the transmitters you describe are highly illegal, and it's a federal offense. the police tried this when radar detectors first came out. they were hooking speed guns to car batteries and hiding them on the side of the road. they were taken to court somewhere and it was ruled a violation of their operating license. it's also obnoxious as hell to be putting out microwaves at everyone. rf exposure is not good for you, nidgets with cell phones are bad enough. also consider the increased likely hood of accidents as you are encouraging people to suddenly slam on the brakes and creating a greater speed differential on the road as those with radar detectors slow down and the majority with out them do not. speed differential correlates very strongly with accident rate. you are actually endangering drivers, both those speeding with radar detectors and those without them speeding or otherwise. as far as the camera's, do you honestly want such a system? if so please move to singapore, you do not deserve to live in the U.S. and clearly don't value your freedom or privacy. how long do you suppose it would take for such a system to be abused to track people's movement and then harass those with "unusual" or "suspicious" movement patterns. how long before it is abused to black male people who see prostitutes or??? the police are sadly some of the least trust worthy people out there. in NY state last year 3 fbi agents were arrested, they were collecting sensitive information on wealthy individuals and then either black mailing them or making the information public to manipulate stock prices - after speculating on them (it somehow seems contrary to the function of the stock market and economy that you can make money betting a company will lose value). seriously, city police are sadly some of the most dishonest and dangerous people out there. according to readers digest (hardly a left wing publication, in fact rather conservative) amongst blue collar workers police are the most likely to be child molesters! this from a study designed to determine which group of people were best and worst in terms of trusting them for child care. and, consider the cost of these systems, you could indeed have many more properly trained police on the street for the same price. they are not cheap to operate. in london england where they were dumb enough to put in a massive camera system designed and sold as a counter terrorism measure a recent audit found that the officers monitoring the cameras spend most of there time electronically "stalking" or watching attractive young women! hardly what the citizens intended the system for. the system has not caught any terrorist with it's facial recognition software, but several false positives have resulted in innocent people being harassed. facial recognition software is actually still very, very poor despite industry claims otherwise. reading license plates is easier, but you will still get false positives. how many innocent people have to be pulled over at gun point before it's a bad idea? how much freedom and privacy is it worth? it's true that in the uk petty crimes like muggings have gone down, which is good, but i hardly think it's worth the lost privacy and the probability of the system being abused by officers. such systems are extremely useful for dishonest officers who want to steal or rape people, and sadly there are many such people who have badges. a surveillance society is not a good thing. power corrupts, absolute, and these are very powerful systems for abuse. in fact i'd say they are more useful for abuse than they are for legitimate law enforcement. it's bad enough already. right here in casper wyoming, where i live a city cop was arrested last year, he was using police surveillance equipment to spy on his ex girl friend, who was a county sheriffs deputy! and the deputy had a restraining order. just imagine how he could have followed or harassed her with a wide spread camera system with license plate or facial recognition. and it's not an isolated occurrence, this type of thing happens all over, all the time. the cost to the individuals who's privacy is violated is a serious thing. again, i'd actually like to see more police, but they must be paid and trained better, and they must be accountable to the people they police! i actually trust the insurance companies not to abuse this equipment more than i would trust the police, especially if it's in a mobil van rather than a bunch of stationary points. for one the the insurance company expects results which reduces the time operators have to abuse the system. as far as yanking vehicles from the road for excessive violations, you seem to misunderstand the law. vehicles do not violate the law, drivers do. if someone violates the driving laws excessively their license is revoked/suspended, not the vehicles. do you really think it a good thing to have other family members constantly pulled over or harassed just because someone else used that vehicle to violate the law? it's very common for more than one person to drive a given vehicle at different times. do you honestly want people pulled over and harassed several times on their way to the grocery store because of what a spouse or child did? do you really want to waste scarce police resources on this rather than having them concentrate on pulling over people who are seriously violating the law in real time? do you have any idea of the difference between real crime and minor offenses? do you think the police do or should have unlimited resources and powers? if so, again please move to china or singapore, you will like the fascism that is sadly present in these countries. today's computer and video technology is not cheap, it's not cheap to install, or operate. that takes people and computers and systems that are maintained not by the police but by expensive third parties. it's a gross waste and misdirection of resources. and it's just the type of system that lends itself to easy abuse. if you want to live in a surveillance society, move to china where half the population is literally spying on their neighbors for the government on a part time basis. where every apartment building has a "private" citizen working and reporting directly to the government on any suspicious activities, political or otherwise, of the residents, a person who the residents feel obligated to invite to diner regularly to demonstrate that they "have nothing to hide". believe me, if you like freedom you have a lot to hide in such a society. current systems are already being grossly abused. airlines have a "no fly" list provided by the government, with bush and aschroft in power those who have criticized them publicly have been put on this list. people have been put on the no fly list for legal political activity (dissent is the most important thing to have in a democracy), not because they are a threat to the plane or other passengers, but because those in power perceive them to be a poetical threat. just imagine if they could also target these people for more vigorous enforcement of traffic laws and other misdemeanors. do you understand the difference between a violent felon and a non violent misdemeanor? do you really think we need to keep letting violent criminals out of prison early to make room for non violent offenders? do you really want a country with political prisoners? if so, get the hell out. it's not "america love it or leave it", it's "love freedom or get the hell out of the U.S.". if you want a police state move to one, don't make a free state into your fascist dream land (and i promise you you'll seen realize it's a nightmare). besides, contrary to popular belief, giving up freedoms does not make you more secure. it simply moves the threat from the anonymous and poorly funded to the known and well funded government. this is not an improvement. Robert Rolf wrote: > > Dwayne Reid wrote: > > > > At 10:41 AM 6/15/2004, Harold Hallikainen wrote: > > >OK, WAY off topic, but MAYBE it could be done with a PIC... Is anyone > > >aware of a LEGAL transmitter that would trip consumer radar detectors? I'd > > >sure like to have one in my car as people pass me at 20 or 30 miles per > > >hour over the speed limit... > > > > Do a web search for "trolling for tailgates". What you are describing is > > on-going serious fun for a few mental midgets on American highways. I'm > > seriously considering joining the party . > > > > dwayne > > An enterprising amateur radio operator in the Spokane WA area has > been selling gunn diode oscillators to the locals, who put them out > near the roads in their neighborhoods to slow down traffic since it > fools radar detectors into blasting on. > > Given the recent discussions in our City about reducing the posted > residential speed limit, it might be a cheap solution. > You make this kind of stuff. Might be a nice niche product for you. > > And the latest toy is $100k van equipped with TV cameras and > image recognition software that checks license plates for status as > 'stolen'. Found two stolen vehicles the first day of use. The insurance > industry expects to pay for it's cost within a few weeks (at $25 a write off). > Vicar is the trade name. > > If EVERY red light camera were electronic, and vehicles could be yanked > from the road for more than a few violations, we'd quickly get rid > of the dangerous drivers, since you can't have a cop on every corner > but you can afford to have 4 cameras per intersection given the > low cost of today's computer/video technology. > > Robert ---------- -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads