Passport 8500 Radar Detector - Escort Inc.

How Radar WorksHow Radar WorksTraffic radar, which consists of microwaves,travels in straight lines and is easily reflectedby objects such as cars, trucks, evenguardrails and overpasses. Radar works bydirecting its microwave beam down theroad. As your vehicle travels into range, themicrowave beam bounces off your car, andthe radar antenna looks for the reflections.Using the Doppler Principle, the radarequipment then calculates your speed bycomparing the frequency of the reflectionof your car to the original frequency of thebeam sent out.Traffic radar has limitations, the mostsignificant of these being that it typicallycan monitor only one target at a time. Ifthere is more than one vehicle within range,it is up to the radar operator to decidewhich target is producing the strongestreflection. Since the strength of the reflectionis affected by both the size of thevehicle and its proximity to the antenna, itis difficult for the radar operator to determineif the signal is from a sports car nearbyor a semi-truck several hundred feet away.Radar range also depends on the powerof the radar equipment itself. The strengthof the radar unit's beam diminishes withdistance. The farther the radar has to travel,the less energy it has for speed detection.Because intrusion alarms and motionsensors often operate on the samefrequency as X-Band radar, your Passportwill occasionally receive non-police radarsignals. Since these X-Band transmitters areusually contained inside of a building, oraimed toward the ground, they will generallyproduce much weaker readings thanwill a true radar encounter. As you becomefamiliar with the sources of these pseudoalarms in your daily driving, they will serveas confirmation that your Passport’s radardetection abilities are fully operational.20