The guides, reviews, manuals, and How-To's sites will be added sometime in early March 2007.
The DL on Radar Detectors
Do they work? Yes! Radar detectors are completely legal to use in non-commercial vehicles in 49 states. Only Virginia and Washington D.C. currently ban radar detector use in the United States.
Radar detectors are illegal to use in commercial vehicles over 10,000 lbs. and in most Canadian provinces.
Understanding Radar
Radar is very easy to understand if we use a flashlight example. Think of a guard performing his security check at night. From hundreds and hundreds of yards away we are able to see his progress as he searches back and forth in the dark - yet, the guard can't see us. In fact, the guard can turn the flashlight directly at us and still never see us! Why? Because in order for us to become visible to the guard, there must be sufficient light reflected off of our clothing and returned to his eyes before he can see us. Notice - we can always see the flashlight even though the guard can't see us. That's because we need only a small amount of light from the flashlight to see it in the dark. We have the advantage.
A good radar detector works the same way. From far away and from any direction, a good radar detector can detect the energy from a radar gun, (like the light from the guards flashlight) - but the radar gun will never see us until it is much closer and is aimed directly at us. Again, just like we are able to see a guard's flashlight from a great distance even though he can't see us, a good radar detector has the advantage - we can see the radar gun from any direction and from much farther away before the officer ever sees us.
Radar Note:
There are over 100,000 radar guns in use in the United States. Used every day, across multiple shifts in multiple vehicles, there are potentially 100 million radar traps in the United States every year.
Radar guns operate on three bands: X band (10.525 GHz), K band (24.150 GHz) and Ka band (33.4 - 36.0 GHz). X band is becoming obsolete and almost all radar guns manufactured today operate on the newer K and Ka bands - a good radar detector must be capable of receiving these newer technologies.
Understanding Laser
Laser guns rely on a very narrow beam of light, (or small pulses of light) to target vehicles. This beam of light is fired at a vehicle at the speed of light. Once the light hits the target, the light bounces (reflects) off the object and back to the laser gun. As the reflected light pulses are received by the laser gun, it can calculate a vehicles speed based on the amount time it takes for the light pulses to come back to the gun. Multiple pulses are sent in less than a second.
While the officer is firing the laser gun, the light bounces off of the target vehicle, and other objects around it. A good laser detector can easily see the laser source, and the reflected light signals that bounce off other objects. That's because the laser beam is scattered into thousands of sharp, bright, piercing beams of pencil light streaking out in thousands of directions when it hits any object in its path, including any part of any car. Usually, when a group of cars is targeted, a good laser detector will alert to the threat.
Laser Note:
There are approximately 35,000 laser guns in use today.
Unlike radar, laser must be used from a stationary position. For this reason, laser is increasingly being used by police near highway overpasses and from interstate medians - ESCORT radar detectors can readily 'see' this aggressive threat.
Laser guns are affected by rain, fog and in most cases cannot be used through the glass.
Absolutely! ESCORT radar and laser detectors are sophisticated receivers designed to detect the presence of radar and laser energy at great range.
ESCORT detectors, like the flashlight example above, can receive the signal well before the transmitted signal can bounce off its object and return to the transmitter. (One exception to this is if the officer is using a method called "instant on." In this case, the officer waits until a vehicle is within its range, and then turns on the transmitter. Under this scenario, a good detector will warn you ahead of time since it is sensitive enough to detect this burst of signal when the officer targets the vehicles in front of you).
Yes, ESCORT radar detectors really work. And, we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can test it yourself.
There are a total of four traffic monitoring bands in use in the United States - three radar bands and one laser (infrared light) band.
Radar bands are governed by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and include:
Actual Frequencies:
X band (10.525 GHz)
K band (24.150 GHz)
Ka band (33.4 - 36.0 GHz)
Laser is governed by the FDA (Food & Drug Administration).
Laser is infrared light (332 THz, 904 nm).
Description provided by escortradar.com