Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:2322 rec.ham-radio:4073 rec.autos:7384
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cos!ssr
From: ssr@COS.COM (Dave Kucharczyk)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,rec.ham-radio,rec.autos
Subject: Re: Robocop spotted (Photo radar enforcement)
Message-ID: <1008@cos.COM>
Date: 24 Feb 88 16:31:57 GMT
References: <602@anasaz.UUCP> <9774@tekecs.TEK.COM> <8216@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <321@upvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ssr@cos.UUCP (Dave Kucharczyk)
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 31

In article <321@upvax.UUCP> stevewa@upvax.UUCP (Steve Ward) writes:
>>(...) All that a cop's radar gun will
>>do to you is heat your body tissue about .0000001 degrees.
>>                            -Greg
>
>Generally speaking, I'm sure that's true.  HOWEVER, a friend of mine owns
>a radar gun (picked up at a police auction, he's a traffic reporter for a
>radio station, so he has a good use for it) and he found out the hard way
>that they can indeed be dangerous.  He made the mistake of pointing it at
>his face when it was turned on (OK, he's not too bright :-) ), and burned
>his face pretty good from just a few seconds of exposure.  I don't know
>how quickly the power of the microwaves decreases with distance (probably
>expotential) but it seems that with the longer amount of exposure it could
>be POTENTIALLY dangerous.
>

  As far as tissue "heating" goes radar guns are not anywhere near the
right frequency for heating water (like a microwave oven) however if
the field strength is high enough you can get RF burns just like
from any other transmitter.  The field strength changes as the reciprocal
of the distance squared (1/d^2) from the source.  However microwaves have
enough penetration to get inside your skull and the effects of that
can be rather interesting (the Russian's tried shooting microwaves through
the windows at the US embassy in Moscow).  They vary from "hearing"
a constant buzz to nausea and general irratability.  There's an old
saying why Virginia state troopers act so funny sometimes (they used
to position their radar guns in the back of the car pointing forward !)...

ssr

Usual discalaimer at employers request (The opinions stated here are all mine).