Radar detectors

[NickB]

Hello all

My first post on the new RS246 - good idea as a successor to rs4.org, thanks to those involved.

I'm taking the machine over to France soon and have been used to speeding quite happily down the auto-routes. However a French friend tells me that after a bad motorway accident a few months ago where a number of French traffic cops were wiped out they have rather clamped down on speeding and do a lot more speed traps than they used too.

So can anyone recommend a good speed trap detector that will sniff out le radar francais?

[JJRS4]

If they get even a wiff of a detector - even if its in your suitcase not being used, it's gaol for you. Don't even think about taking one to France.

Your French friend will confirm.

[NigelJ]

JJRS4
Where did you get this information? It sounds a bit like the apocryphal stories of the Gendarmerie checking the time stamp on the payage
ticket and then calculating your speed - I've never come accross it in 20 years of quick continental driving.

NigelJ

[JJRS4]

About two years ago, a friend was stopped. I don't even remember if he was speeding. He had the detector in the cubbyhole. He was arrested.

Perhaps our french particpants will be able to help.

Oh and don't discount the toll timing either. But there's an easy way round that - stop for fuel and a bun half way along.

[JohnH]

I have a friend who had his in the glove box and they confiscated it and he got a fine but no prison sentence

[ianw]

I have done a few trips using the autoroutes over the last three years and only once did I come across the toll timing, a gendarme at each toll booth and several others hanging about, one came over to me for a chat but gave up when he realised my French is about as good as my italien [img]images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] , as JJRS4 says always make your fuel stops in a paege section.

[kiwi_mtm]

I cant comment on what is and isnt legal, but I can recommend the Valantine One. In combination with a Blinder M10 Laser Jammer, its great !

[FatBoy]

I was talking to some guys during a stop on the way back from Le Mans (shortly after having been pulled for speeding [img]images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]) They were telling me about a Dutch radar detector that can be used in France because it doesn't return an obvious "jammed" signal response. It tells the Gandarme that he moved his hand and must try again. It also apparently, shuts itself down for 15 minutes after a couple of repeated hits to show that it wasn't being used.....I think. I can't remember the name of it, but the guys were from www.pistonheads.com so it might be on their forum.
Cheers
Paul

[Joshie]

I think there is so much b*llox talked about speed traps and radars in France it reallty is unbelievable.

I lived in Paris for four years (returning late 98) and I had a weekly commute to Belgium and Holland as well as driving to Marserilles, Montpellier and Vannes. Never once in four years was I caught with the average speed technique. What does get you is the radar set up about 3 Kms from the tolls. People believe that it was average speed because they were caught at the tolls but this IMHO is not the case.
The most popular method of entrapment particularly on the A1 at Compeigne and the A6 around Baune is the radar unit with two motorbike gendarmes about 1 Km ahead of it. They escort you off to a local gendamerie and then you get an on the spot fine.

I believe radar detectors are passive (not active jammers) and therefore do not emit a signal. They are like a radio picking up radar waves and as such should not be detectable.

I use a Morpheous with a radar horn attachment and the control part can be unplugged instantaneously. It has saved me many times in France and never have I been pulled up with gendarmes tearing my car apart to find the detector.

Other common techniques are the (usually grey) Peugeot 206 parked on the hard shoulder with a flash camera in the back although this shouldn't worry UK drivers at the moment although there are EU plans to introduce reciprocal arrangements for parking and speeding in the future.

Wise driving is to get down to the speed limit a few Kms before the toll station.

I have heard reports of people being "done" for possessing a radar detector - there was a letter in EVO after last years Le Mans where one guy spent a night in the cells as he couldn't raise the £1000 on the spot fine although I think the circumstances were that the detector was on view on his dashboard.

[JohnW]

As you say, detectors simply detect, and have no active transmission equipment.

The jammers talked about above were mentioned recently, and I think I picked the link up from this site, not pistonheads, but could be wrong. The one mentioned sends spurious signals back meaning the speed gun gets confused, but with this jammer the gun doesn't display the normal errors associated with other jammers.
Jammers are illegal in the UK too btw.

I know what you mean about the pre-toll speed traps too.
Seen them twice while returning back to Calais. One of the guys in our group got caught by this method - 90 euro fine for 90mph.

The cameras in the back of the cars are getting more popular too, and it is worth noting that they are normally forward facing so take a pic of the front of your car (which is handy if you are on a bike [img]images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] )

Cheers,
John.

[jeffw]

The Jamming of Doppler radar is actually not very easy to do with commercial equipment as it would need to be quite high power and in the same frequency band as the orginating signal. A suitable set-up would be significantly bigger than the current equipment sold and would require it's own Radar transmitter !!!!!!!!!!

It is much more likely that these Dutch guys where talking about jamming Laser not Radar.

[JohnW]

You may be right Jeff.

However they don't actually swamp the radar signals anyway. The radar 'chirp' sent out is coded, and the jamers send out a similarly coded chirp, which confuses the radar gun.
The signal strength only needs to be of similar strength to the reflected part, so the same strength or less as the coppers radar gun...

The laser ones do a similar thing too.

I'm pretty sure you are right though in that the info I read talked about the operator aiming at the front number plate, and the detector/jammer only sending a burst of pulses for a second or so, then sleeping for 10 seconds or so, so that the operator thought he had just mis-aligned the gun.
For minor speeding this would be fine as you get a chance to slow down, but not from 150 or so lol

No doubt someone will unearth the link we've been talking about and it will all become clear [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Cheers,
John.

[jeffw]

John

When I use to do Military Electronic Warfare, Doppler radars where difficult to jam....maybe that has changed [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[FatBoy]

OK, after all the why's and where-for's, what is the general concensus on the best detector for UK use? Being pulled in France has highlighted just how easy it would be to lose my licence in the RS4. Many of the speed cameras are now set off by loops buried in the road (the blue ones)and as such don't emit any warning signals. Which "detector should I go for?
Cheers
Paul

[Greg_S]

alot of the more recent radars come with DS2, because police can detect if you are detecting them on your radar detector. with DS2 i think it swithces the interception off or cloaks it, something along those lines anyway.