You know your Radar and Laser stuff
Hey Lawman85,
U know your lasers better than most Tech guy's I've met. 20+ military experiences. So, lets shoot at each other a bit (all in fun) Doppler is a very neat thing. About 1991 we had a meeting with a well-connected weatherman from northern Alabama about what would be the best Radar for detecting weather trends. Right after a really nasty twister took apart part of Huntsville AL. Now you see Doppler style radars all over the nation, even overseas.
Enough of that, lets get back to Radar Guns. In the average car guy's life he will get a ticket or two.
There are easier ways to avoid tickets.
Like what? I drive my pony like it has a speed sensitive brake pedal. Other than that we civilians try our best to not run to many Corvettes, SS's and the like over on our way to the stables.
The times I listed for using the laser versus the laser detector are correct. The laser operates faster than the detector. I have seen it work and have seen the math. I would post it unless I knew it first hand. I've spent a few years playing with them at work and trying experiments when I teach the classes.
Your statement rings very true. I believe the overall detector and radar guns performance is due to other factors than just the speed of the pulses generated. One of my older manuals states something to the effect that, "it's not because of the speed of the radar itself or the laser or receiver themselves, but rather the associated counters and filters in the circuitry which add to the data processing speeds." I took a few classes on Lasers from a little company, General Dynam**s, nothing to do with civilian level stuff but the range finders for gun systems. I believe they are the same general principals, but with more external controls for the military applications.
The difference between all of the bands, K, Ka, X, is how many waves per sec. are sent out. The more waves per sec. the more accurate and faster the reading. The radar will only measure the beam that returns the most strength.
Your on a roll. I agree whole heartedly. Without getting to techie, there are bandwidths that fall within the spectrum commonly referred to as, K, Ka, X. It’s not my area to know each one by heart, but they are the licensed and approved b/w's. As for Lasers, and other light energy emitting systems such as charge particle beams and the like (man is this getting deep) lasers are considered the best and most accurate for the purpose of "directional focus." Making them excellent for pointing a speed-detecting device such as yours. Radar originally had a very wide dispersion pattern. I seem to remember it to be a generally conical transmission form, with a dispersion of about 3-15 degrees from point of origin.
The return signal, the one that bounces off the target and returns to the receiving antenna narrows that signal down to a very manageable, nearly pinpoint piece of the emitted wave. Therefore it is very specific in those terms. The way we loose any moving object made of a reflective material, such as a 2001 Z28 following well behind your highly motivated Stang, is for that larger more reflective object (large truck, etc) to bounce a better signal off of it. All this means that outside of certain ranges the larger object will return the signal that your Radar Gun takes as the acceptable data.
That does NOT, mean we can avoid tickets from any judgment as a law enforcement officer. A friend tried that argument in court once and the judge laughed pretty hard.
"But, your honor it was that big nasty truck that was going 110 on I-65. Not me."
Now laser works on the "time/distance" principle.
Bingo! You are the man!
You must have gotten some serious training to know that stuff. I bet you bore those students as much as I did. And, I'm not referring to that 2 day school, you actually studied. My first school was about 26 weeks long. Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. With about 3 years of Research and Development time in various settings. All because I wanted to avoid getting tickets when I was about 24!
A ? for you...Do you get false positive results from time to time with either the Radar or the Laser? Like near airfileds, or transmission towers. Like when there is no traffic or it is lightening. We used to from the Phased Array Radars and some early models of Laser Range Finders.
BTW, Lawman85. If you ever pull over a Gray '03 Cobra, please take pity on my poor soul.