New Speed Counter Measure Technologies – SEMA 2009
The SEMA show, held each November in Las Vegas, is one of my favorite annual automotive events as companies that specialize in speed countermeasure equipment show off their new gadgets designed to outsmart law enforcement speed enforcement technology.
Another plus is that Las Vegas is only an hour and a half flight in my Cessna 182 from our home in Arizona. So on Tuesday, opening day, my wife and I jumped into our bird and headed out.
We lifted off at 7:30 am and with the one hour time change landed at the Henderson Executive Airport at 8:00 am. We tied down the plane, got a rental car and I was at the Las Vegas Convention Center just before the nine o’clock opening.
Blinder Laser Jammers
Outside the convention center I met with Leon Gruner and his wife Bonnie of Blinder USA. Blinder manufactures a Laser Jamming device designed to jam police laser.
For those of you not familiar with police laser enforcement let me explain the technology.
Police laser is a very narrow beam of light that of course travels at the speed of light, it is INSTANT!
At 500 feet the beams width is only 18” and when police shoot your car with laser, they normally aim for a reflective area of your car like your front license plate or your headlights.
So if you only have a radar detector mounted on your dash, chances are that your detector will never activate unless it picks up “scatter” and if it does, it’s too late, the officer already has your speed.
I explain laser jamming this way, “Let’s say someone shoots your car with a 5 watt flashlight, you respond by shinning a 50 watt flashlight at them, your flashlight is more powerful and would over power the other flashlight if it had a receiver to calculate speed”
Earlier this year Blinder released their new laser jammers the M-27 and M-47. (replaced in 2012 with their HP-905 Model) Modifications included using brighter LED lights and also an interface where you can download the latest software for any new laser guns.
Blinder M-27 Laser Jammer Interview by Radar Roy
Coyote Interactive Photo Enforcement Detector
A comment I heard at the SEMA show this year was that new photo enforcement cameras are spreading faster than the H1N1 virus, as many cities and states have found a quick way a new to generate money without increasing taxes.
Several years ago the stand alone GPS photo enforcement camera devices hit the market place and then two years ago radar detector manufactures included this technology into their radar detectors. These devices would warn you as you approached a fixed photo enforcement camera such as photo radar or red light cameras with an audible and visual alert.
The one major drawback with these devices was the mobile photo radar vans that are moved, sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis.
Trapster then emerged on the scene, building a social network of users that would notify each other via their iPhone or Blackberry of photo enforcement locations or other high enforcement locations.
Coyote is NOW coming on the scene, merging these two technologies into one device, an interactive GPS photo enforcement detector. Coyote’s system is due to launch February of 2010.
Escort Redline Radar Detector
This summer I had the opportunity to take the Escort Redline radar detector for a 8,000 mile cross country review testing the unit against the New Jersey X band radar guns, to Sturgis South Dakota mounted on my “Stealth Hog” Harley Davidson motorcycle, and in my RV across the southwest.
The Redline was developed to take over the long range category that has been dominated by Valentine One.
During a Speed Measurement Laboratories long range test that was held this past summer the Redline outperformed every radar detector in this class.
The one thing I liked about the Redline was the units ability to sniff out the mobile Redflex Ka band mobile photo radar vans that have overtaken Arizona and a few other states.
Passport SC55 GPS Photo Enforcement Detector
Do you have a Valentine One, Escort 8500, Whistler Pro 78 or any other radar detector that you would want to integrate a GPS photo enforcement database into? If so the new Passport SC55 will allow just that.
Designed to integrate into virtually any radar detector on the market today, you simply plug the two units into each other, turning your Escort 8500 X50 into an Escort 9500ix or your RX65 into a GX65.
You instantly give your detector a brain so it can now alert to these deadly photo radar and red light cameras.
Passport QI45 Remote Mounted Radar Detector
The Escort Passport QI 45 is a new remote mounted radar detector based upon the design of the Escort 8500 X50.
Unlike more complex remote mounted radar detectors, the QI45 is very simple in its design in that it only has three modules, the antenna that is mounted in the grill, the controller that is mounted under the dash and the display that mounts on the dash.
There is only one wire that you need to feed through the firewall and install can take as little as 30 to 45 minutes!
If you want to install their laser jammer; no problem, the laser heads plug into the rear of the antenna and each head could be installed in under 5 minutes.
As a motorcyclist, I thought of how simple this set up could be to set up a remote mounted radar detector and laser jammer to your motorcycle.
Rocky Mountain Radar
What would a SEMA show be without me poking a little fun at Rocky Mountain Radar?
Well after being successful at getting Michael Churchman kicked out of Best Buy I made a promise to myself that I would lay low.
When I arrived at the SEMA show I was approached by several of the other manufacture reps that Michael Churchman was present at this year’s show and that he was asking if I was going to show up.
Mike had missed the last two years at both SEMA and CES after I sat down with him at a bar at the Stratosphere three years ago and he made the comment that he didn’t care if his C-450 radar jammer worked or not and that he didn’t have the balls enough to take me up on my $50,000 challenge.
So this year I had only planned to take a quick peek at what new devices RMR was scamming the uninformed corporate buyers with and then follow-up with our online campaign to educate these potential new clients.
I noticed that the RMR booth was still missing the Plexiglas display with the police radar gun and the little car with their radar scrambler attached. This had gone missing after I approached Rual, their head engineer, a few years back with cash in hand in challenging them to my test with TV cameras from the UPN network rolling.
During their segment, they proved that Michael’s little display was misleading and potentially defrauding the public as the Plexiglas display did not allow anyone to move the scrambler more than a few inches from the feed horn of the radar gun. In other words the RMR radar jammers would not work against any police radar gun, unless the officer was literally sitting on the hood of your car, with the feed horn of the radar gun against your windshield and the detector within two to three inches from the gun.
With our economy appearing to being on track to recovery, I was pleased to see at this year’s SEMA show that the Speed Counter measurement Industry was strong and developing new products.
Flight Home
Margie and I spent the night catching “Jersey Boys” and flew out the following morning.
A cold front came beat us to our airpark with winds gusting to 25 knots, so we had to divert to Wickenburg Airport (E25) and called a friend to pick us up.
A few hours later I returned when the winds calmed down and flew our bird back to its nest here at our home
12 Responses to “New Speed Counter Measure Technologies – SEMA 2009”
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i so envy people with planes have you found anything to jam aircraft radar yet?
Personally, I want to know where other planes are, so I wouldn’t want to jam aircraft radar
ROY,I LIVE IN CORPUS CHRISTS TX AND BEEN SEENING ALOT OF POLICE OFFICER WITH RADAR OR LASER BINOCULARS.MY RX65 BEL.DETECTOR DOSE NOT PICK THEM UP.BUT WORKS FINE WITH EVER THING ON POLICE CARS.IS THERE A NEW RADAR BAN IN TX.
Sounds like a kustom pro lite laser gun. Radar detectors all suck at detecting laser. You’ll need a Blinder laser jammer: http://www.radarroysbuyersguide.com/BlinderM27
Use that link for a 10% discount;
Use promo code FB8259 at checkout
Roy,
I live in one of the two places where detectors are ilegal. I however, do a lot of road traveling and the cops are everywhere. I was thinking of a custom installed product. I have used escort radars before and have found their quality and performance superb. Would you recomend the QI45 or is there another product out there better for my needs?
BTW I once owned a radar from RMR and it was the biggest peace of junk that I have ever owned. They should be banned, no one should buy them. I cant tell they where cheap from the moment I opened the box. Please keep making people aware of the horrible quality.
Thanks
Francisco
The problem with the QI45 is that the detector can be detected with the Spectre RDD, a device that is used to detect radar detectors. You would want a detector that would be stealth to these devices such as the 9500ci
roy,
THANKS FOR THE UPDATES, IN A ROAD-TEST THAT MY BROTHER AND I HELD TOGETHER, WE PITTED HIS TOP-OF-LINE COBRA AGAINST MY NEW 85OO X50, WE USED COMMON WALKIE-TALKIES WITH 1/2 MI RANGE TO KEEP IN TOUCH.
IN THE CITY, THE ESCORT 8500 CAME IN TIED WITH THE COBRA, AT DETECTING THE SPEED TRAPS THAT OUR LOCAL AND, STATE AUTHORITIES ARE USING, HOWEVER THE ESCORT WAS GIVING LESS FALSE TONES THAN THE COBRA GAVE. MAKING THE X50 A DETECTOR THAT “LEARNS”…
ON THE HIGHWAY TEST WE DID THE SAME THING WE TOOK NOTE OF TONES AND PAYED ATTENTION TO ALL ALERTS GIVEN REGARDLESS OF THE DETECTOR, WE PULLED OVER AT A TRUCK STOP AND COMPARED NOTES, IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT WE BOTH ARMED OUR DETECTORS TO ALERT AS AUTOMATICALLY AS POSSIBLE, OUT OF A LIST OF 50 ALERTS, BOTH IN CITY AND OUT, THE X50, GAVE 42% LESS FALSE ALERTS THAN THE COBRA, RANGE CAME IN AT ALMOST A TIE DUE TO HILLS, BUT THAT IS WHERE THE X50 SHINED, IT WAS ABLE TO SNIFF OUT SIGNAL FROM THE OTHER SIDE GIVING US TIME TO RE-ACT.
HIGHWAY RESULTS WERE A LITTLE DIFFERENT, HIS COBRA WAS ABLE TO PICK UP FIXED RADAR AND LASER POSITIONS WHERE MY X50 WASNT ABLE TO TELL ME, IT DID HOWEVER ALERT ME TO THE SITUATION.
SO THE TEST CONCLUSION, THE TOP-OF-THE-LINE COBRA, PITTED AGAINST THE X50 ESCORT, RESULTS ESCORT LESS FALSE ALERTS, BETTER SENSITIVITY AND RANGE, THE COBRA ACURATE AT FIXED RADAR/LASER SITES.
BOTH WILL ALERT UPON SIGNAL DETECTION.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS PRIOR TO MY PURCHASING A DETECTOR, AND FOR YOUR LIST OF FACTORY AUTHORIZED SERVICE CENTERS.
BECAUSE OF THIS BOTH THE COBRA AND MY X50, HAVE KEPT THE POLICE AT BAY, AND PAID FOR THEMSELVES, RELIABLY MANY, MANY TIMES OVER. OUR FAMILIES, THANK YOU.
=]
Thats what I’m talking about lol 🙂
Hi, I have the Escort Passport 9500ix and I’ve owned for about a year now and I was driving on the road and the outer hard case of the radar popped open. Is that something that can be fixed, and I’m wondering what caused it to open like that. Radar Roy can you help me?
@ben If you have had the unit less than a year it should still be under warranty. Contact Escort and they should be able to get this fixed for you
I called Bonnie on Jue 12, 2011 and she told me that she dose not work at Blinder USA. She said someone is useing her name.
That is weird, just spoke with her last week….