Ninjas Invisible to Radar?

[n4mwd]

I have been riding around town for some time now. I go by those "your speed" roadside radar detector signs all the time. They ether stay blank or they read an incorrect low speed (like 4 or 8 mph). I was wondering if anybody has had a similar experience.

[dubojr1]

I don't know about the ones they set up on the side of the road but I know for sure motorcycles are not invisible to radar. My 127 mph ticket tells me so. 5 secs earlier and my speed may have broke his radar...

I'm actually glad my super-speeding days are over. Just isn't worth it...

[FrugalNinja250]

The roadside radar is probably aimed such as to make it more likely to get a car; you're probably just missing the beam. Hand-held radars (and laser) work very well on motorcycles, especially when aimed at the headlight.

A stealth-bike would need to be fully enclosed up front to hide the fork tubes, wheel, and engine mass.

Flares and chaff probably wouldn't work against either radar or laser, though it might be interesting to try...

[singlecoillover]

+1 to Frugal. My assumption is that those roadside radar boxes are targeted to read the "average" vehicle. I have no real proof of this, but my very small, very low cage often doesn't register or registers incorrectly.

[ricochet08]

Originally Posted by dubojr1

I'm actually glad my super-speeding days are over. Just isn't worth it...

Agreed!

[spooph]

It's hit or miss. Sometimes they get me, and other times not, however, put a human being in a uniform behind one and it's over, every single $#%*%@ time...

[n4mwd]

I guess it was wishful thinking on my part.

But at the same time, I wonder what it would take to make a ninja invisible to radar. I mean, they did it with a plane.

[Jesse8931]

Originally Posted by n4mwd

I guess it was wishful thinking on my part.

But at the same time, I wonder what it would take to make a ninja invisible to radar. I mean, they did it with a plane.

and millions of dollars.

It would cost you around 1000 bucks to just use radar absorbing paint.

[dubojr1]

Originally Posted by Jesse8931

and millions of dollars.

It would cost you around 1000 bucks to just use radar absorbing paint.

A speeding ticket could cost you well over $1k though with fines, fee's, and insurance increases. The paint job could be considered an investment. Depends on your riding style I guess...


I'm not sure $1k would cover cost of the paint-job though.

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by n4mwd

I guess it was wishful thinking on my part.

But at the same time, I wonder what it would take to make a ninja invisible to radar. I mean, they did it with a plane.

The stealth bomber development program cost billions of dollars, with a B. Most of the technology is extremely classified still. The biggest issues with stealthifying something is hiding the metal of the structure/powerplant from radar. On a car it wouldn't be too hard because the front end bodywork covers everything behind it, but bikes have farward-facing mass that is not coverable by bodywork, such as the metal in the wheels, fork tubes, and radiator. If you use RAM (radar absorbing materials) then every forward-facing surface would have to be painted. RAMs are typically hard to work with and fairly delicate. The other technique is to shape the skin so that microwave energy travels along it to edges where it can be absorbed or sequestered. Hard to do on a plane, probably impossible on a bike.

And that all goes out the window when they use infrared laser or VASCAR.

[n4mwd]

I wonder if painting RAM under the plastics would cause the radar to be less effective even if a few bits (handelbars, etc) still stick out.

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by n4mwd

I wonder if painting RAM under the plastics would cause the radar to be less effective even if a few bits (handelbars, etc) still stick out.

The few bits reflect like crazy. It'd be like painting black paint around the edges of a reflector, completely ineffective.

[g21-30]

Originally Posted by dubojr1

I don't know about the ones they set up on the side of the road but I know for sure motorcycles are not invisible to radar. My 127 mph ticket tells me so. 5 secs earlier and my speed may have broke his radar...

I'm actually glad my super-speeding days are over. Just isn't worth it...

Wow, a 127 MPH! I definitely need to do that 650 rear wheel mod on my Ninja!

[spcolsson]

umm first off ram paint by its self does little to nothing i work for the army on Apache attack helicopters and we do imply paint that's both radar and heat absorbing and that paint by its self does little to nothing to hide it from radar heat signatures its a little better but still alone its basically useless so to just paint your bike with this paint that to my knowledge isnt readily available to the general public wouldn't do nothing for you you would have to littlarly construct fairings out of ram not rap and that meteral i donno much about but i do know its not just the metaral that makes it radar absorbing but the shape its made out of so good luck with that if you do it let me know !!!!

[n4mwd]

Well what puzzles me is that I remember in the days of my youth that they used radar to track the speed of a baseball pitchers throw. I don't recall them saying that there was anything special about the ball, but I could be wrong. I thought that only metal could reflect radar, but the baseball thing has always bugged me.

As a side note, they used to make radar jammers, but I'm not sure if they are legal. They DO work by returning a stronger, but false signal to the radar gun. They use a Gunn Diode microwave transmitter. I've seen them for sale as complete units, but then I stopped seeing them for some reason.

As far as RAM on the Ninja, it looks like the goal is to absorb the radar signal as much as possible and reflect the rest in the wrong direction. Does that sum it up?

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by n4mwd

Well what puzzles me is that I remember in the days of my youth that they used radar to track the speed of a baseball pitchers throw. I don't recall them saying that there was anything special about the ball, but I could be wrong. I thought that only metal could reflect radar, but the baseball thing has always bugged me.

As a side note, they used to make radar jammers, but I'm not sure if they are legal. They DO work by returning a stronger, but false signal to the radar gun. They use a Gunn Diode microwave transmitter. I've seen them for sale as complete units, but then I stopped seeing them for some reason.

As far as RAM on the Ninja, it looks like the goal is to absorb the radar signal as much as possible and reflect the rest in the wrong direction. Does that sum it up?

More or less. There's a lot more to making a vehicle stealthy besides just paint. The engineering that goes into a stealth aircraft design is mind-boggling. I got to see a white paper on the subject a long time ago, it was heavily redacted but still very informative on general concepts. Basically, stealth isn't something you just put on something, it's how you design and build something, right down to the shape of the rivet heads and the curve on the edge of the metal skin plates. It's not something you're going to be able to do on a car or bike, especially with the modern radar gun designs.

As far as jammers go, effectiveness is probably close to zero now with modern radar design, and yes, they are extremely illegal to buy, own, or sell. If you get caught using one it's a federal crime with jail time up to five years (and there's no parole in the federal system) and penalties up to $75,000. The FCC has been aggressively pursuing manufacturers of jammers, that's why you don't see them anymore. Placing an ad in a magazine for one pretty much guarantees a knock on your door from the feds.

[Alex]

That's my understanding as well. Nowadays there are folks that are still selling LIDAR (laser) jammers, but the radar jammers are generally unavailable, ineffective against modern guns anyway, and have huge penalties awaiting for use.

Some states have banned LIDAR jammers, so it may be a matter of time before those start disappearing as well. Effectiveness of them was evidently reasonable against very early generation LIDAR units, but much less effective against units sold in the last 2-3 years.

[dreamzboy]

From watching Modern Marvels, they said to be invisible to radar, you'll need to paint your bike charcoal color or what is suggested above, paint that absorb the wave signal. You would also need to make sharp edges and thin edges on your bike so that it deflects the signal. Since the bike can't ride by itself, you need to consider yourself in the equation as well.

[bdavison]

The problem with jamming is that you would need a waveguide on the bike, and they arent cheap, or easy to make..and getting your paws on a surplus one would be next to impossible.

Not to mention that many of the radars out there arent actually radar...laser,doppler,etc...theres just not really any way to jam them all.

[maxwellca21]

if you ride exactly at 93.652 mph....ninja 250 are REALLY invisible to radar and cops. really, you should try it out.

[n4mwd]

Originally Posted by bdavison

The problem with jamming is that you would need a waveguide on the bike, and they arent cheap, or easy to make..and getting your paws on a surplus one would be next to impossible.

Not to mention that many of the radars out there arent actually radar...laser,doppler,etc...theres just not really any way to jam them all.

Not too hard getting one at all... Less than $100 new. See here: http://www.shfmicro.com/diode.htm
Not the best website, but its there.

Its interesting that it appears that Lidar jammers are perfectly legal. From what I've been reading, they aim for the bike headlight which has a nice reflector in it. So I guess that means RAM isn't going to work for radar.

[nakedhunter]

And don't forget YOU are sitting on the bike - so you will need to borrow something like Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility, or just paint yourself from boot to helmet in super radar absorbing military paint.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by n4mwd

Its interesting that it appears that Lidar jammers are perfectly legal.

It's a state by state thing now, no Federal laws that are directly on point yet. Roughly 10 states have laws prohibiting their use.

http://www.guysoflidar.com/usa-laser-jammer-laws.html

[bdavison]

There is one other problem with jamming the signal....the cop is going to know its being jammed. And when he does, legal or not....dont expect him to be nice and let you go.

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by bdavison

There is one other problem with jamming the signal....the cop is going to know its being jammed. And when he does, legal or not....dont expect him to be nice and let you go.

He'll actually be nice to you while he does a felony stop (face on pavement, handcuffed, searched, stuffed into the back of a cruiser) then calls the feds. Cops live for this stuff, it's like giving candy to a baby...

[Jinx250]

This reminds me of a thread a long while back, maybe on KF, where a guy was convinced that his black bike was invisible to radar/lidar since he could not see the red dot of a hand held laser when he shined it at the bike. And I seriously mean CONVINCED.

[n4mwd]

Originally Posted by Jinx250

This reminds me of a thread a long while back, maybe on KF, where a guy was convinced that his black bike was invisible to radar/lidar since he could not see the red dot of a hand held laser when he shined it at the bike. And I seriously mean CONVINCED.

I've been reading up on Lidar and it looks like the headlight reflector makes their day. If that guy had a headlight, I would think he would get a ticket.

So on another front, I wonder how many tickets are given by motorcycle cops as opposed to regular cops.