Sport radar VS. Police radar

2-1-07

Cost wise I am looking at the following Radar units under $600 with one $795 model thrown in that looks like the vindicator unit but new.

1- Decatur Genesis Handheld Directional Police Radar Gun GHD w/ K-Band Directional Antenna 10mw 2 year warranty $595
2- Phantom Hand Held Radar Gun K-Band $795
3- K BAND Genesis Handheld GHS (USED / certified) $545
4- Vindicator radar / Targetron APB-TC-2 K-Band (USED/ certified) $445
I am looking to get a hand held radar unit to track traffic as well as balls, birds and the other moving objects. Non police use.

My confusion starts with sports vs. police radar. What are the differences in the two? It looks like the police radar has more restrictions placed on the operability of the units to obtain more credibility in court. If that is a correct statement, what are the general restrictions?

The next question most of the sport units (the ones with specs on the web) look to be 5mw units. In real world tracking a car or a baseball with everything being equal, what would the difference in range be for a 5mw/10mw/15mw power units? I am looking to track speeds as far as possible away from the radar unit. For the units listed above, which would be a good choice? I can?t find the power specs for anything but the Decatur

Looking at all of the above units the Decatur unit (new) running 10mw 2 year warranty direction sensing technology looks like it is hard to beat. Will it handle other objects other than cars as well as the sports radar?

If anyone with experience with the above can provide some feedback I would appreciate it!

Sports radars are similar to police radars because of FCC limitations. Sports radars generally have wider beams, and shorter detections ranges of targets.

Radar (police or sports) max detection range is a function of TRANSMIT POWER, ANTENNA GAIN (size -- bigger is better), and receiver SENSITIVITY. Most (better) radar receivers generally have about the same senistivity, making transmit power and antenna gain important for range detection.

Transmit power (mW or Watts...) multiplied by antenna gain (ratio) equals Effective Radiated Power (ERP) -- sometimes referred to as Effective Radiated Isotropic Power (EIRP). In general the greater the ERP, the greater the detection range. Note the FCC limits ERP to less than about 1.87 mW (32.7 dBm).