Radar Roy’s Lidar Shootout Results
This year RALETC was asked to participate in Radar Roy’s Radar and Lidar Shootout in Arizona. As part of our participation we were asked to conduct the testing of lidar portion of the shootout to ensure impartiality from a third party testing group. We met with Roy himself the Thursday before the shootout and setup the vehicle for testing. We used the same vehicle we always use in our shootouts, a white Nissan Altima. This car is easy to setup, but gives jammers the most difficulty because of the paint color (a white metallic), lots of chrome parts, and of course large wrap around headlights. This vehicle is an ideal choice as it is consistent with vehicles on the road today, and it offers a fair test bed for the jammer companies. We tested 4 different laser jammers from Al Priority, Blinder, Escort, and Stinger. Nearly all manufacturer representatives were there with the one exception of AntiLaser as Tom was unable to make it this year. We had an assortment of things to test including released firmware, beta firmware, and even prototypes. In the head to head, all manufacturers were being tested against similar 2 head systems with retail units mounted on the Altima. Stinger was unable to participate in the head to head due to it the fact that their system was already setup on a charcoal Mercedes C300 and it is not trivial to remove and setup on the Altima, but we did include their tests in the prototype testing as they were also testing a new system not available to the public. More on that later.
With a shootout in the middle of the desert, you never know what to expect. The course was approximately 2000 ft in length and consisted of a not so smooth road. In addition, during the testing we had to contend with dust devils one of which took out the awning on Radar Roy’s motorhome. Regardless we proceeded with our tests despite the biting flies, bees, snakes, and other mysteries of the desert. The testing consisted of 2 runs on each of the major target areas (Drivers headlight, center mass (license plate), and passenger headlight), with each of the guns, with the jammers installed on the Altima. As stated previously only 3 jammer companies were able to conform to the parameters of the shootout and as such here are the results:
As I’m sure you have already noticed, there are no Dragon guns on these results. Well there is a very good reason for this. We discovered an issue with the Dragon guns and did not want to make this information public as it could be used against those with laser jammers. We have a thread on RALF in their advanced section with the full discussion. In addition, there are also several guns that are not fully supported by all manufacturers.
After the released firmware testing was completed, we then proceeded with the prototype and beta firmware testing again this information is available on RALF in the advanced section where we could release the results. One jammer company did not want their results released regardless if they were good or bad and as such we are respecting their wishes. One very important thing came out of the prototype testing. We have a new up and coming challenger. The Stinger VIP system has made some huge leaps and is now the second jammer unit capable of jamming the infamous DragonEye guns. Very impressive. Also, it looks like Blinder is not far behind and Blinder is alive and kicking with new firmware released just prior to the testing. So all in all very good results from all the manufacturers and what seems like a rejuvenation effort to improve the products we use to protect our vehicles.