Shifter ZR4 – Speed of Light Protection

Over the past several months I have had the privilege of being one of the “beta testers” for Cincinnati Microwave’s new laser defense system, the Shifter ZR4 with new “Double-Pulse” protection.

Teaming up with Escort’s engineering staff and sharing our cache of laser equipment, we were able to test the ZR4 with virtually every make and model of laser gun currently in use in the USA. As a result the engineers were able to fine tune their jamming algorithms to the point where I can say that they have the most advanced LED based laser defense system on the market today.

Escort Radar also made other improvements to their new laser shifter system, such as with their new “ratchet” mounting system for the two front laser jammer heads, making the install in some applications much easier.

There were several new things I do admit that that I learned in working with Escort’s staff and in our testing that I will share.

First many users of the ZR3 that I met with in the past also mounted their rear laser jammer to the front figuring if two heads work well, three heads would be even better. In mentioning this to the engineers they related that the two front laser jammers are designed to operate at a different pulse rate than the one rear head and that because of this the front jamming effectiveness could actually decrease if all three heads were placed in the front. Not one to miss a challenge, we actually took some time to test this at our new testing facility and yes, in some situations we did notice a decrease if jamming when all three heads were all placed in the front.

We then explored using splitters on the output of each head allowing us to plug in four jammer heads to the front. At the time Escort’s engineering staff never explored the possibility of a “diehard” laser jammer enthusiast going out buying two ZR4 shifters and installing all four heads to the front in one system and they didn’t know how their hardware/software would perform in such a situation. Again not one to miss a new opportunity we did test this scenario, however for our application we did not notice any significant performance results that we could measure.

One of the most important factors I did find in our three months of testing was the importance of having the heads perfectly square and level with the vehicle. We first used the new “ratchet mounting” system that comes with the ZR4 for our tests. The install of the front heads were much easier, however we could never get the heads perfectly level as it seemed that we were always off a notch or two. Although we were within the manual’s guidelines of being level within five degrees our performance took a nosedive when tested against the deadly Stalker laser gun. Thankfully the ZR4 comes with an alternate mounting system, so we used double sided automotive mounting tape and changed out mounting systems. This allowed us to get within two to three degrees of level and dramatically increasing the performance of the laser jamming system.

This weekend we spent several hours testing the final production model of the ZR4 against my hoard of laser guns and the results were nothing short of fantastic!

The following is distance in feet that the laser gun first obtained a reading on the test vehicle (punch through distance)

* COM: Center of Mass
* DSHL: Drivers Side Headlight
* JTG: Jam to Gun

Both Escort and Beltronics will be marketing the Shifter ZR4 under the Cincinnati Microwave brand name and the jammer is compatible with the Escort and Bel Pro series line of radar detectors.

Thumbs up to the engineering staff at Escort/Beltronics to their commitment to develop what I feel is one of the most advanced laser defense system available in the USA today!  

Radar Roy’s Badge Rating
Five Stars