.616. RADAR INTERFERENCE DEVICES; OFFENSE.

(a) In this section, “radar interference device” means a device, a mechanism, an instrument, or equipment that is designed, manufactured, used, or intended to be used to interfere with, scramble, disrupt, or otherwise cause to malfunction a radar or laser device used to measure the speed of a motor vehicle by a law enforcement agency of this state or a political subdivision of this state, including a “radar jamming device,” “jammer,” “scrambler,” or “diffuser.” The term does not include a ham radio, band radio, or similar electronic device.

(b) A person, other than a law enforcement officer in the discharge of the officer’s official duties, may not use, attempt to use, install, operate, or attempt to operate a radar interference device in a motor vehicle operated by the person.

(c) A person may not purchase, sell, or offer for sale a radar interference device to be used in a manner described by Subsection (b).

(d) A person who violates this section commits an offense. An offense under this subsection is a Class C misdemeanor.

Now I am not condoning that anyone break the law, but if you drive in Texas or any other state where laser jamming devices are illegal here are a couple tips to avoid being detected:

When your laser jammer activates, shut it off and slow down or,

If you can program you laser jammer to auto shut down after activation do that and upon activation, SLOW DOWN!

Please don’t make the Stupid Driver Mistake keeping your laser-jamming device activated as you drive by the officer, as your asking for trouble!

This morning the Associated Press is reporting that the Texas Transportation board is recommending the approval of a ban in all devices, including laser jammers that would hinder police equipment.

The possession, selling or trading of such a device would be a class C misdemeanor and the law would not apply to radar detectors.

First off I want to thank the hundreds of readers who entered our first raffle in where we gave away a Bel STi radar detector and a can of Veil stealth coating.

Bacmtrwksftw was our first place winner taking home the coveted STi and Stevo569 took second by winning the can of Veil

In our new contest we will be giving away a brand new dual head Laser Interceptor laser jammer for 1^st place and a can of the Veil Stealth Coating for second place.

You can get the full details about this contest by clicking here:

http://www.RadarDetector.org/m/RadarRoy

Also if you have entered into this contest be sure to post your comments below and also add your contest link and be sure to press the Facebook like button and the Twitter button gain extra points!

This year there were several exciting new product announcements at the SEMA 2010 show such as:

• The public debut the Passport IQ and Escort’s Solo 3 radar detectors
• Laser Interceptor finally putting to rest the rumor about eye safety on their laser jammer
• And Laser Mask’s new diode based laser jammer.

In my review of the Passport IQ I called it a “game changer” in the fact it is the only high performance radar detector that combines full GPS capabilities along with blue tooth technologies. You can read my full review here.

In the coming week’s Escort will be releasing their new cordless model radar detector, the Solo S3 which will be replacing the current Solo S2.

In meeting with Ron Gividen from Escort at SEMA he provided a rundown of the features of both these units.

Ever since the release of the Laser Interceptor there has been allot of misinformation concerning the issues of eye safety with their laser jammer. So at the SEMA show Cliff Crane from Laser Interceptor allowed me to review a recent testing report by an independent testing company which basically gave Laser Interceptor a clean bill of health and is in full compliance with FDA regulations in this regard.

Laser Mask made their first SEMA appearance with their new diode based laser jammer.

I tested a prototype of this unit several months and I have to admit I was very surprised at its performance for being such a small unit.

Melvin Lee provides a rundown of three different  Laser Mask units that his company currently has under development.

In 2007 we had gathered together a group of radar detector enthusiasts, a few manufacture reps from Escort, Bel and Whistler and the Guys of Lidar for a radar detector shoot-out in Wickenburg.

One uninvited guest who crashed our event was the CEO of Laser Interceptor, Ivan.

Ivan related that he heard about our test and made a special trip with a new laser jammer that he had under development called the Laser Interceptor.

Ivan had a challenge, he would install a prototype quad head unit on our Freightliner motor home and he would guarantee me that it would jam any police laser gun that we put up against it.

We took him up on his challenge and I was amazed, jam to gun.

Once Ivan’s unit went into production I had to get one for my Ford F-250.

Laser devices in the USA are regulated by the Food and Drug administration and there are no federal laws on the books that specifically outlaw laser jamming devices.

However there are a number of states such as California, Colorado, Illinois and Virginia that do specifically outlaw the use of these devices within their states.

I would recommend that you check out the laws in your state before you install and/or operate a device such as this.

Also the Laser Interceptor is unique from most laser jamming devices sold today such as the Blinder and ZR4 in that it is rated as a Class 1M device.

These laser diodes used in the Laser Interceptor are much more powerful then the Blinder and the ZR4 and it will jam virtually every police laser gun manufactured today!

The ultimate test for any laser jammer would be to install one on a large motor home or semi truck, well back in 2007 we did just that!

During the 2007 “Guys of Lidar” test we installed four Laser Interceptor laser jammer heads on my 45 foot long Freightliner motor home. To make matters even worse, you will notice during this video that I have a chrome grill along with a chrome mirrored finish storage area just above the cab of the truck.

Side bets were placed and the odds were all stacked up against my rig and the Laser Interceptor being able to have any effect at jamming.

In the first run we were targeted with the LTI UltraLyte 125 PPS laser gun.

Then on the second run we were targeted with the Pro Laser II laser gun

Then on the third run we were targeted with the Speed Laser gun.

All runs were jam to gun!

It was only during the last run where the “Guys of Lidar” pulled out all the stops and shot my rig with all three guns at the same time!

This was the only run where they were able to clock the speed of my rig as I was less than 500 feet of their location.

Back in January we installed Escort’s QI45 radar detector in our Toyota Sequoia and for the past couple months we have logged over 1200 miles and a handful of saves from police radar and laser traps.

As the QI45 is built on the Escort 8500 X50 platform we found the QI45’s overall performance to be equal to the performance and filtering capabilities of the 8500 and the Bel RX65.

As this was my wife’s car one concern that she expressed when I told her that I would be replacing her dash mounted Escort was to make sure that this detector didn’t have a lot of “chatter” otherwise she wouldn’t use it.

After a couple days driving with the QI45 she told me that the detector had already saved her from one ticket and that she liked the fact that the display module was mounted in a location that was easily accessible to her, so when it did alert, she could easily press the mute button.

We also installed the optional Shifter Pack, which provided us with frontal laser jamming capabilities.

The following is my video review of the QI 45 with the optional Shifter Pack:

In my final review of the QI45 radar detector I rate the unit with my highest rating, Five Badges!

If you’re in the market for a remote mounted radar detector and laser jammer that is easy to install and will not break your bank account, then the QI45 would be a top pick!

During my 14 year career in the speed counter measurement industry I’ve perhaps installed over 300 remote mounted radar detectors for clients on everything from cars, trucks, RV’s, motorcycles and even a few tour buses for a few notable rock and roll and country western bands.

Typical installs can take me a couple hours and more complex installs can even take days. So when I heard about the Escort Radar’s claim that the typical install for the QI45 was under 45 minutes, I was a little skeptical.

QI45’s name represents Escort’s commitment to develop a radar detector that any automotive buff could install in under 45 minutes. I.e.; Quick Install 45.

During our installation we also installed Escort’s Shifter Pack during this same install.

Prior to our install we read the user manual and install manual for both units in full and laid out our plans.

We chose to us an “Add a Circuit” to the positive wiring harness so we could plug into an accessory socket in our fuse box. We chose the radio accessory as the detector would activate when we started the car and then turn off when we removed the key.

We then removed the lower portion of our Toyota’s dashboard and installed the controller module by zip tying it to a bracket under the dash.

The front of the antenna of the QI45 has laser diodes for laser detection. Therefore the front of the radar antenna should not be blocked by the grill or any other object. We chose a location in the lower drivers side grill area.

We choose the upper bumper area of our Toyota to mount the two Shifter heads. As we didn’t want to drill into the bumper or grill, we selected 3M double sided automotive tape to secure both the radar antenna and both Shifter heads.

To the rear of the QI45’s antenna, there are two jacks to plug in the Shifter heads.  This is a great feature as typically the cabling for the laser jammer s must be run through the firewall along with the radar detector cable.

Care must be taken to align the plugs to the antenna by aligning two white dots. If this is reversed you could damage your system.

A little tip; tape over the head of the RJ45 plug prior to pushing it through the firewall, this will help protect the little plastic tab on the jack.

Next we installed the display module on the lower right portion of the dashboard.

We then plugged the three RJ45 cables into the controller, screwed down our ground and turned the key.

Within moments the QI45 came to life.

We screwed on the lower portion of the dash, made last minute adjustments to the laser shifter heads and closed the hood. Total time for install, 54 minutes!

The installation of the QI45 easiest remote radar detector install that I’ve ever made and I’m certain that anyone with basic automotive repair skills can do a similar install in under an hour.