Radar resonance chamber

[Davis]

Basically, I was shooting radar in my car, and left my 8500 X50 on for kicks. About half the time, it lights off on 24.160 or something close, which is appropriate since I use a K band set. But sometimes it moves to Ka 33.8-ish freq, usually a little below. This is odd, as I don't have Ka. and, by coincidence, 33.8 is the frequency used by MPH on their Ka band sets, the same company who made my gun. I haven't been able to test this with a different RD (my backup is a bel, no spec display) or in a different car. These will probably be my next steps. I have a very general grasp of the microwave mechanics at work here, and my information is largely anecdotal at the moment. Anybody have any thoughts on what is going on here, if not just simple coincidence?

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[kpatz]

Most likely the strong signal from the gun overloaded the circuits in your RD causing it to misinterpret the band.

This won't damage the RD, but like playing a radio too loud, you get noise/distortion that you don't get otherwise, and the RD can interpret this as radar on a different frequency.

[Davis]

Sounds like a reasonable answer. I might hit up some physics majors when I get back to college and see what they have to say. When I turn on the expert display, it seems as if the detector is behaving randomly to some degree. I might try this in a different car to see if it has the same effect. It probably will.

[v1user]

Addition to kpatz's answer.

Its a bushnell right? When the batteries get really low its consistently shoots 33.1 but its a very week signal. It still worked very well on that corvette last week.

[Davis]

Addition to kpatz's answer.

Its a bushnell right? When the batteries get really low its consistently shoots 33.1 but its a very week signal. It still worked very well on that corvette last week.

Actually, no, it's an old MPH Bee Model 36. A little more output than the bushnell. :>