Radar Jamming

The real problem here (US) is that the municipalities like to enhance revenue with speed traps that might not be entirely cricket. The local cops have a much higher tendancy to be rambo-wannabes than do the state police, who *tend* to be very professional. Taking the financial incentive away from every two-bit tin-horn cop and mayor and moving it to the state tends to make the system more fair. If I'm nailed for speeding fine, but many local speed traps are just that; entrapment.

I didn't say I could *use* it off the road.

Never have had to, in any vehicle (other than ones that had traded much paint with other vehicles - none weather related).

My 4WD peekup holds on ice/snow much better in 4WD than 2WD, even brakeing. The back's just too light to keep it back there in 2WD. Of course, I see many driving like it's a fine spring day, then "ah Sh...".

OK. You're joking.

"Proto-neocon"? Tricky Dick? What _are_ you on? I don't want that mind damaging drug.

Hi Andy, So, we probably didn't meet, then. To bad. As I understand it, MFS (who I worked for) contracted with TI to create the system, and so for a while, had a partial interest in the system. My job was to take all the parts, and put them together into an integrated system.

Did you get involved the the pickup truck problem? That was where, do to the geometry of the beds of pickup trucks, the antenna beam reflected off the tailgate, bounced off the back of the cab, and would read the tag of the car BEHIND the truck when it was supposed to read the trucks tag! I know it was driving them crazy to try to fix it, and they were talking about range gating the signal to try and stop it!

Its fun to talk about this stuff, since all my NDAs are long expired, although the REALLY interesting stuff wasn't the technical issues, but all the political and management BS in the background!

Charlie

For several years, I lived in San Berdoo, but worked up in the mountains in Crestline. During the winter, I got real good at putting on the chains on my Fiesta.

One interesting morning, they had closed the road. It hadn't been a big snowfall or anything, but there had been a little freezing rain and LOTS of wind. There was this one hairpin turn around a maintanance yard, where the wind and freezing rain had laid down a beautifully polished sheet of black ice about 2" thick. The CHP would open the road for 15 minutes, close it, and then go tow all the 4WD vehicles that had crashed going around the curve, open it for 15 minutes, close it and tow, open it, close it, etc. When I was coming up, this had been going on for about 3 hours. 4WD without chains couldn't cut it, but the drivers wouldn't believe that their big babies couldn't handle it!

Although if you really want to go in snow and ice, you need a black porshe with a ski rack. Don't ask me why, but I had these guys passing me at 60 when everyone else was crawling up at 20. I kept expecting to round the corner and see a pile of black metal at the side of the road, but I never did! 8-)

Charlie

I grew up on a farm in Vermont. I used to make a tidy supplemental income in the winter pulling yuppie flatlanders out of the ditch in their shiny new 4WD's ;)

Bob

You forgot the FOURTH Category: People who advertize and sell "Radar Jammers" which are perfectly legal because they do not do anything except flash a collection of LED'S ...

keith wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzz:

In some places in the US,part of the ticket revenue is shared with the issuing authority,and part with the local gov't where the ticket was issued. Florida does this. Its an incentive to write more tickets.

budgie wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

The US does not have Federal police that enforce traffic laws. There are State and local police departments.Each has their own area of authority.

Considering that I *am* a flatlander (the flattest - from the Illinois farm country) living in NW Vermont with a shiny new 4WD that's never been close to being stuck... I've had a few FWDs here too, but they've never been stuck either. It actually takes some work to find one's way into a ditch around here.

I fully appreciate your situation. The thing is that here in Oz there are ONLY state police forces unlike your Merkin model. (I mean yes we have a federal polforce but their jurisdiction is only federal legislation)

So we get uniformity. Not that uniformity equates to perfection.

(And here in WestOz the kerbside cash registers are operated by civvies employed by the state police service.)

Same here, but they only do the serious felony stuff, like fingernail clippers.

Uniformity is not always good, but entrapment is always bad.

employed

The *worst* of all possibilities. Many municipalities have turned over traffic enforcement to privatized cameras. There is a convincing argument that these sivvies are altering the light timing to enhance their revenue, which the municipalities like too. They not only puck up more cash but can point the finger to an "independant authority". "They went that-a-way, george."

Sure, that was my origianl point. Vermont decided to change the "cut" so the state gets all but a few dimes in "court costs". As such, there is little incentive for the locals to write tickets. ...one of the good things they've done in the past decade, even if only by stupidity.

I suspect you misunderstood what I think I meant to infer ...

Nah, I realise your feds don't get into ground traffic. You have state AND local polforces. We don't have any polforce below state; their jurisdiction is whole of state.

the

ONLY

employed

In some states here the operation is contracted out to private organisations. In WestOz (you know, that place that nicked the America's Cup for a short time) the civvies are actually employees of the polforce, so there is no incentive for them to fiddle the system. In fact there is no opportunity, as all the downstream processing is done by police officers.

Having read the "Cops Manual" on deployment of portable speed cameras, it is full of safeguards for the motorist. Like: "the camera shall only be deployed on a straight and level section of road with a least 20m of straight road before the camera site". there are a number of these safeguards.

Then the catch-all: "unless otherwise directed". Bewdifull, just bewdifull.

budgie wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It gets really confusing when you call 911;they ask what city you're in(if the Caller Id does not reveal your location) and whether you need fire or police. If you are not within city limits,you get county police or fire.If you are not sure,then they have to use the address of your location to determine who gets called,and it takes longer.

I encountered this when my car window was smashed in at a restaurant. I was in county,but not actually within the city(Winter Park,FL). County cops were much slower to respond,too.

for a

the

do

reflected

trucks

were

but

Andy writes:

Yes, I worked closely with MFS for the initial proposal and thru the

development.... I didn't get involved with the pickup problem, tho "range gating" was not compatible with the system. Sounds like some "blue sky" solutions, since at a nanosecond per foot, it would be impossible to achieve the necessary bandwidth in the TIRIS system.... I never had to address that particular problem, but , offhand, I can't see an electronic solution that could have been incorporated into the working TIRIS sytem....

All manner of initial approaches were proposed by academic types before I built the first system. Antenna angle, Power level, angle of arrival, .... all things that work pretty well with missles in space but have no possibility of working when trying to triangulate vehicles in multiple lanes, going bumper to bumper at 150 mph ( the spec)..... Unless one actually goes into the field and measures the reflections, one will have one's head up one's ass when one is trying to sound knowledgeable about lane discrimination.... (grin)

I wrote an article on Automatic Vehicle Identification for Microwave Electronics ( or was it Microwave Journal... I forget) about 15 years ago. It included some antenna pattern measurements made with automated equipment for a typical toll plaza configuration, which was made at the

Raytheon Antenna Lab in Texas....... What a confusing combinations of fields and reflections !!---- the academic treatment was useless... So I proposed a system which didn't use any of the fancy angle of arrival stuff, and it worked pretty good..... T I got a few patents on it.. It is fully described in the article......

(IBM patent server ---- Assignee: Texas Instruments Inventor:Sharpe)

That was a damn fun project.

Andy Sharpe