During the 2007 “Guys of Lidar” test we installed four Laser Interceptor laser jammer heads on my 45 foot long Freightliner motor home. To make matters even worse, you will notice during this video that I have a chrome grill along with a chrome mirrored finish storage area just above the cab of the truck.

Side bets were placed and the odds were all stacked up against my rig and the Laser Interceptor being able to have any effect at jamming.

In the first run we were targeted with the LTI UltraLyte 125 PPS laser gun.

Then on the second run we were targeted with the Pro Laser II laser gun

Then on the third run we were targeted with the Speed Laser gun.

All runs were jam to gun!

It was only during the last run where the “Guys of Lidar” pulled out all the stops and shot my rig with all three guns at the same time!

This was the only run where they were able to clock the speed of my rig as I was less than 500 feet of their location.

As the QI45 is built on the Escort 8500 X50 platform we found the QI45’s overall performance to be equal to the performance and filtering capabilities of the 8500 and the Bel RX65.

As this was my wife’s car one concern that she expressed when I told her that I would be replacing her dash mounted Escort was to make sure that this detector didn’t have a lot of “chatter” otherwise she wouldn’t use it.

After a couple days driving with the QI45 she told me that the detector had already saved her from one ticket and that she liked the fact that the display module was mounted in a location that was easily accessible to her, so when it did alert, she could easily press the mute button.

We also installed the optional Shifter Pack, which provided us with frontal laser jamming capabilities.

The following is my video review of the QI 45 with the optional Shifter Pack:

In my final review of the QI45 radar detector I rate the unit with my highest rating, Five Badges!

If you’re in the market for a remote mounted radar detector and laser jammer that is easy to install and will not break your bank account, then the QI45 would be a top pick!

Typical installs can take me a couple hours and more complex installs can even take days. So when I heard about the Escort Radar’s claim that the typical install for the QI45 was under 45 minutes, I was a little skeptical.

QI45’s name represents Escort’s commitment to develop a radar detector that any automotive buff could install in under 45 minutes. I.e.; Quick Install 45.

During our installation we also installed Escort’s Shifter Pack during this same install.

Prior to our install we read the user manual and install manual for both units in full and laid out our plans.

We chose to us an “Add a Circuit” to the positive wiring harness so we could plug into an accessory socket in our fuse box. We chose the radio accessory as the detector would activate when we started the car and then turn off when we removed the key.

We then removed the lower portion of our Toyota’s dashboard and installed the controller module by zip tying it to a bracket under the dash.

The front of the antenna of the QI45 has laser diodes for laser detection. Therefore the front of the radar antenna should not be blocked by the grill or any other object. We chose a location in the lower drivers side grill area.

We choose the upper bumper area of our Toyota to mount the two Shifter heads. As we didn’t want to drill into the bumper or grill, we selected 3M double sided automotive tape to secure both the radar antenna and both Shifter heads.

To the rear of the QI45’s antenna, there are two jacks to plug in the Shifter heads.  This is a great feature as typically the cabling for the laser jammer s must be run through the firewall along with the radar detector cable.

Care must be taken to align the plugs to the antenna by aligning two white dots. If this is reversed you could damage your system.

A little tip; tape over the head of the RJ45 plug prior to pushing it through the firewall, this will help protect the little plastic tab on the jack.

Next we installed the display module on the lower right portion of the dashboard.

We then plugged the three RJ45 cables into the controller, screwed down our ground and turned the key.

Within moments the QI45 came to life.

We screwed on the lower portion of the dash, made last minute adjustments to the laser shifter heads and closed the hood. Total time for install, 54 minutes!

The installation of the QI45 easiest remote radar detector install that I’ve ever made and I’m certain that anyone with basic automotive repair skills can do a similar install in under an hour.

Another plus is that Las Vegas is only an hour and a half flight in my Cessna 182 from our home in Arizona. So on Tuesday, opening day, my wife and I jumped into our bird and headed out.

We lifted off at 7:30 am and with the one hour time change landed at the Henderson Executive Airport at 8:00 am. We tied down the plane, got a rental car and I was at the Las Vegas Convention Center just before the nine o’clock opening.

Blinder Laser Jammers

Outside the convention center I met with Leon Gruner and his wife Bonnie of Blinder USA. Blinder manufactures a device designed to jam police laser.
For those of you not familiar with police laser enforcement let me explain the technology.

Police laser is a very narrow beam of light that of course travels at the speed of light, it is INSTANT!

At 500 feet the beams width is only 18” and when police shoot your car with laser, they normally aim for a reflective area of your car like your front license plate or your headlights.

So if you only have a radar detector mounted on your dash, chances are that your detector will never activate unless it picks up “scatter” and if it does, it’s too late, the officer already has your speed.

I explain laser jamming this way, “Let’s say someone shoots your car with a 5 watt flashlight, you respond by shinning a 50 watt flashlight at them, your flashlight is more powerful and would over power the other flashlight if it had a receiver to calculate speed”

Earlier this year Blinder released their new laser jammers the M-27 and M-47. Modifications included using brighter LED lights and also an interface where you can download the latest software for any new laser guns.

Coyote Interactive Photo Enforcement Detector

A comment I heard at the SEMA show this year was that new photo enforcement cameras are spreading faster than the H1N1 virus, as many cities and states have found a quick way a new to generate money without increasing taxes.

Several years ago the stand alone GPS photo enforcement camera devices hit the market place and then two years ago radar detector manufactures included this technology into their radar detectors. These devices would warn you as you approached a fixed photo enforcement camera such as photo radar or red light cameras with an audible and visual alert.

The one major drawback with these devices was the mobile photo radar vans that are moved, sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis.

Trapster then emerged on the scene, building a social network of users that would notify each other via their iPhone or Blackberry of photo enforcement locations or other high enforcement locations.

Coyote is NOW coming on the scene, merging these two technologies into one device, an interactive GPS photo enforcement detector. Coyote’s system is due to launch February of 2010.

Escort Redline Radar Detector

This summer I had the opportunity to take the Redline for a 8,000 mile cross country review testing the unit against the New Jersey X band radar guns, to Sturgis South Dakota mounted on my “Stealth Hog” Harley Davidson motorcycle, and in my RV across the southwest.

The Redline was developed to take over the long range category that has been dominated by Valentine One.

During a Speed Measurement Laboratories long range test that was held this past summer the Redline outperformed every radar detector in this class.

The one thing I liked about the Redline was the units ability to sniff out the mobile Redflex Ka band mobile photo radar vans that have overtaken Arizona and a few other states.

Passport SC55 GPS Photo Enforcement Detector

Do you have a Valentine One, Escort 8500, Whistler Pro 78 or any other radar detector that you would want to integrate a GPS photo enforcement database into? If so the new Passport SC55 will allow just that.

Designed to integrate into virtually any radar detector on the market today, you simply plug the two units into each other, turning your Escort 8500 X50 into an Escort 9500i or your RX65 into a GX65.

You instantly give your detector a brain so it can now alert to these deadly photo radar and red light cameras.

Passport QI45 Remote Mounted Radar Detector

The Escort Passport QI 45 is a new remote mounted radar detector based upon the design of the Escort 8500 X50.

Unlike more complex remote mounted radar detectors, the QI45 is very simple in its design in that it only has three modules, the antenna that is mounted in the grill, the controller that is mounted under the dash and the display that mounts on the dash.

There is only one wire that you need to feed through the firewall and install can take as little as 30 to 45 minutes!

If you want to install their laser jammer; no problem, the laser heads plug into the rear of the antenna and each head could be installed in under 5 minutes.

As a motorcyclist, I thought of how simple this set up could be to set up a remote mounted radar detector and laser jammer to your motorcycle.

Rocky Mountain Radar

What would a SEMA show be without me poking a little fun at Rocky Mountain Radar?

Well after being successful at getting Michael Churchman kicked out of Best Buy I made a promise to myself that I would lay low.

When I arrived at the SEMA show I was approached by several of the other manufacture reps that Michael Churchman was present at this year’s show and that he was asking if I was going to show up.

Mike had missed the last two years at both SEMA and CES after I sat down with him at a bar at the Stratosphere three years ago and he made the comment that he didn’t care if his C-450 radar jammer worked or not and that he didn’t have the balls enough to take me up on my $50,000 challenge.

So this year I had only planned to take a quick peek at what new devices RMR was scamming the uninformed corporate buyers with and then follow-up with our online campaign to educate these potential new clients.

I noticed that the RMR booth was still missing the Plexiglas display with the police radar gun and the little car with their radar scrambler attached. This had gone missing after I approached Rual, their head engineer, a few years back with cash in hand in challenging them to my test with TV cameras from the UPN network rolling.

During their segment, they proved that Michael’s little display was misleading and potentially defrauding the public as the Plexiglas display did not allow anyone to move the scrambler more than a few inches from the feed horn of the radar gun. In other words the RMR radar jammers would not work against any police radar gun, unless the officer was literally sitting on the hood of your car, with the feed horn of the radar gun against your windshield and the detector within two to three inches from the gun.

With our economy appearing to being on track to recovery, I was pleased to see at this year’s SEMA show that the Speed Counter measurement Industry was strong and developing new products.

Flight Home

Margie and I spent the night catching “Jersey Boys” and flew out the following morning.

A cold front came beat us to our airpark with winds gusting to 25 knots, so we had to divert to Wickenburg Airport (E25) and called a friend to pick us up.

A few hours later I returned when the winds calmed down and flew our bird back to its nest here at our home:

I also discuss the the Phantom RCD active radar jammer and the Veil Stealth coating.

There have been countless times where I was contacted by a misinformed consumer who purchased what was advertised as being an Escort, Beltronics or Blinder product for half price and received a “knock off” packaged in fancy box with a fake operators manual with the manufactures name and product proudly displayed.

Then several days or months later they get pulled over for speeding because their counterfeited device didn’t alert or the product totally failed and then they call for warranty repair and find out they’ve been taken.

During this year’s CES show I scanned the outer fringes of the floor to seek out one of these manufactures and to my surprise found Tommy Chen from Rayee Technologies in China, who had an entire display booth filled to capacity with his counterfeit wares.

As I began questioning Tommy about his products he recognized the word “Radar” on my id tag and asked me if I sold radar detectors. Jokingly I replied that I used to, but I never sold “Cheap Ass Radar Detectors”. Tommy replied “Yes, we make cheap ass radar detectors”.

At this time I waved over to my partner and asked him to begin taping an interview with Tommy and asked him about his products.

As Tommy introduced his products to me in the video I glanced over into the display and to my amazement observed products clearly labeled as “Blinder” (Blinder is a registered trademark in the USA for Blinder USA who manufactures and sells laser jammers and is not affiliated with Rayee Technologies)

On another shelf I observed knock offs of Escort’s/Beltronics GPS based radar detectors such as the Escort 9500i, Escort 9500ix and the GX65. (Beltronics owns the patent for Radar Detectors equipped with internal GPS and Rayee Technologies is clearly violating this patent).

Then on another shelf I observed knock off’s of the Cheetah GPS Mirror and their new C-100 Speed Camera Alert system.

Then in my amazement in another display they had knock off’s of Rocky Mountains Phaser – C-450 scramblers (Mike Churchman would had been proud).

During my interview with Tommy and in literature he later provided from the company, the radar detectors are advertised as all being able to defeat the Spectre III radar detector detector, along with being X, K, Ka and Ku band and POP equiped.

During the second half of the video Tommy hands me an Escort 9500i/9500ix knock off and I flip it over to see the FCC type acceptance tag. With none being affixed (as required by law) I ask if his products were FCC type accepted and he related that they were.

At the closing of my interview I asked Tommy if he would be willing to send me samples of his products for testing and he related he would.

After my taped interview with Tommy I pressed for more information as where you would download the database for the GPS features, who made the database or if it was a “hack”, and if he was aware of his products infringing on trademarks and patents of US companies.

Tommy related that you had to go to their website in China to download the firmware/gps upgrades and yes that he knew that his 9500ix was infringing on Escort’s patent (however in all honesty, I cannot say that he understood a word I said, he would often say yes and repeat my question)

During this entire process I watched as other dealers/distributors who were making deals with other reps from the company making commitments for orders. Who these dealers/distributors were I have no idea, but I’m sure that you’ll be seeing these same knock off’s soon being sold on Ebay/Amazon and some of the rip off websites that target the uneducated consumer!

Buyer beware…..

Several of the speed counter measure manufactures attend this week long event to show off their new wares and to network with others in the automotive industry.

Yesterday was opening day for the 2008 event and I felt that this would be a great opportunity to interview the CEO’s and/or engineers of the various radar detector and jammer companies to discuss their various products and their commitments to the industry and customer.

I first met with John Larson, the CEO of Escort Radar Incorporated. Over the past year Escort/Beltronics  released three new GPS based radar detectors to the market, the Escort 9500ci which is high performance remote mounted radar detector and laser jammer combo; the 9500ix which is their dash mounted version; the Bel GX65 radar detector and their updated ZR4 laser defense system.

During our interview John stressed Escort’s commitment to the customer saying that they consider “the customer their boss” that they consistently seek input from the radar detector user to improve and develop new products. John revealed some of the new products that they are now working on saying they have several products in the works that will tie other automotive electronic devices into one central unit.

Next I interviewed Leon Gruner aka “Blinder Dude” the CEO from Blinder USA. Leon discussed their updated J16 version of the Blinder M-25 and M-45 laser jammer and their ability to remain strong in the speed counter measure market place for over eight years while others have failed. We also discussed our exploits during the Fireball Cross Country Rally and next year’s run from the west coast to east on Route 66.

Just prior to this year’s show, Don Norton the CEO from Cheetah USA gave me one of their new GPS based photo radar and red light camera alert units, the C100. I had an opportunity to test and review this unit in the Phoenix metro area just as the Arizona Department of Public Safety and Redflex activated sixty new speed enforcement cameras. Don and I discuss this new unit and how during a short eight mile trip it saved me from four of these new cameras and $600.00 in fines.

Cobra Electronics has also embraced GPS technology into their line of radar detectors. Tony, one of the lead engineers of Cobra introduces me to their 2009 line up. Tony who is a long time participant at the annual “Radar Detector Shoot Out” in El Paso, discusses their improvements in processing the incoming radar threats with their detectors and the free GPS update plan they offer.

Notably absent from this year’s show was both Michael Churchman, CEO of Rocky Mountain Radar and Raul Elguea their head engineer. At previous SEMA and CES (Consumer Electronics Show) I approached Raul with cash in hand and television news cameras rolling challenging Raul to demonstrate to me one of his radar jammer products in action in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center . During this interview Raul backed down saying “Our product will not work in a parking lot”.

During last year’s SEMA event Michael Churchman also was a “no show” at his company’s booth. However I did find him at a Las Vegas bar where we sat down to discuss my $50,000.00 reward that I offer to anyone that could show me a Rocky Mountain Radar jammer/scrambler that worked. When I asked why he and his company had refused to take me up on my challenge he first replied saying that my test was rigged. I reminded Michael that it wasn’t my test, that I (we) would higher off duty police officers to perform the test and if his product worked, he would receive $50,000.00. Again Michael refused to take me up on my challenge.

This video recapping Rocky Mountain Radar’s history in the radar jammer/radar detector marketplace was shot directly in front of their booth and their staff was invited to participate, but they refused.

And another name for the Mimic was also provided along with a link from a US distributor that is not only dumping these on the international market as the “LaserTek Pro 20” but also is using a product image photo that I took of the product and posted on my original review of the mimic without my permission.

I was also had a couple private postings on RadarDetector.net from users to provide the history of the Mimic, so here goes:

Six years ago Bob Gibson was fired from Blinder USA during the time the first M-5 and M-10 units were produced. Bob had the original design of these units and figured that he would go into business himself mass producing his own laser jammer.

Bob took these M-5/M-10 plans and hooked up with a subsidiary of Attowave in Korea. Attowave is the same manufacture of Rocky Mountain Radar’s C-450 and the Stealth Ninja radar jammer that I’ve discussed in previous blogs.

As Bob was having thousands of these jammers produced in the sweatshops of Korea, he started calling US distributors. When Bob called me to ask if I was interested I told him that I would only carry the product after I did my own due diligence. Bob said that he would be pleased to send me a prototype; I told Bob that I wasn’t interested in any “juiced” units that I would make a “blind” purchase from one of his dealers after they came out on the retail market.

Chris Deaderick (JTW) was one of first to test Mimic’s prototypes. Chris was an ex Rocky Mountain Radar retailer who was attempting to change his colors and become an “independent tester” of laser jammer products.

Chris gave high marks for the Mimic on his website(s) and approached the Lance, the developer of the Phantom Laser Jammer, to become partners to sell the Mimic on Lance’s website.

I warned both Lance and Chris to use caution, as I suspected that after the product went into production the quality and performance could be questionable. Lance and Chris’s first order was a 100 Mimics, five of which I purchased for my own testing.

After receiving these units, I took them with me to the annual Radar Detector Shoot out in El Paso for an independent test. We installed a pair of Mimic’s on a white sub compact and the results were dismal. The Mimic had a success rate of only 14% in jamming at distances between 500 and 1000 feet.

We published our review on RadarBusters and within a few weeks several other customers did their own reviews which mirrored ours experiences and they posted their comments on RadarDetector.net.

Needless to say Mimic sales were dead in the water. So Bob Gibson and JTW regrouped and came out with several new names of the product and tried unsuccessfully to sell the product on other websites.

It seems now that Bob Thompson, who manages a  international sales distributorship, decided to buy into their scam and rebrand the Mimic as the LaserTek Pro 20 and to sell them overseas.

I’ve done business with Bob in years past and he seemed like a very honest businessman, so I don’t suspect that he is knowingly taking part in this fiasco and when contacted he took my “HiJacked” image off their website immediatelly.
The saga continues….

I was suspicious of these claims and quickly identified the Korean manufacture and contacted his sources in the industry.

Being familiar with other laser jammers that this same Korean company was also manufacturing, such as the First Strike and the Laser Tech I knew from my previous testing that they had little or no effect in jamming police laser guns at all.

I purchased five Laser Mimics directly from a Washington State distributor that has been referred to as the “Goons” for their misleading testing and self promotion.

Two of these Laser Mimics were tested at the Speed Measurement Laboratories 2005 Radar Detector Shoot Out. A certified police officer used an LTI Ultralyte LR 200, a Kustom Pro Laser III and A Stalker LZ-1 laser gun to test this unit. The Laser Mimic performed very poorly and was only 14% effective at jamming all these guns.

As word quickly spread through the US radar detector and jammer marketplace of the Mimic’s poor performance, other dealers and distributors in the USA quickly dropped this product!

This week I was contacted by Stig who has a Norwegian blog that discussed speed countermeasure equipment and asked me if I was familiar with a new laser jammer that was being sold on European websites called the “Beamer”. From the links he provided I quickly identified the new Beamer as the old Mimic.

This morning Stig published a warning to the European marketplace on his bog: www.laservarsler.info/beamer_laserjammer.htm

Hopefully our efforts will help educate the consumer about these unscrupulous  merchants and products and put an end to these cheap and ineffective laser jammer knock offs.

Leon explained that the J15 update included newer LED’s and software that were developed specifically for the newer police laser guns used in Europe.

Leon’s test car was a white Impala with no front license plate and the jammer heads were mounted on the front bumper. Runs 1 and 2 were center of mass, run 3 was the drivers side headlamp.

During this test I did see a significant improvment with the J15 revision then with earlier revisions that I’ve tested.

Hats off to Leon and Blinder International for following through with this improvement with their system!!!