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Prius Radar Detector - Truth or Urban Legend?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Audio and Electronics' started by mboileau, Jul 23, 2004.

  1. DonDNH

    DonDNH Senior Member

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    I don't know whether police radar will distort the GPS signal or not.

    However, a short story from the early nineties goes like this. A defense contractor was static testing the EW equipment on a test aircraft in upstate New York. The test was to take just a few minutes at partial power of the radar jamming signal. Through some mistake the power wasn't shut down at the end of the test; instead the switches were set to wartime mode. The test folks went to their offices to write up the results of the test. The plane which was then scheduled for another groups testing was still in active warfare mode when they powered up the plane. This test was for endurance of an electronics package unrelated to EW.

    The warmode of the EW effectively raised hell with every GPS reciever within a couple hundred miles. This condition lasted for several hours. The FAA and pilots were completely baffled by the outage in just a "small" localized area. That is until someone began tracking the jamming signal. The offending plane was finally shut down and the problem simply disappeared.

    So, can radar cause an incorrect GPS? Sure looks like it if the the radar signal is strong enough.
     
  2. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    all EWAC have radar jamming equipment. that is probably what screwed everything up.

    not widely available to anyone considering that the technology is one of the most tightly guarded secrets in the US military today.