Thursday, October 26, 2006

The Glastonbury Police in Connecticut have donated one of the earliest police traffic radars built to The "National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Museum" scheduled to open in 2009. The radar was first used by Glastonbury police in 1948 and operated in the microwave S band at 2.445 GHz. The S band radars became obsolete in the mid 1960's when smaller X band radars were introduced.

Fortunately over the years Police Captain David Caron saved the old S band police radar from disposal on 2 occasions, recognizing the radar's historical value. Kudos to Captain Caron!

I wonder if the radar still works? Back in those days many capacitors were oiled filled and tended to leak over time. Also in those days electronics used relatively unreliable vacuum tubes instead of the much more reliable (and smaller and lower power) transistors (invented in 1948 but not common until the 1970's). Modern Radar Guns are much smaller, use much less power and are more accurate and reliable (not a single oil filled capacitor).

Also note 1948 was the year for the first real mass production of commercial (VHF -- channels 2 through 13) broadcast televisions sets. There was (is) no TV channel 1 because the frequency was found (too late to change the channel arrangement) to interfere with airport communications.

CopRadar