I rarely contribute to threads that prevent someone from receiving a High Performance Award. When I was a kid, these awards were granted by LEO's who asked for our signature as they presented the awards (press hard so I can get 3 copies), but nowadays, these kids get fancy thermal printed paper awards and you don't feel special anymore because they never want your signature. Computers are taking over the world.
I run a radar/laser detector, laser jammer, and photo jammer setup on every vehicle I own, motorcycle and car. Sure, I like to have that extra protection if I'm out on a back road and feel like some spirited riding/driving, but it's also nice too when you're traveling and perhaps don't realize you're going 10mph over the posted speed limit.
I guess I'll throw in my two cents...
Radar and laser detectors are legal in the United States, except for the state of Virginia and any military base. The only time they are completely illegal is if you're in a commercial vehicle with a gross weight of more than 10,000 pounds (meaning the big 18-wheel truckers). People still use them because some radar detectors have VG2, which prevents Radar Detector Detectors from recognizing that you have a radar detector.
Laser Jammers are legal in the United States, except in about 4 or 5 states, most notably California, Colorado, and Virginia. People still use them because if used properly, they can be very hard to detect.
In the US, radar is governed by the FCC, which makes radar jamming hardware illegal. However, even if radar jamming hardware was legal, it wouldn't make a difference because the hardware would require the capability of being a passive radar jammer, meaning it would need to hop and back and forth on to the different radar frequencies, and that's not feasible. Avoid radar jammers.
In the US, laser is governed by the FDA, which makes laser jamming hardware legal. Unlike the requirement for radar jamming to be passive, laser jammers are active, effectively sending a chirp back to the laser gun. On a vehicle (motorcycles and cars) there are only a few places an LEO can user a laser gun - the back of your headlights (most common), the front license plate (if you have one), the rear license plate (uncommon since laser usually comes from the front), and the brake rotors (very uncommon since no one uses a laser gun towards the side of a vehicle).
While laser jamming is legal, not every LEO is aware of this. An informed LEO who is aware of the laser jammers could issue you a citation for impeding upon their ability as an officer to serve and protect the community.
LEO's can use radar guns while driving/moving. There isn't much protection for when they are driving along and the pop on/off their radar gun. Laser guns require line of sight, so the LEO is in a fixed position. When using a laser jammer, it's important to have an accessible on/off switch because once you realize the laser jammer is working, you should decrease your rate of speed to the posted speed limit, and then turn off the laser jammer to allow the LEO to get a good reading on their laser gun.
Photo jamming is illegal, but doesn't deter people from using them because they are not enforced by most LEO's. A photo jammer is a license plate cover that effectively makes it difficult or impossible to read partial/full license plates. The challenge is finding a good enough license plate cover that can be read easily from the rear of the car and offers adequate photo jamming protection for the intended application. There are much better solutions for motorcycles because you have more options on where to mount your rear license plate as well as the angle of the plate. Cars are much more challenging because you need to make sure when you're not doing anything wrong, driving along the road, that an LEO can drive by you and still read your license plate safely since they type/scan the plates in as they are patrolling the highways.
Photo jamming is great for red light cameras because sometimes you're stuck in an intersection waiting to get through, and you're the only vehicle to make it through a busy intersection and your photo is snapped. Because all photo tickets do not go on your driving record, you cannot appeal them (unless you sold the vehicle and have proof of Bill of Sale by date).
Photo jamming also works for road tolls cameras. Road tolls usually have a fast pay option that you just drive through, but if you don't have the required payment hardware for that state's system, a picture of the front and rear of the vehicle is taken. Photo jammers are dependent of the location and angle of these cameras. Rate of speed usually assists the photo jammer into being significantly more effective.
Unfortunately, there isn't much protection for aircraft patrols, who time you with stopwatches in the sky. On rare occasions, you can look up and see the plane and then eventually, you'll see the police trap up ahead waiting to hear back from the airplane. Aircraft tickets are the easiest tickets to beat in court because they rely too much on human error, someone in the sky looking down at painted markers on the road, hitting a stopwatch with his hand, meaning too much room for human error.
Even more unfortunate, there is zero protection for LEO's waiting at toll booths, because they have the time you checked in at one toll booth and the time you checked in at the next tollbooth. The best thing you can do is, if you see LEO's at an upcoming toll booth and you recognize your rate of speed between back to back toll booths was too excessive, to pull over to the side of the road before you cross through that toll booth. An LEO cannot issue a citation unless they have a time stamp through that second toll booth.
Driver notification and use is very important too. When it comes to alerts, the human brain reacts quicker to audible alerts versus visual alerts. On the motorcycle, I am not a fan of the wireless HARD system that alerts in your helmet because there is too much of a delay from the time of the alert in the detector to the time you recognize it in your helmet. Plus I want to make sure my vision is focused on the road ahead. A radar detector with a headphone jack allows a direct audio alert into your ear/helmet that is instantaneous. Plus it prevents the worry about a battery being weak/dead while riding a motorcycle.
On the motorcycle, I run the following:
- Escort 8500 X50 - For radar/laser detection plus VG2
- Blinder M20 - For laser jammer (don't need the M40 unless you're in a car)
- TechMount Stemstand - To attach the radar detector to the triple tree
- Waterproof Cover - Hard plastic mold injection water proof cover for radar detector
- Industrial Strength Velcro - To attack the radar detector and/or waterproof cover to the Stemstand
- Direct Wire Kit - For hard wiring the radar detector to the battery
- Wraparound hard earbud - Wraparound prevents the inside earbuds from falling out of your ears when you're wearing a helmet
- Rear License Plate Photo Jammer - Photo jams the rear license plate
The Blinder M20 uses 2 units (motorcycle), and the M40 uses 4 units (car). It provides coverage of 18-inch radius. While designed for one front and one rear, depending on location and the motorcycle, I run both wide and in the front, one for each headlight.
The Blinder Laser Jammer is waterproof. Remove the stickers on the rear and then there is no model name, number, description on them and they look like generic black boxes.
On the car, I run the Escort Passport 9500ci, which is a fully integrated, all in one solution, for radar/laser detection plus VG2 and laser jamming. The system also has GPS for speed traps and photo cameras. My preference would have been to use Escort for the detection and the Blinder for the laser jamming, but then you're dealing with two systems which can be a pain. This all in one solution by Escort provides everything in one hardware package and one alert/control center in the vehicle's cabin. It does require professional installation, whereas I can do everything on the motorcycle myself.
The Blinder M20/M40 is the absolute best when it comes to laser jamming, proving "weapons grade laser jamming technology" effectively working on 100% of all laser guns out there. The Escort Laser Jammer system works on 96% of all laser guns, meaning it won't work with the Atlanta Series of Laser Guns (which I haven't seen anywhere on the West Coast).
And don't disable the X-Band. There are some county LEO's in the backroads of Oregon who still use it!
That's my two cents.
