Do Radar Detectors Really Work?
Learning The Operation Of A Radar Detector
Law enforcement officers have been using radar to track the speed of drivers and to help maintain safe roads for many years.
However, many drivers have started using radar detectors to help them avoid costly fines for speeding violations.
Despite the popularity of radars and radar detectors, a lot of people still do not understand the science or technology behind them.
These radar guns operate by transmitting radio waves from the radar to your vehicle and then they wait for the waves to reflect back. And since radio waves move through the air at a constant speed, which is the speed of light, radars can easily compute just how far away an object is based on the amount of time it takes for the signal to return. When an object such as your car is in motion, there is a change in the frequency of these radio waves.
Radars look at this frequency change and then convert it into miles per hour which then determines the speed of its target. Additionally, radar guns use various kinds of wave bands to determine the speed of the target, including X band, K band, and Ka band. So then a radar detector lets the driver know whenever it detects the presence of radars in the area.
One of the newer technologies that law enforcement officers are using is lasers to determine the speed of a vehicle. A laser is nothing more than a concentrated beam of light. Laser radar guns measure the time it takes for infrared light to leave its origin, reach a car, bounce off and then return. These tools can determine how far away an object is by multiplying this time by the speed of light. Because this type of radar sends out many bursts of light to determine multiple distances, the system can determine how fast the car is moving by comparing these samples.
The thing is that while laser speed detectors have a much more focused beam and can detect lasers over great distances, these police laser guns are generally more difficult to evade. While modern radar detectors often include a light-sensitive panel that detects these light beams, the problem is that by the time the detector senses them, the vehicle is usually already in the sights of the beam.
While the traditional radar detector operates by alerting the driver to the presence of a radar or laser, there are now detectors on the market that also emit a jamming signal. This signal duplicates the original signal from the police radar gun and mixes it with additional radio noise, which will confuse the radar receiver, and thereby prevents the police officer from getting an accurate speed reading.
Some of these newer detectors can also jam a laser by that producing a light beam of their own. The beam prevents the receiver from recognizing any reflected light to get a clear reading on the speed of the vehicle.
So now that you understand just how these units operate, then maybe you can eliminate some speeding tickets in the future. If speeding tickets have been bothersome for you, then perhaps you would want to buy one of these units. They will pay for themselves in a short time.
By: Tommy Joe Canter
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