Best Buy is STILL Defrauding Its Customers, Selling Illegal Rocky Mountain Radar Products!
Best Buy begins selling the Rocky Mountain Radar scramblers and jammers from its website. As these devices are illegal and flat out don’t work the users of RadarDetector.net and myself call for a boycott of Best Buys stores as they are defrauding their customers by selling these products.
Best Buy Defrauding Its Customers, Selling Illegal Rocky Mountain Radar Products!
Best Buy begins selling the Rocky Mountain Radar detectors from its website. Radar Roy has tested these devices a number of occasions and has found them to be totally ineffective against jamming any type of police radar and infact offers a $50,000 reward to anyone that can show him one that works!
Review of RMR C-475 Radar Jammer Scrambler
Radar Roy adds the RMR C-475 to his list of Rocky Mountain Radar products which he is offers his $50,000.00 reward to anyone that can show him this product scrambling/jamming police radar and/or laser as the manufacture claims.
You can read Roy’s full review of the newest radar scrambler, the RMR C-475 here.
SEMA 2008 – The Radar Detector Experience
A love for cars, trucks or anything else automotive is the founding principles for the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) trade association. For over forty years, this organization brings a diverse group of manufacturers, distributors, retailers, publishing companies, car clubs and automotive enthusiasts together each year for the world’s largest automotive trade show.
Several of the speed counter measure manufactures attend this week long event to show off their new wares and to network with others in the automotive industry.
Yesterday was opening day for the 2008 event and I felt that this would be a great opportunity to interview the CEO’s and/or engineers of the various radar detector and jammer companies to discuss their various products and their commitments to the industry and customer.
I first met with John Larson, the CEO of Escort Radar Incorporated. Over the past year Escort/Beltronics released three new GPS based radar detectors to the market, the Escort 9500ci which is high performance remote mounted radar detector and laser jammer combo; the 9500ix which is their dash mounted version; the Bel GX65 radar detector and their updated ZR4 laser defense system.
During our interview John stressed Escort’s commitment to the customer saying that they consider “the customer their boss” that they consistently seek input from the radar detector user to improve and develop new products. John revealed some of the new products that they are now working on saying they have several products in the works that will tie other automotive electronic devices into one central unit.
Next I interviewed Leon Gruner aka “Blinder Dude” the CEO from Blinder USA. Leon discussed their updated J16 version of the Blinder M-25 and M-45 laser jammer and their ability to remain strong in the speed counter measure market place for over eight years while others have failed. We also discussed our exploits during the Fireball Cross Country Rally and next year’s run from the west coast to east on Route 66.
Just prior to this year’s show, Don Norton the CEO from Cheetah USA gave me one of their new GPS based photo radar and red light camera alert units, the C100. I had an opportunity to test and review this unit in the Phoenix metro area just as the Arizona Department of Public Safety and Redflex activated sixty new speed enforcement cameras. Don and I discuss this new unit and how during a short eight mile trip it saved me from four of these new cameras and $600.00 in fines.
Cobra Electronics has also embraced GPS technology into their line of radar detectors. Tony, one of the lead engineers of Cobra introduces me to their 2009 line up. Tony who is a long time participant at the annual “Radar Detector Shoot Out” in El Paso, discusses their improvements in processing the incoming radar threats with their detectors and the free GPS update plan they offer.
Notably absent from this year’s show was both Michael Churchman, CEO of Rocky Mountain Radar and Raul Elguea their head engineer. At previous SEMA and CES (Consumer Electronics Show) I approached Raul with cash in hand and television news cameras rolling challenging Raul to demonstrate to me one of his radar jammer products in action in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center . During this interview Raul backed down saying “Our product will not work in a parking lot”.
During last year’s SEMA event Michael Churchman also was a “no show” at his company’s booth. However I did find him at a Las Vegas bar where we sat down to discuss my $50,000.00 reward that I offer to anyone that could show me a Rocky Mountain Radar jammer/scrambler that worked. When I asked why he and his company had refused to take me up on my challenge he first replied saying that my test was rigged. I reminded Michael that it wasn’t my test, that I (we) would higher off duty police officers to perform the test and if his product worked, he would receive $50,000.00. Again Michael refused to take me up on my challenge.
This video recapping Rocky Mountain Radar’s history in the radar jammer/radar detector marketplace was shot directly in front of their booth and their staff was invited to participate, but they refused.
Review KAT Radar Detector
KAT-600 and KAT-DSL315 Radar Detector Review
I first became introduced the KAT line of radar detectors at the 2006 SEMA show in Las Vegas when I eyed Michael Churchman, the founder of Rocky Mountain Radar, sitting at the company’s display.
What first caught my attention was this sad and lonely soul sitting behind a weather beaten fold up table that had several radar detectors sitting on top. On the backdrop there was a single piece of paper with a hand written notice “KAT Radar Detectors”.
Later that same evening I ran into Mike at the Las Vegas Stratosphere bar where I had the opportunity to ask him about his new company. Mike related that several merchants had put up blockades because of his radar jamming features in his RMR line, so he had formed a new company K.A.T. so he could get his warez into the AutoZone stores and such. He further explained that KAT stood for “Kick Ass Technologies.”
With credit, since the 2006 SEMA show Michael has managed to get his new KAT line up listed onto a few questionable websites where they are sold for as much as $225.00 advertised as the most “feature packed value radar detector” in the automotive industry.
I felt when I began the review of the KAT line up for my “under $200.00 test” that Mr. Churchman would feel that my review would be distorted if I only did a one day driving test, therefore the following review of the KAT-600 and the KAT-DSL315 was performed over the past two weeks, logging over 1000 miles on each radar detector.
In multiple encounters in both highway and city driving, both the KAT-600 and the KAT-DSL315 performed very poorly at detecting police radar.
In two situations I was following behind an Arizona Highway Patrol officer that was using a forward facing Ka radar gun. In each encounter as I approached the officers from the rear My Escort SR7 was on full alert Ka band from over 2300 feet away. Switching off the Escort and then activating each of the KAT radar detectors separately, neither would activate until I was within two car lengths of the officer.
The KAT detectors also performed very poorly in other off axis encounters. In three encounters we had a local Wickenburg police officer using K band radar where they were at a ninety degree angle from our approach. Again the Escort SR7 remote alerted well in advance while each of the KAT radar detectors remained silent.
In numerous head to head encounters on both K and Ka the KAT did not alert until we were well within the kill zone of the officers radar gun.
The only positive thing I can say about either the KAT 600 and the KAT DSL315 that both performed very well at not having false alerts. However, this is one heck of a trade off if the radar detector cannot detect real police radar signals.
Radar Roy’s Badge Rating
KAT 600 Radar Detector – Zero Starts
KAT DSL315 Radar Detector – Zero Stars
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.
Fireball – Pre Ride Check In
Today was the first meeting of all the racing contestants and getting the cars decaled, inspected and checked in. I took this as an opportunity to checkout all the cars while my teammate the “Veil Guy” made last minute tune ups to our BMW 540i sport.
My first project was checking out all the speed countermeasure equipment that many of the cars were using and I was shocked and somewhat disappointed in what I saw.
First off entry into this race is not cheap, it costs over $10,000.00 for the full entry. The cars are not cheap either. There is an Aston Martin, a couple of Bentleys, a few Lambos, a Ford GT40, and couple of Ferrari to boot. But when it came to radar detectors I was shocked to see that some of these drivers really skimped in this area, counting six Cobra’s, one RMR C-450, and even a KAT!
I chuckled when I passed the car with the Rocky Mountain Radar jammer as he was bragging to another driver how his unit was able to jam out all police radar and laser thinking to myself “I wonder how many miles he is going to make it before he gets his first ticket and finds out what a POS detector he really had.”
There were many drivers however that did do their homework and two even mentioned that they had been reading my blog and forum prior to the race and did make some smart buys.
On the high end of the radar detector spectrum I counted four Bel RX65’s, four Escort 8500 X50’s, two Valentine One’s, one Bel STi and one Escort 9500i. One Aston Martin driver that identified himself as a Radar Detector net forum member took me to his ride to show off his Blinder M47, his Veiled headlamps and a SR7.
I then met with the owner of the “Bat Mobile” while he was in the process of installing his Escort 8500 X50 to the dual cockpit style curved windshields. It was certainly a challenge installing the unit above the rocket launcher and booster rocket switches.
Tomorrow at 7:00 am we line up and depart for our first leg of the race, Baton Rouge LA.
Check in tomorrow night for more updates.
FCC Keeps the Heat on Radar Jammer Dealers
The FCC According to the FCC website, here are the latest actions they have taken regarding Rocky Mountain Radar manufactures, dealers and distributors who have been selling illegal radar detectors and jammers.
08-16-2007
Rocky Mountain Radar, El Paso, TX
FORFEITURE ORDER
08-02-2007
Gain Saver, Long Beach, California
CITATION
07-26-2007
ShoppersChoice.com, LLC, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
CITATION
07-26-2007
Shopila Corporation, New York, NY
CITATION
07-19-2007
Unbeatablesale.com, Inc., Lakewood, NJ
CITATION
07-18-2007
Overseas Best Buy, Inc., Glendale Heights, IL
CITATION
07-09-2007
LM Services and Scorpion Jammer Technology, Thornton, CO
CITATION
04-24-2007
Trimble Navigation, Limited
ORDER & CONSENT DECREE
04-24-2007
AboCom Systems, Inc., Hsinchu City, Taiwan
M.O.&O.
04-20-2007
Vitec Group Communications Limited, Cambridge, UK
M.O.&O.
04-20-2007
North Star Electronics, dba TheElectronicCompany.com, Elk Grove Village, Illinois
CITATION
04-20-2007
Focus Camera, Inc., Brooklyn, New York
CITATION
04-20-2007
Fadfusion, Affton, Missouri
CITATION
04-20-2007
DSMiller.com, Traverse City, Michigan
CITATION
04-19-2007
Tower Products, Inc., Saugerties, NY
CITATION
04-19-2007
Dealznet.com, Brooklyn, NY
CITATION
04-19-2007
Cybergiftcenter.com, Inc., Duluth, GA
CITATION
04-19-2007
CompSource, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio
CITATION
04-19-2007
Chumbo Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota
CITATION
04-12-2007
Buy.com, Aliso Viejo, California
CITATION
04-12-2007
Audio Discounters, Lewis Center, Ohio
CITATION
04-12-2007
Audio Direct, Tucson, Arizona
CITATION
04-12-2007
Ambient Weather, Tempe, Arizona
CITATION
04-02-2007
Hawking Technologies, Inc., Irvine, California
NAL
03-30-2007
Ramko Distributors, Inc., Toledo, Ohio
NAL
03-16-2007
Charles E. Vance III, d/b/a CB Candy Electronics, Ontario, California
FORFEITURE ORDER
03-15-2007
Richard Mann d/b/a The Antique Radio Collector, Toledo, OH
NAL
03-02-2007
Ben Metzger dba 1 Stop Communications, Titusville, Florida
FORFEITURE ORDER
03-01-2007
Communications Specialists, Inc., Orange, CA
ORDER & CONSENT DECREE
02-02-2007
Jason Kaltenbach d/b/a Metamerchant, Laguna Nigel, California
FORFEITURE ORDER
01-31-2007
Rocky Mountain Radar, El Paso, TX
NAL
01-31-2007
The Twister Group, Inc., Buffalo Grove, Illinois
CITATION
01-31-2007
Radarjammers.com, Rolla, Missouri
CITATION
01-31-2007
Hoeffener International, Webster Groves, MO
CITATION
01-31-2007
Hilton, AG, LTD, Radar Detectors Direct, Arlington, Texas
CITATION
01-31-2007
Global Trade Group, Inc., Rogue River, Oregon
CITATION
01-31-2007
Electronic Retail Solutions, Inc., Greensboro, North Carolina
CITATION
01-31-2007
DreamBox USA, Williamsville, NY
CITATION
01-31-2007
Best Radar Detectors, Jackson, New Jersey
CITATION
01-31-2007
Auto-Radar-Detectors.com, San Antonio, Texas
Rocky Mountain Radar Ordered to Pay Up in 30 Days
On August 14th The Federal Communication Commission issued a Forfeiture Order against Michael Churchman and Rocky Mountain Radar in the amount of $25,000.00 for repeated violations of section 302(b) in the manufacture/marketing of illegal radar jamming devices.
The order states that RMR and Mr. Churchman must make payment within 30 days or the matter will be forwarded to the United States Department of Justice for collection.
In visiting RMR’s website today, I found it interesting that they are now “featuring” their new K.A.T. (Kick Ass Technologies) radar detectors over their own RMR line and then knocking down price of their RMR-C450 by $100.00.
Also when visiting many of RMR dealer websites today that have previously been cited by the FCC, I found that many have either removed RMR’s products or have completely shut down.
Seems that the days of Churchman’s snake oil are numbered…..
RadarJammers Taken Down
Faced with fines of $11,000.00 per day of continued sales of the Rocky Mountain radar jamming products, President Allen Kent of Rolla Missouri has decided to take down his popular radar jammer website.
Last month, RadarJammers.com website had posted on their home page that the FCC was attempting to shut them down and that I, (Radar Roy) and my “cronies” had written letters to senators and congressmen saying how their units were a scam and that they didn’t work.
This first website to be shut down is significant, as it has had the number one listing in Google for the term “radar jammers” for several years.
There are several other websites that were found in violation in the FCC order, and their websites are still up and running. But repeated phone calls and emails to these companies remain unanswered.
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