Someone Has a REALLY Bad K Leak!

[swarga]

Picked up a K band signal on my V1 today that was so strong (up to 7 dots at times) I actually slowed down for it. It stayed ahead of me, however, even around a 90 degree curve. The signal strength gradually faded away as the cluster of cars ahead of me pulled away. Either this was one of you jokers playing with his toy radar gun, or somebody's cheap RD has a serious leakage problem!

Unlikely it could have been a real LEO; the CHP's radar guns are all Ka, and the cluster of vehicles that sped past me when I slowed down would have been easy pickings for any cop that might have been driving up ahead; at the very least these guys would have spotted the cop and slowed down, but none of them did.

As an aside, how the hell do you guys spot the radar detectors in other peoples' cars anyway? You all must have hawk eyes! Me, I'd need a co-pilot with gyro-stabilized binoculars to have a chance of knowing what kind of RD somebody has on their windshield.

[Stealth Stalker]

Yeah, I am sure I only see a small percentage of them out there. The ones clipped to sun visors are almost impossible to see, unless they're in a jacked up truck or something. I am usually looking for windshield mounted ones as cars pass me. People have so much crap hanging from their mirrors these days that it's often hard to tell.

I know sometimes I've blasted out some Ka and seen brake lights immediately come on from a car that had already passed me, and I had not seen their detector. That always leaves me curious as to where they had it mounted.

[djrams80]

I'll bet it was a high end Mercedes sedan with radar guided cruise control. They run at about 24.210GHz in the K band.

[Motor On]

Picked up a K band signal on my V1 today that was so strong (up to 7 dots at times) I actually slowed down for it. It stayed ahead of me, however, even around a 90 degree curve. The signal strength gradually faded away as the cluster of cars ahead of me pulled away. Either this was one of you jokers playing with his toy radar gun, or somebody's cheap RD has a serious leakage problem!

Unlikely it could have been a real LEO; the CHP's radar guns are all Ka, and the cluster of vehicles that sped past me when I slowed down would have been easy pickings for any cop that might have been driving up ahead; at the very least these guys would have spotted the cop and slowed down, but none of them did.

As an aside, how the hell do you guys spot the radar detectors in other peoples' cars anyway? You all must have hawk eyes! Me, I'd need a co-pilot with gyro-stabilized binoculars to have a chance of knowing what kind of RD somebody has on their windshield.

The K leak is interesting, I've only encoutered Ka (assumed cobra w/ one, verified Cobra with another) leaks, but I did get that Infiniti Cruise control LIDAR warning once, so the idea of a K band radar cruise control seems highly plausible. I'm still working on adjusting my brain to stop tuning out the full K blasts formt the CA traffic system, so good catch.

The ones with the RD mid windshield or just above the dash are pretty easy to spot. Here's two photos I maanged to snap within the last few weeks (2 of my 3 V1 spottings on the road, not counting car meets)






The truck is a little harder to spot from this angle, but when he was parallell you could see the V1 detecting the aircraft radar (and if you're the one I've seen post about owning a V1 and driving that same strech of road, level it out, your range will be helped greatly!)

Lot's of folks are fairly easy to spot after they pass you based on the wire silhouette right up the middle of the windshield.

[Stealth Stalker]

LOL! That's awesome! It cracks me up the things that the hobby drives some of you to do!

I'm looking forward to getting a vid cam so I can video people muting their RDs as I blast them with Ka for miles and miles. Brake light vids are good times too!

[djrams80]

LOL! That's awesome! It cracks me up the things that the hobby drives some of you to do!

I'm looking forward to getting a vid cam so I can video people muting their RDs as I blast them with Ka for miles and miles. Brake light vids are good times too!

So sad that you would get your jollies off this. If you did that to me I would follow you until I could get my hands on you.

[aradarnut]

I'll bet it was a high end Mercedes sedan with radar guided cruise control. They run at about 24.210GHz in the K band.

Can't blame the Cadillac XLR or DTS/STS, their radar cruise runs at 70+ GHz.

[Stealth Stalker]

So sad that you would get your jollies off this. If you did that to me I would follow you until I could get my hands on you.

Kalifornia weapons permits aren't honoured in Texas, so come prepared!

[djrams80]

Kalifornia weapons permits aren't honoured in Texas, so come prepared!

I don't need a weapon, but I'm sure someone that gets their jollies by blasting RD users with radar does.

[MEM-TEK]

Can't blame the Cadillac XLR or DTS/STS, their radar cruise runs at 70+ GHz.

That is a high enough frequency to possibly cause laser falses on some radar detectors. Why? The wavelength is so short that it can slip through parts of the RF shielding which surrounds the radar detector's laser detection circuitry.