FCC Petition to Ban Cobras?

[MEM-TEK]

Hi everyone,

This post is just halfway serious...

We all know that the FCC can ban a product if enough consumer complains pour in that a product is causing undue interference with other FCC licensed products. Heck, this is why Uniden is banned from marketing radar detectors in the US!

But wouldn't be neat if we started a petition to have the FCC ban Cobra not only from being able to sell radar detectors here in the US since their products abnormally interfere with the proper operation of virtually every other brand of radar detector, but also ban the use of any Cobra RD which doesn't have a LO frequency of 11.558?

Heck, Ka 33.8 radar was deliberately chosen since 33.8 is a harmonic of a Cobra local oscillator! Due to Cobra, this is where the STi's 33.8 bug came from -- Belscort's efforts to try to filter out Cobras! Same thing goes for Ka 35.5 radar. Ka 34.7 radar was chosen years ago since it is a harmonic of the 11.558 LO frequency used in older radar detectors which weren't immune to VG2.

Aside from the silliness of my FCC petition, everyone really should be aware of how and why the three dominant Ka frequencies were chosen by the radar gun manufacturers.

Best Regards,

--Michael

[bkrell]

They'll take my crapras when they pry them from my speeding ticket-laden hands.

[Orbital75]

:idea: Not a Bad idea at all, I'd sigh it.

There is nothing worse than your heart skipping a beat
from " Instant On " Cobra.

[MEM-TEK]

They'll take my crapras when they pry them from my speeding ticket-laden hands.

You must love the smell of the triplicate chemicals within the paper!

[pkquat]

This maybe a dumb question, but why couldn't / can't Uniden / Cobra make there detectors with some shielding or filters or something to reduce the amount of leakage? Do the top 3 have patents covering this technology? If a company was "banned" could they start making them again as long as they passed what ever regulation on the amount of leakage?

I forgot to add, you got my vote too. Though I guessed K band Cobra right about 75% of the time. Ka ones blend in to the background noise :P But I have identified a few

[thestaton]

got my vote.

[Asleeper]

got my vote.

x2

[MEM-TEK]

This maybe a dumb question, but why couldn't / can't Uniden / Cobra make there detectors with some shielding or filters or something to reduce the amount of leakage? Do the top 3 have patents covering this technology? If a company was "banned" could they start making them again as long as they passed what ever regulation on the amount of leakage?

Hi pkquat,

Actually your question is very astute! I was waiting for someone to ask this. I didn't expect someone to ask it so quickly though! Believe It Or Not:

-- Cobra holds a 1998 patent #5784021 for a Noiseless radar detector. The patent describes the use of one or more dielectric resonators to suppress stray electromagnetic radiation generated by a local oscillator within a radar detector. The dielectric resonator acts as an RF microwave absorber/attenuator if the resonant frequency of the dielectric resonator corresponds to the frequency of the interference from the local oscillator.

-- The patent essentially allows Cobra to produce, if they wanted to, a radar detector with very low local oscillator emissions.

-- Why doesn't Cobra produce radar detectors employing dielectric resonators to reduce their LO emissions? Here is my guess: I think that Cobra deliberately allows their RD emissions to be quite strong in order to present very serious headaches for all other radar detector manufacturers.

-- Cobra knows that radar gun manufacturers have deliberately chosen Ka frequencies which match the third harmonic LO emissions from Cobra radar detectors since Cobra holds the lion's share of the market. This inherently presents problems for all other radar detector manufacturers to try to filter out Cobra third harmonic Ka radar detector emissions, yet also to be able to detect true police Ka radar which operates on the same Cobra third harmonic LO frequency.

So, what is my personal conclusion? Cobra, due to its nearly complete R&D department failures to aggressively pursue new RD technologies and possible patents has deliberately opted to make sure that its products present very difficult filtering problems for all other radar detector manufacturers.

So to me, this really makes Cobra stink. Funny how their Cobra symbol also looks like the tail of a skunk!

--Michael

[pkquat]

So to me, this really makes Cobra stink. Funny how their Cobra symbol also looks like the tail of a skunk!

--Michael

lol

Another dumb question, but I would assume Cobras also have the same problem of filtering out their own interference. If so this really means they are helping the Radar Gun Industry. Hmmm Then could someone be getting a nice addition to a Swiss bank account? j/k

[MEM-TEK]

Another dumb question, but I would assume Cobras also have the same problem of filtering out their own interference. If so this really means they are helping the Radar Gun Industry. Hmmm Then could someone be getting a nice addition to a Swiss bank account? j/k

A Cobra RD, or any RD for that matter, has no issues filtering out its own local oscillator. As far as a Cobra being able to readily filter out other Cobras, especially ones with the same LO frequency, that is a question for Jimbonzzz since I have never had the opportunity to test this.

Cobra is a multi-million dollar corporation. It seems reasonable to assume that several higher up employees in management get nice bonuses for their marketing practices, and and that their engineers get bonuses for deliberately creating RD designs with emissions which present the worse possible problems for all other RD manufacturers.

Somebody here tried to tell me that the RD business is a very dirty industry. I think that I am beginning to see the light!

I can see clearly now the rain is gone...

--Michael