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I just read that the number one cause of Army aircraft accidents is snow or dust blinding helicopter pilots when they're landing. This makes sense, as anyone who has been near a helicopter or even just seen one taking off or landing on TV knows that they create an incredible amount of wind. While engineers have worked for years to minimize this danger, there's really no easy to prevent wind from kicking up dust.

These mini dust storms that envelope helicopters are especially present in Afghanistan, where there is such a large amount of sand and dust. They're known as 'degraded visual environments' in the military, and when a helicopter is coming in for a precision landing they often cause pilots to slightly lose their bearings and drift into small objects.

As there are more aerial missions every day, and many of these take place in areas that are not cleared for a helicopter to land, it can be extraordinarily difficult to land even in optimal conditions.

The Army's solution to this problem is radar! A new radar imaging system will allow pilots to see small objects on the ground such as rocks or equipment for smoother landings. This should save a lot of lives in the future.

The radar technology behind this is very similar to the imaging tech I mentioned a few months back when asteroid YU55 came so close to Earth. Basically, by sending out a single broad wave at the ground and measuring how long it takes for the wave to be reflected back, you can determine the shape of the terrain beneath you or a distant object thousands of miles from Earth like an asteroid. And all with the same basic tech found in a police radar gun.

Really interesting is the possibility that this new radar imaging technology could also have offensive capabilities. Though right now pilots avoid dust clouds, with this imaging tech they could actually try to get dust clouds to form, which would obscure an enemy combatant's ability to shoot at the pilot with any kind of accuracy. This is a very cool idea and would no doubt make helicopters even more effective in the Middle East.

I can't wait to see this new military radar tech in action! Stay tuned. I'll keep my eyes out for any video and link to it if I get the chance!

Labels: military radar tech, new technology, radar technology

I just read a really funny report that shows the stupidity of some people. In Athens, Georgia, a couple knuckleheads decided to use a rolled up magazine and pretend it was a radar gun.

Yeah. Stupid.

So they sat on the side of the road, trying to make it look like they were measuring the speed of passing cars. Then they'd drive behind the car, flash their lights, pull up beside the car and mouth, "Pull over."

Yeah. Stupid. Two for two so far.

But what could possibly go wrong in such a situation? Maybe having an off duty police officer drive by. That might put a crimp in their plans.

Oh, and that HAPPENED.

What's the score? Three for three. Wow. This is amazing.

Anyways, the two idiots pulled up next to the cop and tried to get him to pull over, but, being an intelligent individual, he got on the radio and had backup come and pull over these two idiots.

This does bring up a good safety tip though. If a non-police car tries to pull you over by flashing their lights at you, don't pull over. This could be dangerous. You never know if it's a psycho or a criminal, or perhaps just a couple idiots with a magazine pretending to have a police radar gun.

One thing that really disappoints me is that of the few different places I've read this story, no one knows what magazine they were using in place of a radar gun. Rolling Stone? Time? MAD?

Probably MAD.

Labels: funny, radar guns

I think I've made it pretty clear over time that I really like finding new uses for radar guns. From swooping to hockey I'm always interested in new ideas for radar. Well, I just found my favorite way to mess around with a sports radar gun: shovel racing.

I've honestly never heard of shovel racing before, but it's apparently taken off a bit in recent years, and it has been around for about 25 years.

Essentially, shovel racing is like sledding or bobsledding, except that instead of using a larger sled you're sitting on a shovel. There are two types of shovel racing (at least that I've discovered so far) and they are both crazy and awesome.

The traditional shovel racing is you just sitting on a basic metal shovel with the handle sticking up between your legs. You push off at the top of the hill and fly downhill. Gravity does the rest of the work.

So how fast can you go? Oh, about 70 MPH!!!!!!! I'm embedding a video I found on YouTube of this awesome activity, and you can see how it combines incredibly dangerous speeds and next to no safety equipment. Sure, they're wearing helmets, and their suits look pretty sturdy and padded, but there are no airbags or seat belts. It's just you and a metal shovel, hoping you don't splat against the wall.

How do you stop? It looks like you fall off the shovel and scrape the ground with your hands. Some guys seem pretty good at it and can even stand up, sliding a little ways downhill and looking like the coolest dudes in the world while doing it. To say the least, I am impressed.

I like how they have an action camera attached to the handle of the shovel to give a better idea of the excitement you'd experience shovel racing. If I ever go shovel racing I'm definitely putting an Epic D1 Series Action Camera on my shovel. It'll give the doctors a better idea of exactly how I wound up in the hospital.

To get a radar gun to read 70MPH they must be on pretty smooth tracks, which seems to be the case in the videos. Plus, you wouldn't want a bumpy ride, as the shovel is in pretty sensitive area.

The other type of shovel racing is called Super-Modified Shovel Racing, and it takes the basic premise to the extreme. The Super-Modified version involves racers building an entire sledding device, usually complete with a crash cage and more safety features, and capable of similarly high speeds exceeding 70MPH. These sleds have to start with a shovel, but other than that you can really build what you want. They look like boxcar racers. It's pretty cool, and I saw some insane crashes. I'd post it, but I worry that the riders didn't all survive unscathed. It is definitely a pretty extreme way to get down a hill.

Check out the video below, and see how these guys are inventing new ways to clock speed with a radar gun!

Labels: radar gun uses, radar guns

I'm going to start off by apologizing for missing this story until now. I love hockey, and the NHL just recently had their 2012 Skills Competition, with a number of great events to see who the best of the best is for individual skills in the NHL.

I wrote about the NHL Skills Competition a few months back, with a focus on the slap shot contest speeds, which was won last year by Zdeno Chara, who hit a slap shot at an incredible 105.9MPH!!!

Well, Mr. Chara has done it again, only this time he beat his own record. By nearly 3 MPH. Yep, Zdeno Chara lit up the radar gun with a slap shot at 108.8MPH. Yowza. That's insane.

I've seen MLB pitchers light up baseball radar guns with three digits speeds, but 108.8MPH is crazy. I would NOT want to be the goalie with a puck moving that fast at me.

You get to take a few shots, and your fastest slap shot is the one that's counted, and that's where this gets even crazier. Zdeno got the radar gun to read 106.2, 108.8, 106.9 and 107.0MPH. Every shot was good enough to win!

While this is really awesome, my favorite part of the NHL Skills Competition was the shootout. Specifically, it was the goal scored by Patrick Kane. He had a teammate put a Superman cape on him, and he wore glasses when taking a shot. But that's not all. The way he made the shot is destined to be remembered for years and years. You have to see it to believe it, so the video is embedded below. Enjoy!

Labels: hockey, radar guns

I apologize if anyone doesn't find this as hilarious as I do, but there's a Frenchman who is having a bit of fun with those automatic Radar photo booths. I'm not sure if he's protesting the radar cameras, or if he's just having a laugh, but I can't help but enjoy him running after people in his costume.

The guy in the radar costume is Rémi Gaillard, a French comedian and prankster. He's actually done some really cool pranks over the years, including one where he dressed up as a famous soccer player and took part in the winner's celebration after a big game. He was actually greeted by the President of France, Jacques Chirac!

Rémi is one of the most subscribed to comedians on YouTube, though he also gets in a lot of trouble. Many of his pranks have landed him in jail, including the aforementioned meeting with the President. I don't believe he's been arrested for the video below, but it's a funny commentary on these radar gun devices.

I know many people feel anger toward red light cameras, radar cameras and automatic toll booths, as they get in trouble and are caught doing something wrong, but I think most people get mad when they're caught, regardless if it's by a police officer or a computer system. Ultimately, most of us just want to get away with our minor infractions.

In the video below, Rémi wears a radar camera costume and takes photos of passing motorists, as most of them are surprised by his appearance, they slow down or stop, at which point he starts running after them. It's pretty funny. If a police radar gun ever got up and started chasing me, I'd be freaked out!

Labels: funny, radar camera, radar guns

I've written a few times about how speed limits are set. For those of you just joining the conversation, it mostly boils down to the speed that most drivers are going. Essentially, most people drive safely. It has been calculated that roughly 85% of the people on the road will drive at or below a safe driving speed, and this 85% is what engineers use to set speed limits. It isn't a complex system. They go out there with radar guns for a few days, get a bunch of readings, and voila! We have a new speed limit.

Well, in Oregon, some city officials have asked ODOT (Oregon Department of Transportation) engineers to take another look at Highway 62. While the road itself is the same as ever, there are new business and other buildings nearby that have sprung up in recent years that necessitate a new take on the speed limit. The influx of more traffic, as well as the different visual layout of the road, may cause some to slow down on the road.

This makes sense. For instance, if I'm driving out on a country road with nothing but farmland on either side I'm going to go a lot faster than if I'm driving through a school zone or if I see some kids running around their front yard playing soccer. There's a far greater chance of a kid running out into the road when I'm near a school zone than driving past a cornfield. Sure, it's possible someone could step out from between two cornstalks and into my path. But the danger of this is far less, and even if I don't consciously think about it, I slow down when there's greater danger on the road.

The thinking of the city council members who want Highway 62 looked at again is that there's more danger of accidents on the road now that more businesses are in the area, and if there's more danger, there's a good chance that people are driving slower anyways, and the limit should be lowered to stop that other % of people who drive too fast. It's the 15% who speed that necessitate speed limits.

What struck me as odd about the story is that the Mayor and a few of the council members have stated that they may not be satisfied with the ODOT engineer's findings if it doesn't go their way. This I don't like. They more or less said that if the engineers do not agree that the speed should be lowered, they'll make appeals in different ways until they win.

I applaud their fighting spirit, and it's nice to see a politician actually dig in their heels, but speed limits are set scientifically. One of the ODOT engineers pointed out that if the speed limit is set too low it have been proven SCIENTIFICALLY that this will cause more accidents. An unnatural speed limit will throw a lot of drivers off, and this causes accidents.

City council members should by all means work toward what they think is right. That's exactly what I want from an elected official. If their constituents are pressuring them and they take a stand, democracy is working. Awesome.

The problem here is that some people are stupid, and they think they know everything. Heck, sometimes they're very smart people, but they just don't happen to have knowledge of a particular experience. I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy, but I can't claim to know how to fix a car. I changed my first tire three days ago. If my radiator isn't working, I take it to a mechanic.

The ODOT engineers know their stuff. They're the mechanics of the roads. Their whole job is to make sure the roads run smoothly. They have spent their lives figuring out how to make roads safer, and though it seems counter intuitive, sometimes this means RAISING the speed limit.

Crazy, but true.

Lower speed limits may look good to voters, and it may show a politician is capable of getting things done, but we all need to be careful what we ask for. I'd like to attached a jet propulsion engine to the back of my car and rocket down the road like Batman. If I had the money I'd probably do it.

I'd also probably get into a horrible car crash going 1000 mph. If only I'd listened to the people who know what they're talking about...

Labels: oregon, police procedure, speed limits

Gather round, kids! Ol' Uncle Brian is going to tell you about yet another new Radar technology being developed. Radar has tons of uses. Clocking the speed of baseballs, cars and even asteroids. But radar also has it's limits.

One of these is that, for the most part, you need to have a line of sight visual of your intended target. A police officer can't measure your speed if there's a building between you and him. The same goes for baseballs, tennis balls and asteroids.

The reason for this is that radar works by sending out a radio wave, which bounces off a surface back to its origin. How fast the radio wave comes back as well as the change in its frequency can tell you how far away an object is, how fast it's moving, and, if you're really clever, what it looks like. Very cool stuff.

I did write a post a little while back about a radar gun that can see through walls, and while that's neat, it is only for short distances. If you're a government agency hoping to monitor the ocean, that system won't help.

So what stops radar from working on the ocean? Ships? Flying sharks?

Nope. The limit on radar, when covering an area close to the ground at long distance, is actually the curve of the Earth. At present, radar can only image out about 55 kilometers on Earth. While that may seem like a long distance, when you consider the vastness of the ocean, it's a drop in the bucket.

Canada doesn't like that. They want to be able to see WAY more than they can right now.

Their solution? High-Frequency Surface Wave Radar. Using a series of radar towers, this new radar tech broadcasts signals that follow the curve of the Earth. The Canadian government hopes to be able to get accurate readings out to 280 kilometers. That's a pretty serious improvement.

High-Frequency Surface Wave Radar has been around a couple years, and while it was tested a few years ago, the Canadian government pulled the plug on the system because it was interfering with civilian communications.

Fortunately, a few kinks in this radar system have been ironed out, and they should now be able to use the system without messing up your iPhone's signal strength.

This system will be used to stop terrorists and smugglers from entering Canada, and it can also be used to stop illegal fishing and find ships that spill oil or crash.

This is an interesting evolution in radar technology. It's not a completely different path for the tech, but it's also pretty cool and new. We have some of the best brands in Radar Guns such as Bushnell, Stalker and Decatur, and I know they're always upping their game.

Bushnell, for instance, just showed off some cool new toys at SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Not Radar-specific tech, but some really neat new items. I've been reading all about it on GearExpert.com. They're covering the show from top to bottom. If you like new tech, you should check them out!

Labels: new technology

First, I have to admit that I have never actually skied. Or at least snow skied. I'm a competent water skier, and I can wake board, but I've never strapped on skis, taken a chair lift up a mountain, and shredded some powder.

I admit this because I'm sure I'm most likely about to misuse a handful or words common to skiers, and while I'll make every effort to be accurate, there's likely to be a slip up. Feel free to let me know in the comments and I'll make the necessary corrections.

Now that I've revealed my inexperience, let me tell you about some radar gun related news for skiers.

First, and this isn't the biggest piece of news but I think it's funny, so you have to hear it: ski patrollers on some slopes have been using fake radar guns as part of their plan to slow down skiers and snowboarders.

Apparently one of the more popular things to do when skiing is schussing, which is going straight downhill as fast as possible. Ski patrollers want people to slow down for safety reasons. No doubt falling is fairly common on a ski slope, and the faster you're going the further you'll bounce around and break things (like your bones) as you travel downhill.

I don't see why they don't get a real radar gun. I wrote a couple weeks ago about State Deputies Using Radar on Snowmobiles. The Decatur Genesis Handheld Radar Gun would be a great choice for skiers and snowboarders too. It's portable, accurate and durable enough for police use. I don't think the ski patrollers have the authority to give out tickets, though they may have been given that power by the ski resort, if guests agree to it in a written form. I doubt there are ski speeding tickets, but I suppose it's possible.

On the topic of ski speed, the other bit of news I just read about is an iPhone app that allows skiers to track their speed on the slopes. Rather than being used to keep speeds down, it appears that many skiers are using the app as a tool to fuel bragging. Most skiers try to see if they can approach the same ski speeds as the pros in competition.

I have to say it sounds nuts. I understand the urge, but the pros can get over 70mph!!! If you fall at the speed you're going to tumble a long ways, and while snow is relatively soft, you're still going to get banged around quite a bit, and you could get seriously injured or killed. And if the app is getting people to reach speeds higher than they're comfortable with it could spell ruin for a number of people.

I can drive my car over 100 mph, but I'm not a NASCAR driver, and my reflexes, as well as my car's performance, aren't up to dealing with sudden problems such as a deer jumping out in front of me.

The same thing happens on the slopes. You're schussing along at a high speed and a deer, or maybe another person or, God forbid, a child pops out from behind a tree. You're going way faster than you can handle and either hurt yourself, the other person, or both of you.

That said, it does sound like a lot of fun, and I've done similar stuff on bicycles or jet skis, so it's a bit hypocritical of me to condemn this practice. But as parents everywhere tell their children, "Do as I say; not as I do."

One thing that might be cool is if, instead of measuring your own speed using your phone you could have a friend with a radar gun testing your skiing speed at the bottom of the hill. As this is about bragging as much as anything, having someone else taking a reading and cheering you on would be more fun than just reflecting on your speeds at the end of the day.

Oh, and since we're on the topic of skiing, I also read this amazing blog post on proper skiing and snowboarding eyewear on the OpticsPlanetBlog. I may be a bit biased, but the writer is a really handsome, brilliant guy. He might also be me.

What? I'm multi-talented.

Labels: radar uses, skiing

I know a lot of you have been waiting with bated breath since my last post on grocery stores using radar for automatic doors. At the end of the post I mentioned looking into stop lights, and whether they use radar to see when a car is waiting for the light to change.

Short answer: No!

It turns out the way a traffic light senses that a car is waiting for a green arrow or light is an inductive loop. So what's that?

An inductive loop is a coil of wire embedded in the road. After the asphalt is laid, road workers come back and cut a groove in the road and install the wire. Often the disturbed piece of road is covered by white paint, but you can often see it, with a big rectangular loop in the middle of the road.

An inductor (the wire) is an electromagnet. But instead of being designed to draw in metal, it is there to see IF there is a big metallic object is nearby. Like, for instance, a car. The loop in the ground is a magnet, and if you measure the amount of inductance it will be far higher when a car is present. It doesn't take very much energy, so these magnets are left on all the time.

Don't worry, they won't mess with your electronics.

The reason for this, rather than a radar gun, is that it is more accurate at determining if a car is still waiting, and hasn't turned right. While a radar gun would be capable of measuring if a car has turned, it would be a more complex process than using an inductive loop.

These loops can be tricky for motorcycles and bikes. They may not have enough metal to trigger then, so I've seen bike-mounted magnets that will produce a greater amount of inductance than the bike alone.

So it turns out that traffic lights don't use radar guns to sense if a car is waiting, but they do have a pretty cool piece of technology for tracking cars.

Labels: traffic radar

There's a relatively new use for radar, and you've probably experienced it many times, and possibly in a couple of ways, without even knowing it! Those automatic doors at many supermarkets and stores are now using a form of radar to detect the presence of shoppers!

I know many of you are thinking that those doors have been around for a long time, and while they have, the tech behind them has changed over the years. Some still use the old standard of a pad in the floor to detect when a person approaches, which, while initially effective, can cause a lot of false readings, which makes the door open and close repeatedly, and in areas with inclement weather, such as Chicago, snow can render them almost useless.

To combat these issues, automatic doors have been upgraded in recent years to use similar technology to a radar gun. Many doors now send out a radio wave, which, if something moves in it's vicinity, changes frequency, and the change tells the door to open.

Unlike a baseball radar gun, which takes a precise measurement of the radio wave frequency to see how fast an object is moving, these radar doors simply wait for a significant enough change to open. The power is set fairly low, and the sensors are not as sensitive as police radar, as the door shouldn't open when a fly zips by or if someone walks past the door at a distance. The angle is also calibrated fairly specifically, with the sensor on the top of the door aimed down. If it aimed straight out the radio wave might bounce back from a great distance.

I looked into this because the other day the radar detector in my car when off when I was in the parking lot of the local supermarket. I looked around and didn't see a cop car anywhere, and the detector only when off when I drove past the front door. It was fairly weak, but it still registered. I'm going to look into whether the same thing is what some traffic lights use to sense if a car is waiting. Stay tuned for more posts in the coming days/weeks.

Labels: radar detectors, radar technology