What are False Alerts on a Radar Detector?
Just like your radar detector not going off, there are also many reasons why your radar detector can give you false alerts.
What are false alerts?
False alerts happen when your device picks up ‘incorrect’ signals and in turn giving you alerts even there are no speed traps or a police officer using any radar nearby.
Radar detectors are, in reality, very useful but they are not perfect. This is where the quality and advancement of your device come in. More modern ones typically give off fewer false alerts than older models because of filtering capabilities and other technologies. Radar detectors detect radar waves, and those waves can come from various types of devices, not just police radars. These can from automatic door openers, blind-spot monitors, and more.
There are two types of false alerts namely stationary false alerts and moving false alerts.
Stationary False Alerts
Stationary false alerts come from non-moving entities such as automatic door openers as well as those digital orange construction signs. There are many more objects that emit various types of radar bands (can be K, Ka, X, and so on).
Another common source of false alerts is radar signs. These are signs you typically see on the road which display your speed as you approach and are designed to slow you down if you’re going fast. Unlike other causes of false alerts, radar signs give off high-intensity frequencies which can mess up your radar detector causing short bursts and lengthy full-on alerts – which can be annoying.
So, the next time you drive by a mall, commercial building, construction site, and the likes, there’s a big chance your radar detector will go off.
Moving False Alerts
Vehicles nowadays are equipped with advanced safety systems such as auto-pilot, radar cruise control, adaptive cruise control, emergency collision avoidance systems, and blind-spot monitoring systems a.k.a. primary sources of moving false alerts. Alerts from these moving entities are much difficult to identify, well, because they’re constantly moving. So, you can go on driving and have your radar detector going off without having an idea where it’s coming from. This can keep you wondering whether a police officer is following you.
The good thing is that there are advanced radar detectors that can filter out these frequencies which you can upgrade into. And there are a few methods radar detectors can avoid these false alerts.
GPS Lockouts
Some radar detectors are equipped with GPS used for lockouts and speed-based muting. GPS lockouts work based on a simple and smart concept. When you pass by a source of a false alert like an establishment’s automatic door opener, for instance, you can conveniently ‘remember’ that location using your GPS so it won’t go off the next time you’re there. This works great on stationary false alerts. It won’t work however on moving false alerts as they will keep moving and their location won’t be the same every time.
Signal Analysis
Probably the biggest differentiating factor between older and newer radar detector models is their ability to analyze the type of signal it detects, distinguishing “purity”, “modulation”, and “polarity” and other complex qualities. Think of two singers singing the same note but still identifying which is which because of how their sound is picked up and heard. This feature is achieved through advanced hardware and software.
City Mode
Older radar detectors come with two driving modes namely City and Highway which refers to adjusting the sensitivity level of the radar detector. City Mode’s sensitivity is on the low end and Highway Mode is on the high end. On City Mode, the detection of radar frequencies are reduced and can even be turned off to eliminate false alerts altogether.
