Radar Detector?

[Mortz]

So last night on the way home from work I was pulled over by the cops for the second time in 6 months to tell me that their computers have indicated that I'm using a radar detector in my car. Now as far as I know the Leggy doesn't have a radar detector (that I know of) so would anyone have any ideas what could be going on? Keen to find out cause i'm obviously going to keep getting pulled over if my "radar detector" is baiting them. I have two little devices on my dash from when I bought the car which I always assumed were for the in car TV so i'll get a few pics of them up as well, maybe they have something to do with it?
And the copper also took one demerit point and $81 for "not dipping my high beams fast enough" when i was coming out of a corner, so that took the cake and really pissed me off. I said that I was sorry and explained it was a mistake, surely a warning would have been enough...

 

[godzilla]

Man you are having a crappy run with the people whom where the blue uniforms...
I reckon its the device that picks up the satelite or sumfin? I had a funny looking Alpine dovalacky on my dash near the windscreen but i ripped that bad boy out not long ago.

 

[bradc]

What are the devices, got a pic?

 

[matchtheclown]

Dude if they keep telling you they think you have a radar detector.

You must have SOME KIND OF RADAR DETECTOR in your car.

I would have at LEAST disconnected those two doobers on the dash after the first time.

A mate of mine got proper caught with one and got totally bent over for it hey.

 

[Mortz]

I just looked at him with puppy dog eyes and said I didn't have one, because as far as I know I don't . He looked around the cabin and didn't say anything else. Anyways I'll go snap a pic of the two little electrical things. One is labelled Pioneer and the other reads Cazzozeria and VICS.

EDIT: Angles aren't great but best I could do cause they are so close to the windscreen.

 

[Guest]

If it is true that you don't have a police radar detector in your car I would say that one of the TV receiver might be emitting a signal similar to radar detector.

That or the police receiver isn't tuned finely enough to discard your TV receiver signal as what it is.

Anyone know if there is a similarity between the radio signals used for Japanese TV and Australian Radar detectors?

 

[Guest]

Uuuuuummmmmm Vehicle Information and Communication System

I would say thats what the Police are picking up.

 

[Mortz]

I'll have to disconnect it because I reckon you're right mate.

 

[Tom]

LOL how annoying, you have a radar detector thingo in your car, but it doesnt even seem to be working and you nearly get rooted for it haha..

 

[SiliconAngel]

Yea a VICS unit is useless outside Japan anyway

 

[ygoslo]

My Galant actually came over with a proper radar detector in the boot! I still have it in my room so I hope my room doesn't get pulled over.

 

[Tom]

My Galant actually came over with a proper radar detector in the boot! I still have it in my room so I hope my room doesn't get pulled over.

Would suck if you had the cops cruising passed and their detectors got set off and they came knocking on your door lol

 

[ygoslo]

Would suck if you had the cops cruising passed and their detectors got set off and they came knocking on your door lol

I should actually run power to it and see if I can get that to happen. :bigsmile:

 

[steveP]

yeah im thinking ur device was jamming their signal and couldnt get a reading on ur speed. same as what automatic garage door openers do. seeing its constantly sending out a signal, its jams any signal trying to bounce off ur car, which is what radar guns do. just tell them it must be ur sat nav, and keep it in. may save u a speeding fine one day.

 

[SiliconAngel]

Not quite, there's no way it could 'jam' the signal from lidar or fixed-camera radar. The only way you can do that is using a sophisticated purpose-built jammer which recognises the signal from such a device and sends out a semi-garbled message back in a language the device understands. When the speed gun sees the fragmented noise it causes the device to respond with an error instead of a reading, but this can ONLY work if your jammer recognises the speed measurement device from its inbuilt library and responds with the appropriate jamming signal. Its impossible to pull such a feat off accidentally.

Police in states prohibiting the use of radar detectors use counter counter-measures called radar detector detectors. These look for signature signal 'noise' emanating from such devices and activate a warning when an appropriate signal is detected. The reason the cops thought you had a radar detector is their device saw a frequency within the range they're tuned to which set it off. Basically that means you're literally driving around with a cop magnet until you disable the VICS unit - sure, you may not actually be doing anything wrong, but why would you want to attract their attention and get pulled over unnecessarily? Once they've gone to that effort they're just gonna hassle you, and they (apparently) have the power to have your car dismantled to 'find' the detector if it's not obviously visible on cursory inspection.

 

[Mortz]

I am going to get it removed. Just need a few days so I can trace it into the dash and pull it from the source, so I can remove all the wires.

 

[steveP]

Not quite, there's no way it could 'jam' the signal from lidar or fixed-camera radar. The only way you can do that is using a sophisticated purpose-built jammer which recognises the signal from such a device and sends out a semi-garbled message back in a language the device understands. When the speed gun sees the fragmented noise it causes the device to respond with an error instead of a reading, but this can ONLY work if your jammer recognises the speed measurement device from its inbuilt library and responds with the appropriate jamming signal. Its impossible to pull such a feat off accidentally.

Police in states prohibiting the use of radar detectors use counter counter-measures called radar detector detectors. These look for signature signal 'noise' emanating from such devices and activate a warning when an appropriate signal is detected. The reason the cops thought you had a radar detector is their device saw a frequency within the range they're tuned to which set it off. Basically that means you're literally driving around with a cop magnet until you disable the VICS unit - sure, you may not actually be doing anything wrong, but why would you want to attract their attention and get pulled over unnecessarily? Once they've gone to that effort they're just gonna hassle you, and they (apparently) have the power to have your car dismantled to 'find' the detector if it's not obviously visible on cursory inspection.

nope ur wrong..

theres 2 way to detect/avoid speed camera's:

1. like u said, radar detectors which look for the radar gun's frequency. but in doing so, the device has to send out a signal. and in doing that, the police can pick up on that frequency.

2. jammers. these work like unlocking ur car. (u can try this). if u press and hold ur central locking/alarm button down, nothing else using a similar frequency will work (within range). ur friends car, roller door, electric gate, etc. basically the signal from ur device is clogging up the air waves. the usa president and other 'important' people around the world use this technology. such as, they have jammers in the cars (or helicopter above pointing a jammer at the car), so if driving past a bomb, a remote detonator cant be used to trigger it. google it, its interesting.

if u still dont believe me this works, try it with ur garage door opener, or search you tube when '5th Gear' did a segment on radar detectors and tested what worked.

 

[SiliconAngel]

I'll do some reading to check your references when I get some time so I can work out how you've come to this conclusion, but speaking scientifically radio frequency cannot alter or block laser, it simply isn't physically possible (which completely rules out lidar, ie all police hand-held speed 'guns').

As for radar and devices using radio frequency, the only way you can jam them is by saturating the particular bandwidth they utilise. Channel hopping remotes only work in a specific spectrum, so unless the device operates within that band your signal simply won't have any effect. Such devices DO exist, of course - they're the radio frequency equivalent of a white-noise generator. But I'd be willing to bet money you're not going to be able to 'accidentally' interfere with police speed measurement devices with remotes... But you WILL trip their radar detector detectors, attracting the wrong kind of attention unnecessarily.