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You
still have the right to know when you're under radar surveillance
almost everywhere in the US. The exceptions are Virginia,
which bans detector use, and nearby Washington, D.C., which
bans possession. Canada is much less friendly toward civil
liberties. Detectors are banned everywhere except British
Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
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The
real question is, can V1 be found by an instrument called
a "radar-detector detector?"
Good radar detectors, like good AM/FM
radios, are super-heterodyne receivers, and they all share
a common trait. They receive, but they also transmit a
signal; it's called "local oscillator emissions."
This transmitted signal can be found by another radio
if it's tuned to the right frequency. A radar-detector
detector is merely a radio tuned to the right frequency
range for most detectors.
VG2
is the most famous of the radar-detector detectors.
A
little history: Escort was the first X-K super-heterodyne
detector. Jim Jaeger and I invented it, working out of
his basement in the mid-seventies. Since then, other detector
makers have taken the easy way and copied Escort's frequency
scheme, which means they have the same L-O frequency.
So VG2 knows right where to tune for them.
The
one detector that's apart from the pack is V1. I didn't
copy myself. So VG2 misses Valentine One. In our tests,
Valentine One is better than all others for VG2-proofing.
Our best competitors are pretty good, maybe good enough.
Some others resort to a dubious strategy; they switch
off their radar protection when they sense VG2 nearby.
Recently,
we've been hearing of another radar-detector detector,
the Spectre RDD. Used first in Canada, enforcers of detector
bans in Virginia and Washington, DC, and the nationwide
ban in heavy trucks, surely have this tool on their must-have
list. It claims to have been designed specifically "to
detect the latest state of the art stealth-type radar
warning receivers." Does it find V1? Very likely,
according to reports we've been hearing from a few V1
users. One participant in an internet chat room, who claimed
to be a Canadian enforcer, said "I've snagged a Valentine
1 already." We've been unable to acquire a Spectre
RDD for testing. Until we can do so, be advised that no
super-heterodyne receiver is perfectly undetectable, and
that includes V1.
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No.
Radar jammers are illegal in the U.S. For more information,
check the Federal Communications Commission… http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Compliance/Orders/1997/fcc97404.txt
Laser jammers are an intriguing idea from
a technical standpoint, but we don’t make them either.
Radar and laser detectors are completely passive; they’re
merely receivers of signals already in the air. Jammers,
on the other hand, cross over the line into electronic
combat. We won’t go there.
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