Have you ever had the unpleasant experience of being pulled over by a policeman despite owning a functioning radar detector? If this has happened to you then you are probably already know that todays radar detectors do not live up to their promises. One of the primary reasons that todays radar detectors fail is because of the new radar gun technology that the police have happily begun using.
The latest models of radar guns use digital signal processing or DSP for short. These radar guns with their cutting edge technology are incredibly fast. Policemen keep them on standby and when a car comes into range, it is possible to lock on to the car and measure its speed, all in less than one tenth of a second!
Coupled with this new speed is a lower power footprint that previous detectors. Modern radar guns use Ka band frequency, which uses a very high bandwidth, which is more than fifty times higher than previous, X band radar guns. This means that detectors have a much harder time finding the signal from radar guns.
Now, detection signals can work anywhere in the spectrum available, and a radar detector isn’t sure which will come at it. So it has to scan the entire length of possibilities, which takes time and reduces detection range, which means that they become less effective.
The new radar guns do not necessarily monitor the speed of just one car at a time. They can be programmed to pick out the fastest moving car from all the cars in their range, and measure its speed. This means that you can no longer use the ploy of getting behind a large vehicle to escape the radar gun. The radar gun will pick you out of all the cars within its range.
There is more bad news for you if you always tend to drive fast. As the old X band radar guns go out of use and are replaced by the latest model radar guns, the radar detectors will become less and less effective.
So, now you will have to do some homework and check out the ratings available that treat radar detectors. Depending on your particular situation you may want to look for a detector that is rated highly for hi way driving. Or if you do most of your commuting in the city, then you may want a detector that has a well designed filter that will cut down on false alarms but not greatly lose range of detection.
Ultimately you must realize that your choice of detector now will have to be updated as the radar guns technology is improved. You will also have to realize that no matter how great the radar detector is, it is simply not fool proof.
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