Texas Bans Laser Jammers?
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.
Laser Interceptor – the Ultimate Laser Jammer Test
The ultimate test for any laser jammer would be installing one on a full size Freightliner Motorhome! In this video Radar Roy installs the Laser Interceptor on his Renegade motorhome during his Radar Detector Shoot-Out.
Now the Mimic is also called the LaserTek!
Friday’s blog about the Mimic being “reborn” as a beamer hit a couple “hot” buttons as several European and Australian dealers flooded me with comments that were laced with profanity and veiled threats.
And another name for the Mimic was also provided along with a link from a US distributor that is not only dumping these on the international market as the “LaserTek Pro 20” but also is using a product image photo that I took of the product and posted on my original review of the mimic without my permission.
I was also had a couple private postings on RadarDetector.net from users to provide the history of the Mimic, so here goes:
Six years ago Bob Gibson was fired from Blinder USA during the time the first M-5 and M-10 units were produced. Bob had the original design of these units and figured that he would go into business himself mass producing his own laser jammer.
Bob took these M-5/M-10 plans and hooked up with a subsidiary of Attowave in Korea. Attowave is the same manufacture of Rocky Mountain Radar’s C-450 and the Stealth Ninja radar jammer that I’ve discussed in previous blogs.
As Bob was having thousands of these jammers produced in the sweatshops of Korea, he started calling US distributors. When Bob called me to ask if I was interested I told him that I would only carry the product after I did my own due diligence. Bob said that he would be pleased to send me a prototype; I told Bob that I wasn’t interested in any “juiced” units that I would make a “blind” purchase from one of his dealers after they came out on the retail market.
Chris Deaderick (JTW) was one of first to test Mimic’s prototypes. Chris was an ex Rocky Mountain Radar retailer who was attempting to change his colors and become an “independent tester” of laser jammer products.
Chris gave high marks for the Mimic on his website(s) and approached the Lance, the developer of the Phantom Laser Jammer, to become partners to sell the Mimic on Lance’s website.
I warned both Lance and Chris to use caution, as I suspected that after the product went into production the quality and performance could be questionable. Lance and Chris’s first order was a 100 Mimics, five of which I purchased for my own testing.
After receiving these units, I took them with me to the annual Radar Detector Shoot out in El Paso for an independent test. We installed a pair of Mimic’s on a white sub compact and the results were dismal. The Mimic had a success rate of only 14% in jamming at distances between 500 and 1000 feet.
We published our review on RadarBusters and within a few weeks several other customers did their own reviews which mirrored ours experiences and they posted their comments on RadarDetector.net.
Needless to say Mimic sales were dead in the water. So Bob Gibson and JTW regrouped and came out with several new names of the product and tried unsuccessfully to sell the product on other websites.
It seems now that Bob Thompson, who manages a international sales distributorship, decided to buy into their scam and rebrand the Mimic as the LaserTek Pro 20 and to sell them overseas.
I’ve done business with Bob in years past and he seemed like a very honest businessman, so I don’t suspect that he is knowingly taking part in this fiasco and when contacted he took my “HiJacked” image off their website immediatelly.
The saga continues….
Mimic is “Reborn” as a Beamer
The Mimic laser jammer first made headlines on RadarDetector.net, when dealers started touting it as the most powerful and affordable laser jammer.
I was suspicious of these claims and quickly identified the Korean manufacture and contacted his sources in the industry.
Being familiar with other laser jammers that this same Korean company was also manufacturing, such as the First Strike and the Laser Tech I knew from my previous testing that they had little or no effect in jamming police laser guns at all.
I purchased five Laser Mimics directly from a Washington State distributor that has been referred to as the “Goons” for their misleading testing and self promotion.
Two of these Laser Mimics were tested at the Speed Measurement Laboratories 2005 Radar Detector Shoot Out. A certified police officer used an LTI Ultralyte LR 200, a Kustom Pro Laser III and A Stalker LZ-1 laser gun to test this unit. The Laser Mimic performed very poorly and was only 14% effective at jamming all these guns.
As word quickly spread through the US radar detector and jammer marketplace of the Mimic’s poor performance, other dealers and distributors in the USA quickly dropped this product!
This week I was contacted by Stig who has a Norwegian blog that discussed speed countermeasure equipment and asked me if I was familiar with a new laser jammer that was being sold on European websites called the “Beamer”. From the links he provided I quickly identified the new Beamer as the old Mimic.
This morning Stig published a warning to the European marketplace on his bog: www.laservarsler.info/beamer_laserjammer.htm
Hopefully our efforts will help educate the consumer about these unscrupulous merchants and products and put an end to these cheap and ineffective laser jammer knock offs.
Veil Stealth Coating Test
The new G4 Veil “stealth anti-laser coating” has gone into final production and the “Veil Guy” made a special trip out to our new testing facility with a Shelby Mustang that we tested on our half mile paved airstrip.
We performed baseline testing without the Veil applied and we were able to “tag” his Mustang at over 1200 feet away. After applying his new improved G4 version of Veil to the headlamps he was able to reduce his punch through distances as much as 80%!
We also “Veiled” the headlamps of a white Toyota Sequoia SUV which is a much harder vehicle to beat with only a passive laser coating, and saw punch through reduction fall as much as 50%!
The following video demonstrates on how to apply the Veil coating and shows an impressive run against an LTI laser gun at 98 mph where the punch through rate was only 128 feet without any other laser countermeasure device installed.
Veil G4 Stealth Coating Test
Radar Roy’s Badge Rating
Five Stars
Taking Aim at Speeders
This article appeared today in the Press Enterprise Newpaper in Southern Califorina, in which I was interviewed.
Technology allows CHP to pinpoint infractions
10:00 PM PST on Sunday, December 3, 2006
By JULIA GLICK – The Press-Enterprise
The California Highway Patrol has a new weapon against speeders in the Inland region: lasers. Officers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties started using laser speed measurement, called lidar, last month to clock drivers barreling down the area’s freeways, authorities said.
California Highway Patrol officers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties started using the lidar device last month.
Lidar makes it easier to zero in on individual vehicles and nearly impossible for drivers to contest tickets in court, officials said. And speeders beware: radar detectors won’t help you.
“The lidar is so quick that by the time your radar detector goes off, your speed has already been determined,” said Officer Mario Lopez with the Inland Division of the highway patrol.
The patrol is using about 10 lidar units in Riverside County and 17 in San Bernardino County to supplement officers’ traditional radar guns, authorities said.
After a successful pilot project in the Solano area of Northern California, the state purchased 240 laser units with federal grants in 2006 and distributed them among its eight highway patrol divisions, said spokesman Steve Kohler.
“When it comes to measuring distance and speed, lidar has really replaced radar,” said Dan Sise of Laser-Technology Inc., the Colorado-based manufacturer of the units. “It is the new technology.”
Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, enables an officer to aim at a particular vehicle, even a small motorcycle in heavy traffic, said Sise. The unit shoots out a laser beam and uses the time it takes for the light to bounce back to pinpoint the car’s distance. When the device measures the same distance a split-second later, it can determine how quickly the car has moved, he said.
Radar uses the reflection of radio waves to measure a car’s speed. Its main advantage over laser is that it can be mobile while a laser unit must be kept still in order to function, Sise said.
While laser beams are narrow and focused, traditional radar beams are wider and sometimes cover several vehicles, Sise said. Officers use their training and judgment to determine which car is giving off the fast-speed reading, he said.
“If you get a good lawyer, sometimes you can get out of a radar ticket,” Sise said. “But it is very hard to get out of a laser ticket, because it is so precise. It makes the judge’s job much easier.”
Lidar also foils radar detectors, the old-standby for avoiding a ticket. While a radar gun’s broad radio wave emissions can be picked up at a distance and give drivers a warning to slow down, the laser beams don’t trigger the radar detector until it is too late.
If a lidar unit sets off your detector, “Just pull over. You just got a ticket,” said Roy Reyer, owner of RadarBusters.com, which sells and reviews radar detectors.
But as quickly as new technology comes out, speeders find a way to beat it, said Reyer, a retired policeman from Arizona.
RadarBusters.com and other companies have begun selling laser jammers, also known as blinders, which sell for about $350. The jammers, mounted inside the car grill, flash a burst of invisible infrared light at the lidar gun and block a reading, Reyer said. That buys time to slow down and escape a ticket.
While radar detectors are not specifically illegal in California, laser jammers are outlawed, Reyer said.
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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