Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!eos!aurora!labrea!decwrl!decvax!tektronix!tekcrl!tekfdi!videovax!bill
From: bill@videovax.Tek.COM (William K. McFadden)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: radar countermeasures
Message-ID: <4870@videovax.Tek.COM>
Date: 1 Mar 88 23:59:47 GMT
References: <4596@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: bill@videovax.Tek.COM (William K. McFadden)
Organization: Tektronix Television Systems, Beaverton, Oregon
Lines: 24

In article <4596@pucc.Princeton.EDU> MJSCHMEL@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>Think about it: A little black box in your (innocuous looking) Oldsmobuick
>that would, upon receiving a threat signal from smokey, rather than just
>sit there and beep like an idiot telling you to slow down even though its
>already too late, would send back a signal to your friendly Highway
>Patrolman on his X or K or whatever that would register a perfectly
>legal double nickels on the Law's satanic little radar gun's readout.

Actually I think this has already been done.  There is (was?) a company here
in Beaverton that sold plans for a "Police Radar Jammer" that could be set
to give a fixed speed reading or a percentage of your actual speed.  A friend
of a friend once sent for the plans and showed them to me.  At the time
(~1984), the plans looked reasonable to me (i.e., it looked like this thing
would work).  I don't remember much of the theory, but the idea behind it was
to transmit a signal of such power that it was much stronger than the
reflection off your car and would thus capture the radar gun's receiver.  Once
you got to this point, you could modulate your transmission in such a way as
to cause any reading you wanted to be displayed on the radar gun.  I don't
know if this company is still in business, but if anyone is interested I could
look up their address.  BTW, I don't think the guy who ordered the plans ever
got around to actually building the thing.
-- 
Bill McFadden    Tektronix, Inc.  P.O. Box 500  MS 58-639  Beaverton, OR  97077
UUCP: ...{hplabs,uw-beaver,decvax}!tektronix!videovax!bill
GTE: (503) 627-6920         "How can I prove I am not crazy to people who are?"