9500i In SpecDisplay Frequency Findings

[Esoterica]

This is a continuation of a subject that started getting off topic in another post. It's in response to KaPro...

Esoterica, doesn't the Nevada Highway Patrol use MPH radar units? I thought I saw a thread where they have quite a few of these Ka band radars that are PoP capable. Try the 9500 in tech mode and see if you get any 33.8xx hits. This would explain the PoP hits you are getting.

Ok, day one of my testing, and while I took no POP hits today I did have an interesting finding, or at least something that shocked me when I witnessed it. It was a short drive day for me, so I didn't get a lot of hits, but still close to my 3 a day average.

So I start to pull on to a freeway ramp I use almost every day, it's an uphill climb straight (not curved) onto the freeway. Since the freeway is elevated above you can't see the cars traveling on it till your all the way up and into the cut over lane.

Odd thing I noticed right off was as soon as I started on the ramp up I took a K hit at 24.150 gigahertz. What was odd about this was I've never had a false there before, and I've never seen police any where around here using X or K band (I'm about to just turn both bands off). I assumed it must be a false and progressed onto the freeway.

As soon as I got to the top of the ramp and into the cut over lane I got hit with a Ka alert quickly ramping up. It was a Ka band CO that I then seen behind me in my drivers side mirror as I was looking to cut into the freeway. I could see a white, lights on top police car setting in the median between the lanes of the divided highway. He was sideways across the median pointing to my side of the Interstate so I guess he could see cars both coming and going and be able to pounce on traffic heading in my direction.

He was hitting me (or my direction) with CO Ka at 33.778 gigahertz. Several things were odd to me about this right off though. One, I've never seen NHP set perpendicular to traffic in the median like this before, usually they do this facing in the direction of traffic flow. I've also never seen a solid white with lights on top NHP cruiser before, they are always solid dark blue. Shrugged it off and progressed onto the Interstate about another 2000 feet maybe, detector had gone silent, then I got hit with a Ka alert again. I looked back at the cop still barely visible now in my rear view mirror and thought wow, that's odd, he's really shooting at a very long range. Considerably farther than any I've ever noticed before attempting to do.

Just as I looked back up to the road in front of me I seen what was happening. There was as a second white lights on top and lights on police vehicle ahead of me with someone from the on coming traffic side pulled over.

I was picking this one up on a slightly different frequency of 35.723 gigahertz.

Ok, so far nothing weird about any of this, or worth reporting, other than the odd K alert I initially took during all of this and still consider it to of been a false, but can't confirm or deny that conclusively.

However, here's something I've never seen before and didn't even think was possible or legal...

As I passed that second white police vehicle who had someone pulled over already and Ka CO running still I noticed it said "POLICE" in huge letters on the side of his car. NHP do not have "police anywhere on their vehicles, they either say Department of Public Safety, or Nevada Highway Patrol. These were city cops, shooting radar and setting up a speed trap on the limited access 4 lane divided Federal Interstate, I 80!

How can they do that? It's always been my understanding that city police have no jurisdiction on Federal Interstates like this or even state freeways for that matter. This is a city police force who operate like a Gestapo, so seeing them step out of their bounds never surprises me. I've seen them with cars pulled over at the top of the freeway ramps where they must have targeted a person getting onto the freeway, but I've never seen them actively setting in speed traps on the Federal Interstate before. There's no way the one had followed someone onto the freeway, he had them pulled over just where the Interstate enters the city limits, there are no on ramps yet from the city at that point. The other was clearly setting in the median shooting CO Ka radar at everyone looking for speeders.

I have heard that California Highway Patrol are authorized to patrol city streets in California and regularly do, something you typically don't see any state highway patrol anywhere else doing, but this was the opposite of that, and in Sparks, Nevada, not California. This was 2 city police running a speed trap on the limited access, 4 lane, divided, federally run Interstate. How could they be doing that, did some federal law change overnight while I was sleeping?

Also, in another post, someone else had stated that with SpecDisplay on it still displays their locked out location frequencies, but just doesn't sound the alert. I found that to be a false statement. Nothing changed or displayed on my detector as I passed through my locked out areas other than the spinning satellite icon, it never shows what the locked out frequency is. I'm liking this SpecDisplay, I'm finding it very interesting and informative to see what actual frequencies they are operating at. Prior to this it's like having your car radio on and hearing it, but never being able to tell what channel your tuned into.

Any how, these were my initial findings today:

K band @ 24.150 gigahertz (possible false)
Ka band @ 33.778 gigahertz (confirmed CO police radar)
Ka band @ 35.723 gigahertz (confirmed CO police radar)

[KaPro]

Ahaa.. Now you know the story. 1st hit, normal K band. Kustom signals or Decatur. 2nd hit MPH, most likely PoP capable, 3rd probably Kustom signals or Decatur. This only leaves 50% of the original question unanswered. You need a PoP alert while in spec mode and hope he then instant on's you so you get the spec reading. Just don't get nailed for speeding! Good work!

[Esoterica]

I don't get POP alerts every day like I do with CO and IO Ka, so it could be a few days maybe even a week before I see one again, this also is going to depend on the weather, like I said in the other post, the area I tend to see the POP alerts with active police in the area has tire chain restrictions on the mountain pass right now so I avoid that area completely at these times.

Still bothers me that there were city cops running a speed trap on the Interstate, makes me want to write my Congressman and complain or something about this. That city police force just progressively keeps stepping out of their legal boundaries trying to test the limits of what they can get away with. They are also well known for just stopping people who are walking down the street and for no reason demanding to see their ID so they can run them for warrants, which is also illegal. I've also seen them patrolling private parking lots checking vehicle registrations of cars parking that back in, they park the police car, get out, walk around the back of the vehicle, then call in on their radios to do a check.

I'll report back a POP finding though as soon as I can get one, doubt I'll get a ticket from one though, the area I tend to see these alerts instead of the normal IO Ka is usually too congested to speed in anyhow. It's normally on the freeway just as you come into town from the mountain pass and traffic tends to back up there.

[MEM-TEK]

Whether or not local police can operate electronic speed measuring devices on segments of federally funded highways within their jurisdiction is entirely dependent on local state laws -- not federal laws.

[TSi+WRX]

To update my POP experience with the 9500i:

Strange enough, I got the same protracted POP alert - false - this AM.

Again on my normal commute route, this time, the false came very close, in "beeline" distance, to the false-alert of same long-lasting duration that I first reported yesterday. Also, since it is very close to the time-of-day of my previous encounter, as well along the same route, I highly suspect that this is coming from interference from some other vehicle, one which shares my commute route in the AM.

I am still, sadly, unable to "place" this vehicle - I think I will require at least another encounter or two before I can pin this down......

Aside from this repeated falsing, I have, again, only encountered one other POP false - for which I am fairly certain that it was triggered by the proximity/anti-collision safety system on an adjacent-lane (and actively switching lane) late-model Mercedes SUV.

[KnightHawk]

Most POP alerts won't show the frequency. Why, you'll only see "POP" and is mostly from other detectors that leak nearby. To ID it from true POP and false POP will be difficult unless you have good visual of the radar unit LEO is using.

[amoney]

Ahaa.. Now you know the story. 1st hit, normal K band. Kustom signals or Decatur. 2nd hit MPH, most likely PoP capable, 3rd probably Kustom signals or Decatur. This only leaves 50% of the original question unanswered. You need a PoP alert while in spec mode and hope he then instant on's you so you get the spec reading. Just don't get nailed for speeding! Good work!

But you still wont know, you can get choppy radar signals bouncing of your RD and the RD will interpret it incorrectly as POP... so even if the display reads 33.8, one would have to park it infront of an officer and get hit directly, repeatedly over and over again, only alerting as POP, to have an strong argument that it could be confirmed POP use.

Just becuase the RD alerts POP and the display reads 33.8, does not accurately ID that it truly is POP.

As far as the type of speed trap setup, its pretty much fair game, no surprise there.

[KaPro]

If he gets PoPed and then instant on'd, he will get the approx. frequency of the radar. Yes, he would need to see the leo hitting him for verification.

[Esoterica]

I don't think there is any question Nevada Highway Patrol has POP capabilities, if they use it or not really doesn't matter to me and unless I were seeing annoying POP falses (which I'm not) it only makes sense to me to have it on.

Unfortuneately yet another day with many hits, but no POP alerts. Today's high count of hits brought the past days low count back into my daily average of alerts I see. Does anyone else get this many confirmed police radar hits a day or are they just out to get me?

I was unable to confirm anything around on the K band hits so they were likely falses. One now at a slightly different freq than I've so far seen...

K - 24.185

Ka - 33.812

K - 24.103
K - 24.110 (suspect same source as above since hits were seconds apart)

Ka - 33.803
Ka - 33.805 (suspect same source as above since hits were seconds apart, however, a completely different area than the Ka 33.812 source noted further above, about 1 hours drive away)

Ka - 34.657 (first one I've seen since using SpecDisplay at 34.xxx)

[CJR238]

Im going to tun POP back on to see what i get.