How radar stealthy are our cars?

[teflonc]

Originally Posted by plastique999

CO is not stealth at all...
3 tickets in 3 months ....

Agreed plastique999 got pulled going into Santa Barbara the other weekend, motorcycle cop...pinged me come round a corner and down a hill. Gave me a fix it for the front plate and warned me about the dangers of driving too fast...that is probably my first and last warning. He said it was because I was his 'first catch of the day and he always threw those back unless it was too extreme to ignore'! Honestly, I don't mind being referred to as a fish

[Shades]

Guys, I just have to chime in here...... My longtime friend (who is an electronics geek/guru, designing radar multiple source tracking systems for the Washington State dept of Fish and game (he made fish trackers for dams) came up with a foolproof way to never get a ticket.

He actually tried this out last year up in Washington, on electronics systems shielding, to harden the electronics for a Navy application against EMP. He ran a bank of 80 farad capacitors (he got them from a car audio store) and ran that through a tuned AM directional coil (with an active rear reflector) It took about 20 seconds to charge up from his car alternator, then when he hit the switch, every non-shielded ic chip burned out along a 50 degree arc in front of his car..... he got in trouble as it also fried the ignition computer and stereo in another employees car that was parked off behind the test area about 200 yards.

I would really reallly realllllly love to do it, just once....... HeHeHeh..... Let the Officer get his radar or laser reading..... heck, let him even physically estimate your speed as you zoom up to him..... then give the EMP blast from inside your front bumper..... As you drive by, look at him trying to figure out why his car suddenly died........heck, he can't even call in on his radio or cell phone as they are all dead.......he's stuck there until another officer happens to drive by, or he goes out and finds somebodies phone to borrow..... and he won't in a million years think of a portable EMP generator.... and even if he does, you have time to go home, take the unit out of the front trunk, and look all sweet and innocent if ever some tech geek at the police station decides that the scifi weapon actually exists out there (big evil grin!)....

Actually, now that I think of it, somebody probably would suspect some kind of freak EMP pulse as probably every ignition computered car in front of you will suddenly coast to a stop....oops .....HeHehHeh....

Paul
94S4
85TE

[Scrumpot]

Originally Posted by habendanio

Cool to see another owner of a lotus and an 86 Fiero GT.

Hey yeah, wow... I wonder how that has happened? Funny, I've seen several posts from members who've mentioned owning Fiero's (usually in the past) at least at some time in their history. I remember when the Fiero 1st came out, and my very 1st one of 'em was brand-spanking new, right off the 1st assembly-line '84 (2M4) 4-banger.

The Fiero Flambe!

I still loved the car so much, that one day rolling by a friend's used car lot in the mid-90's I came across this one & gobbled it up. My 18yr old son now does it proud.

Anyhow, apologies for the thread drift.
Carry on.

[Flareon]

Originally Posted by Shades

then give the EMP blast from inside your front bumper.....

Did you want to fire the front bumper missiles at the cars in front when they inevitably stop too, and let loose the trunk-full of tacks to the police chase that will form behind you?

[Shades]

Naw, What I'll have is the quick rinse paint, like in Cannonball Run where the girls pull off the road and wash their car, so a quick detour into the local self-wash station, and change colors But of course, that means I'll have to pre-paint my car another color which won't look too good in a water based paint..... Hmm, perhaps white, as that would most likely still look pretty good, even up close.

(this is not hypothetical guys..... I own a company which does a lot of Hollywood effects work, and we painted several real vintage aircraft for the movie Pearl Harbor with the water based paints as we couldn't harm the museum quality planes. Then, a wash with alkaline based soapy hot water, and voila, cleaned right off without harming undercoat paint)

Paul

[TrapperJohn]

Mark me as a former Fiero owner too. Interesting to note how the Fiero designers copied the Esprit's interior. It really wan't a bad car, for what you paid. I had a V6 that was in a stock 4 cyl body. Got into a lot of good traffic light drag races with it.

Many, many moons ago, back in the late 70's as I recall, C&D magazine did a radar test to answer this very question. Reason I remember that article was they included a Europa, on the theory that it was so ultra small. It didn't do that well, and the champion was a Corvette. What it came down to was the Corvette's slanted radiator, it was bouncing radar signals upward instead of back to the gun, while the Europa's flat frame section in the front made it an easy target.

A really cool solution would be to replace the front body panels with carbon fiber. It's an effective absorber of RF energy.

[TimMullen]

Originally Posted by TrapperJohn

A really cool solution would be to replace the front body panels with carbon fiber. It's an effective absorber of RF energy.

Sorry, no. You have to use special CF that has the proper weave spacing, materials, electrical conductivity, etc. It has to be "tuned" to specific frequencies, etc. Things like the CF parts on stealth fighter and bomber cost millions of dollars for a reason.

[djacobs]

Originally Posted by Shades

Guys, I just have to chime in here...... My longtime friend (who is an electronics geek/guru, designing radar multiple source tracking systems for the Washington State dept of Fish and game (he made fish trackers for dams) came up with a foolproof way to never get a ticket.

He actually tried this out last year up in Washington, on electronics systems shielding, to harden the electronics for a Navy application against EMP. He ran a bank of 80 farad capacitors (he got them from a car audio store) and ran that through a tuned AM directional coil (with an active rear reflector) It took about 20 seconds to charge up from his car alternator, then when he hit the switch, every non-shielded ic chip burned out along a 50 degree arc in front of his car..... he got in trouble as it also fried the ignition computer and stereo in another employees car that was parked off behind the test area about 200 yards.

I would really reallly realllllly love to do it, just once....... HeHeHeh..... Let the Officer get his radar or laser reading..... heck, let him even physically estimate your speed as you zoom up to him..... then give the EMP blast from inside your front bumper..... As you drive by, look at him trying to figure out why his car suddenly died........heck, he can't even call in on his radio or cell phone as they are all dead.......he's stuck there until another officer happens to drive by, or he goes out and finds somebodies phone to borrow..... and he won't in a million years think of a portable EMP generator.... and even if he does, you have time to go home, take the unit out of the front trunk, and look all sweet and innocent if ever some tech geek at the police station decides that the scifi weapon actually exists out there (big evil grin!)....

Actually, now that I think of it, somebody probably would suspect some kind of freak EMP pulse as probably every ignition computered car in front of you will suddenly coast to a stop....oops .....HeHehHeh....

Paul
94S4
85TE

Ill have to look into that as its giving me a mischeif grin

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by Shades

Guys, I just have to chime in here...... My longtime friend (who is an electronics geek/guru, designing radar multiple source tracking systems for the Washington State dept of Fish and game (he made fish trackers for dams) came up with a foolproof way to never get a ticket.

He actually tried this out last year up in Washington, on electronics systems shielding, to harden the electronics for a Navy application against EMP. He ran a bank of 80 farad capacitors (he got them from a car audio store) and ran that through a tuned AM directional coil (with an active rear reflector) It took about 20 seconds to charge up from his car alternator, then when he hit the switch, every non-shielded ic chip burned out along a 50 degree arc in front of his car..... he got in trouble as it also fried the ignition computer and stereo in another employees car that was parked off behind the test area about 200 yards.

I would really reallly realllllly love to do it, just once....... HeHeHeh..... Let the Officer get his radar or laser reading..... heck, let him even physically estimate your speed as you zoom up to him..... then give the EMP blast from inside your front bumper..... As you drive by, look at him trying to figure out why his car suddenly died........heck, he can't even call in on his radio or cell phone as they are all dead.......he's stuck there until another officer happens to drive by, or he goes out and finds somebodies phone to borrow..... and he won't in a million years think of a portable EMP generator.... and even if he does, you have time to go home, take the unit out of the front trunk, and look all sweet and innocent if ever some tech geek at the police station decides that the scifi weapon actually exists out there (big evil grin!)....

Actually, now that I think of it, somebody probably would suspect some kind of freak EMP pulse as probably every ignition computered car in front of you will suddenly coast to a stop....oops .....HeHehHeh....

Paul
94S4
85TE

I just saw this but Im calling BS... as someone who has worked in the field I can tell you that he didnt produce a pulse with 80 farad car audio caps and he didnt disable a vehicle at 200 yards with any device smaller than a building...

the only way to get a large emp pulse in a small device is to expand the coil as you discharge into it. this id done with high explosives, effectively destroying the device as it fires. there is nothing that you can fit in a car that can create the amount of power needed to disable a vehicle from any reasonable distance...

[Shades]

I dunno....... He was working under contract for some company called Pain Electronics (I remember the name because he used to joke that working for them is a "Pain" in the a**

All I know is that he is now working at Honeywell doing stuff that he can't even talk to me about anymore... sucks......

Perhaps he "changed" or "sanitized" some aspects of the story to not get into disclosure trouble.

And, I beg to differ about the necessity of having an explosion to create a strong enough EMP pulse. When I was a kid, I grew up in Japan and it was BIG NEWS when Viktor Belenko escaped Russia in his Mig 25. In the newspapers later, and even his autobiographical book, it talked about him warning the US inspection team not to activate the radar on the ground because it was damaging to nearby electronics and in his words "could kill a rabbit out on the tarmac at a hundred yards"

Dave worked on HPM microwave transmitters as well, and I know those definitely burned out electronics at a distance. Perhaps he was working on a vehicle mounted HPM device, and got excited and started telling me the story of what happened, but then caught himself, and changed the story so he wouldn't get into trouble. I've left him a message tonight.... it'll be interesting when I talk to him if I can see if he was hiding something... I know better than to pry, but as with all good friends you know well, their reactions and what they don't say can give a lot away too!

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by Shades

I dunno....... He was working under contract for some company called Pain Electronics (I remember the name because he used to joke that working for them is a "Pain" in the a**

All I know is that he is now working at Honeywell doing stuff that he can't even talk to me about anymore... sucks......

Perhaps he "changed" or "sanitized" some aspects of the story to not get into disclosure trouble.

And, I beg to differ about the necessity of having an explosion to create a strong enough EMP pulse. When I was a kid, I grew up in Japan and it was BIG NEWS when Viktor Belenko escaped Russia in his Mig 25. In the newspapers later, and even his autobiographical book, it talked about him warning the US inspection team not to activate the radar on the ground because it was damaging to nearby electronics and in his words "could kill a rabbit out on the tarmac at a hundred yards"

Dave worked on HPM microwave transmitters as well, and I know those definitely burned out electronics at a distance. Perhaps he was working on a vehicle mounted HPM device, and got excited and started telling me the story of what happened, but then caught himself, and changed the story so he wouldn't get into trouble. I've left him a message tonight.... it'll be interesting when I talk to him if I can see if he was hiding something... I know better than to pry, but as with all good friends you know well, their reactions and what they don't say can give a lot away too!

microwaves (radar) can disrupt electronics and given enough power damage them as well but there is a distinction between microwaves and EMP which is that microwaves are coherent and at specific frequencies whereas the EMP is actually energy spread all along the spectrum and in huge amounts for a short duration. The effects are quite different: with microwaves, any electronic circuitry that has a path length equal to a multiple of the wavelength will act as an antenna and resonate which causes a charge to build up which can damage the circuitry... smaller amounts of power can have a larger effect but only when the circuits are the correct size. With EMP none of this matters; the energy of the pulse is so great that a magenetic field propogates and collapses into *any* sized circuitry. The problem with magnetic fields is that they diminish with the square of the distance traveled so the field must be very big to have any effect at a distance.

Also note that microwaves excite water molecules which is why people and animals should not every get in front of an active radar antenna (as you noted in the mig story)... EMP pulses pass through living tissue with no obvious effect on health.

There has been some work done on disabling vehicles with emp pulses though.. the only one that i have seen was a demo system meant for police.. the idea was that the officer would roll this mat that held a wire mesh grid out over the roadway. When the target car rolled over the mat they would press a button releasing a pulse that would disable the vehicle.... Or at least that was how it was supposed to work; the problem is that cars with metal bodies tend to be very good at sheilding against EMP and most ECM's are also enclosed in a metal shielded casing which made the system unreliable. The company that pitched the system had to pick specific vehicles that were easier to disable for the demonstrations.

So yes its at least doable in theory but not at all practicle.. Now if you really want to cause some trouble all you really need is to target the radar gun specifically. If you can find out what model gun the dept uses then you can build a high power transmitter that is tuned to the same frequency. The idea is to produce a high enough amplitude signal that the gun receiver will be damaged due to overvoltage. You couple the transmitter to a directional antenna like a yagi and point it back at the gun and the gun should stop functioning immediately.

[ads_green]

The apache pilots manual has massive warnings about not activating the IR supression system on the ground as it can cause massive internal injuries with no sensation of heat.

The radar on the E3 AWACS is massive and can't be activated below a certain height let alone on the ground. Quite a theory going that it could use it in self defence to interferre with missile guidance but afaik not been tested in anger.

However for a car they are very well shielded from most interferrence. Mainly because an engine bay of a car is already a very EM noisy place. High tension leads/plugs cause a large EM burst on their own and to get the same effect from any reasonable distance would require something more sci-fi.

There are a number of open government contracts in the uk for anybody who can come up with a reliable and effective way of remotely electronically stopping a single car. So far no real answers...

[ezmoney]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

So yes its at least doable in theory but not at all practicle.. Now if you really want to cause some trouble all you really need is to target the radar gun specifically. If you can find out what model gun the dept uses then you can build a high power transmitter that is tuned to the same frequency. The idea is to produce a high enough amplitude signal that the gun receiver will be damaged due to overvoltage. You couple the transmitter to a directional antenna like a yagi and point it back at the gun and the gun should stop functioning immediately.

The trouble you could cause with this action could be fines and incarceration. It is a violation of federal law (a felony) to use or possess equipment that can be used to jamm police radar. It is still legal in many states to use LIDAR jammers but nowhere is it legal to use radar jammers.

Police radars can be jammed but the penalty for doing so is much greater than the penalty for speeding. My specialty in the military was ECM (electonic counter measures) and ECCM (electronic counter counter measures).

[dstevens]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

I just saw this but Im calling BS...

I'd agree with you. There's too many meaningless buzz words - 'tuned AM directional coil' and 'active rear reflector' don't actually mean anything. If the post mentioned a magnetron, vircator, tuned waveguide, horn and marx generator, then I'd be more inclined to believe it actually happened. Also the capacitors tend to be in the kv / picofarad range, not the farad range.

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by ezmoney

The trouble you could cause with this action could be fines and incarceration. It is a violation of federal law (a felony) to use or possess equipment that can be used to jamm police radar. It is still legal in many states to use LIDAR jammers but nowhere is it legal to use radar jammers.

Police radars can be jammed but the penalty for doing so is much greater than the penalty for speeding. My specialty in the military was ECM (electonic counter measures) and ECCM (electronic counter counter measures).

Oh I agree with you except that we are talking about destroying a $5K radar gun as opposed to just jamming it so I would imagine the penalties would be far worse... of course we are just talking...

[ezmoney]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

Oh I agree with you except that we are talking about destroying a $5K radar gun as opposed to just jamming it so I would imagine the penalties would be far worse... of course we are just talking...

I suppose that would JAMM it

[Shades]

Well all,

I got ahold of Dave, and he confirmed by silence.... It was some kind of microwave device. he couldn't say anything, but he gave me a hint...He said to look up on the internet a Raytheon HPM test vehicle from about 5 years ago. Then he said "Isn't it interesting, ahem, ahem, how science progresses every year.... that's all I can say" Soo... while there are no details, it looks like there very interesting things afoot in strangeland

[jocurimasini]

very interesting thread

[TrapperJohn]

Reminds me... I spent some time at Eglin AFB. At that time, they were operating EF111's, airborne radar jammers. Some times called the sparkvark, as a nod to that aircraft's normal nickname, aardvark.

Had to evacuate the immediate area and shut down the base radars when they ran a ground test on the jammers. Within a certain (very classified) radius, the RF emissions were deadly.

As for speeding, use common sense. The majority of radar traps are set in places where you probably shouldn't be hotdogging anyway.

Originally Posted by ads_green

The apache pilots manual has massive warnings about not activating the IR supression system on the ground as it can cause massive internal injuries with no sensation of heat.

The radar on the E3 AWACS is massive and can't be activated below a certain height let alone on the ground. Quite a theory going that it could use it in self defence to interferre with missile guidance but afaik not been tested in anger.

However for a car they are very well shielded from most interferrence. Mainly because an engine bay of a car is already a very EM noisy place. High tension leads/plugs cause a large EM burst on their own and to get the same effect from any reasonable distance would require something more sci-fi.

There are a number of open government contracts in the uk for anybody who can come up with a reliable and effective way of remotely electronically stopping a single car. So far no real answers...

[TimMullen]

Originally Posted by ezmoney

The trouble you could cause with this action could be fines and incarceration. It is a violation of federal law (a felony) to use or possess equipment that can be used to jamm police radar. It is still legal in many states to use LIDAR jammers but nowhere is it legal to use radar jammers.

To be technical on this, it's not a federal law against jamming radar. It is against FCC regulations (federal law) to transmit RF signals (i.e. radar jamming) in various frequency and/or power levels without proper licensing and permits.

If you transmit a microwave signal, you are in serious violation of the FCC and it doesn't matter if you jam a radar or not. Note that the law is seldom invoked - the FCC doesn't really have people out there searching for illegal transmitters - but if you ever did get caught with on, you would be in a world of trouble.


This is also why it is not illegal to "jam" LADAR - you can flash all the light that you want and the FCC isn't concerned. Although, some states have passed their own laws making it illegal to interfere with the police's radar and ladar equipment...