Rocky Mountain Radar On The Attack

During the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to meet with Michael Churchman, president of Rocky Mountain Radar, and his engineering and sales staff at the annual SEMA shows held in Las Vegas.

Two years ago at SEMA I made a personal challenge RMR’s head engineer Raul to take me up on my $5000.00 challenge to demonstrate how their radar scramblers had any effect in jamming police radar to a network television crew that were present. I explained to Raul that we were set up in an outside parking lot with a crew of certified radar operators and if his radar scrambling equipment had any effect at all in jamming, that I would present to him on camera $5000.00. Raul declined the challenge saying “our equipment doesn’t work in parking lots.” I then invited him to choose any street in the Las Vegas area for the test and he declined on camera.

Last year representatives from Cheetah, Beltronics and I were at the Stratosphere lounge when Michael Churchman walked past our table in a somewhat inebriated state. We welcomed him to join us at our table and Mike sat down. Not missing a beat, Don the Cheetah rep, fired up the video recorder on his cell phone to record what he knew would be an interesting conversation. It was here when I told Mike that I was raising my reward to $50,000.00 to anyone that could demonstrate to me one of his radar scramblers in action in jamming police radar. Mike told me that my test was a scam, because it had to be performed by Carl Fors, another one of my cronies. I told Mike that this was not a condition of my challenge, that any certified police officer could do the test, however the radar guns had to be on the approved list of International Chief of Police and that the test had to be recorded.  Mike first stated “if that’s the case, then I may take you up on it” but   paused and said “no, I have nothing to prove to you, my customers and I know that the product works and that is good enough. You could raise the reward to a million, I don’t care, nothing you have done has had any effect on my operation and I’m not going to allow that to change.”

A few months after our meeting, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) began issuing citations against Rocky Mountain Radar and its dealer and distribution chain for improper FCC type acceptance, illegal marketing practices and their devices causing interference to properly licensed radio equipment.

Almost immediately several of RMR’s long time dealers began dropping their products from inventory and radio stations stopped airing the “no more ticket” commercial. Most notable was Radio Shack’s decision to pull all of RMR’s  radar detector products from their website only one week after they decided to carry the jammer product line.

Late this summer, I noticed a shrinking product SKU on their website(s) and in their distributor catalogs which to me was a flag that the company was in trouble.

But the single biggest red flag of RMR’s declining revenue stream was when I saw their 2007 SEMA display booth. Gone was the decorative display with shelves proudly showcasing the RMR product line with the Kustom radar gun shielded in plexiglass. Instead this year they had four roll up poster boards and a flat screen LCD with video clips of their products.

After noting my observations at the RMR booth I walked down a few booths to Blinder and began talking to their staff. A short time later I had a RMR rep standing in front of me holding a piece of paper and stated “Before you come over and harass us at our booth this year, read this notice from Mike and perhaps publish this on your website!”

The notice read as follows:

Rocky  Mountain Radar
6469 Doniphan Rd
El Paso, Texas 79932

For our distribution and business partners:

In 2005 the FCC launched a destructive campaign to put us out of business prompted by our competitors in the detector industry. Familiar names like “Radar” Roy and Carl Fors, distributors and supporters of Escort/Bel inundated the FCC with complaints about our “jammers”. What is ironic is while they complained to the FCC that we were marketing devices that interfere with police radar they maintained websites that claim nothing we manufacture works.

In the process of the sham investigation by the FCC, they seriously compromised their offices and violated their own rules. They willingly and deliberately allowed themselves to be used as pawns by our detractors and the detector companies that they work for. As a result of the numerous citations issued by the FCC many of you have quit selling our products, or restricted sale to models not mentioned by the FCC. This has caused us considerable damage in the marketplace.

Rocky Mountain Radar has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court, Western District of Texas, El Paso Division, case number EP07CA0344 with six claims for relief including prohibitory injunction and damages plus legal fees. We fully expect to get the injunction within the next 25 days prohibiting the FCC from any further contact with any of our distribution and prohibiting them from taking any action on actions already brought. This will give our distribution chain protection from further harassment by the Federal Government while we force the FCC to follow their own rules. As soon as we receive the Court Order, you will be alerted, or you can check our website , www.RockyMountainRadar.com for updates.

As we grind through the Federal courts we will keep you posted and we do expect to be victorious. No agency should be allowed to conduct its affairs in direct violation of its own rules and no agency is above the law. We will not rest until we make that point in this action. There is absolutely no question of FCC guilt in ½ of our claims as they proudly admitted what they did in complete ignorance of their own rules. This, after we repeatedly warned them that they were breaking the rules and in direct violation of the process. This of course, exacerbates their duplicity as they blithely allowed themselves to be guided by our competitors. Rest assured that Escort/Bel will cry foul and that they had nothing to do with this, but they knowingly assisted Fors an Roy through the process. We are not sure of Whistler (a dying brand) or Cobra’s involvement.

Sincerely,

Michael Churchman President

During the next several days I kept a look out for Mike at his booth hoping to catch a few minutes with him to get further details of his pending litigation but he and his head engineer Raul were no where to be found, which I found unusual from conventions past.

I did pass on Mike’s letter to other industry insiders and all sharing the same comment in that it appeared to them that Mike was grasping at straws to save his company from the onslaught of the FCC for his questionable if not illegal marketing practices.

I have not had an opportunity to read Mike’s pending suit but find Mike’s reference in his letter that this suit would prohibit the FCC from taking any enforcement action against his distribution chain ludicrous. It is my opinion based upon my training and experience on being on both sides of the speed enforcement industry for over 30 years and also being a licensed amateur radio operator for twenty five years, that marketing of any device as being capable of interfering with lawfully licensed radio operating equipment in the USA is illegal under the Federal Communications Act.

Regardless of the products ability or inability to jam police radar the law is still being violated by his company and distributor’s claims as witnessed still on their websites and at this year’s SEMA convention.