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"The UK SpeedTrap Guide"2008 - All you want to know..... |
| Defensive Equipment Tests. This Page covers equipment that I have been sent and with the help of a few friends (inc. Police) we put under test, and we will give you our views on the products, not the salesman's views. Not all manufactures of equipment want us to test their equipment, wonder why...? So all not all the equipment on the market may be tested. If you have any equipment you have bought and you want to send us your views on how well it works or doesn't for that, let us know. Send your review or comments  All Contents are ©Copyright 2005 Steve Warren. Tests may not be republished without permission. All rights reserved |
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Target LRC 100 Laser Jammer
 Above: The new improved and much smaller transponder, but is it as good ?
It costs £349.95, ouch.... the price in my eyes is steep, almost a £100 more than the old LE 850 and if you plan to do a front and back protection set up you could be looking at getting up to three units and then your talking mortgage time. The owners manual does say that you should use one transponder to cloak Mid size vehicles, motorbikes and vehicles with minimal front chrome, two transponders may be needed for light goods vehicles, HGV's, vehicles with excessive frontal chrome. Ask the dealer for advice on this matter. An additional transponder can be used, this is a cost option. My test vehicle is a large people carrier with quite a bit of chrome in the grill and light area, the LRC 100 jammed with no problem one of the most powerful laser guns. They are still using the gallium arsenide laser-diode that is the same found in police laser guns and is still the only laser jammer to use it, other jammers often just use a lower cost diode that can still do the job but take more energy to do so and can suffer power fade over time. The LRC 100 detects the laser beam from the police speedtrap and then fires back a laser signal in the police signal this then prevents the laser gun's computer from computing the speed reading. Installing was easy. The transponder contains a receiver/transmitter and should be mounted level and vertically near the licence plate or in the grill opening, it must have free view of the road in front, nothing should be in the way. You get supplied a small bubble level to make sure the head is in the correct orientation, this is very important and your vehicle should be on a level surface when this is done. Aligning the transponder is the most important part of the fitting, failure to align the transponder perpendicular to the line of travel could allow the laser gun to get a reading. The transponder is powered by the signal/power wire with a simple waterproof connector, which plugs in to the main wiring loom. The wiring loom is more than long enough for even the largest of cars.
The brackets supplied give you all sorts of fitting options and given the head is so small it is very easy to find a discreet place to fit it. Take your time when it comes to fitting the unit, play with different places before you start making holes, decide what bracket or combination you will use. The best place is in the center of the car front both horizontally and vertically and try to keep it near the number plate.
Inside the vehicle you fit the on/off switch, status LED and speaker, the switch can go anywhere but try to get the status LED where you can see it. The speaker makes around 110dba so you can place it almost anywhere in a car but the LED and the speaker are not much use on a bike , Web Watcher my motorbike tester for the day pointed out that when you are riding the bike you have no chance of hearing the speaker and the LED is hard to see. He came up with a solution as you can see in the photograph above, a small block fitted with 5 high power LED's. Once fitted, you power it up with the on/off switch, within three seconds you get a notification from the speaker and warning LED that power is on and one beep/flash per transponder to say all is well with the transponder or transponders and then the system goes into standby mode ready for jamming. As with the LE850 the units only jam for a set length of time 5 seconds in the case of the LRC 100. The reset cycle takes 60 seconds after the jamming has taken place to allow the Laser diode to cool down, you are told when it has reset by emitting two beeps and then will enter standby mode. Unlike the LE850 the LRC100 will now continue to alert you in its passive mode if the officer continues to fire his laser gun at you just like a detector would but at this time its not jamming, and you get a diminished audio alert The auto cut out feature works well, it gives you enough time, 5 seconds, to adjust your speed during jamming. It then turns off allowing the police officer to get a speed reading after you have come down to the speed limit, other systems often require you to turn off the jamming system with a switch, this could be distracting. Warning: Do not look directly into laser aperture when the transponder is firing, yes I know its hard when you are driving but if you are testing it with a TV remote control its easy to look at the head. So did it work...... ?
We tested the jammer on both a large people carrier and a motorbike. My thanks again to Web Watcher for his assistance in the motorbike part of the test. On the people carrier the transponder is mounted just under the front licence plate and on the bike it is mounted in the parking light both were hard to spot.
Tests were done at 2000ft, 1500ft, 1000ft, 500ft down to 200ft. Both the car and the bike were cloaked by the LRC 100, even pointing at the farthest points of the car from the jammer and the same with the bike during jamming no speed could be obtained. The LRC performs well.
19th August 2002 |
