Is the SkyEye GPS enabled radar detector from Radar Shield Technologies another one of those  “cheap ass radar detectors” manufactured by Rayee Technologies?

On Monday, January 30^th I received a cease and desist order from Radar Shield Technologies regarding my review of the Ghost Pro radar detector published on February 10, 2011.

When I published this review the Radar Shield Technologies website stated that their SkyEye GPS enabled radar detector would be coming soon.

The image of the SkyEye looked exactly like the “counterfeit Chinese radar detectors” that Tommy Chen from Rayee Technologies was hawking at the 2009 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

During my interview I asked Tommy if he  “sold cheap ass radar detectors” and he replied, “yes, we make cheap ass radar detectors”.

After receiving the C&D order I did what any good “retired copy would do” and that was to do more research on Radar Shield Technologies, the owner Nir Steel and of course his attorney Yechezkel Rodal from Bavaro Legal in Plantation Florida.

Radar Shield Website

Radar Shield is now selling their SkyEye GPS equipped radar detector for $389.95 promoting it as the “smartest speed-trap defense system ever made!”

Their ad states “by adding GPS engine into our legendary Ghost platform.. enables alerts far and behind conventional detection range…”

As Escort Inc. holds the patent for GPS enabled radar detectors in the US and being that they recently filed a second lawsuit against Cobra electronics for patent infringement, I was curious if Nir Steel, the owner of Radar Shield Technologies had worked out a licensing agreement.

So called one of my contacts at Escort

The first words out of his mouth were “who, never heard of them” then my contact related that Escort had not entered into any licensing agreement allowing the use of their patent.

My contact then asked if I could obtain a unit for his inspection and I told him that I was working on it.

Radar Shield Yahoo Local

Radar Shield Technologies also has a Yahoo Local Listing for their “virtual office” (drop box) in Beaverton, Or.

On 4/14/2010 a review was posted by “Dr” stating”

DON’T BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM!!!!!!
BEWARE!!! It’s an Internet scam!!!
What they selling is a piece of shitttttttt!!
You not gonna bve refundede,they not gonna pick up the phone!!!!!!! YOU wasting your money, if you buy anything from these assholes…..

Any SkyEye GPS Radar Detectors on Ebay?

As Radar Shield has also been selling their Ghost radar detector on eBay, I decided to take a peek over there too.

I couldn’t find any listings for their SkyEye, but I did find this listing for the Ghost Invisible radar detector, item number 200611108207.

The seller, Zalyb had an 86% positive feedback ranking.

The last review posted was on December 17, 2011 by Jususc who related that he would buy again.

But what did catch my eye were these 2 negative reviews:

• “Absolute shite, doesn’t work on Spectre as advertised, just got a $1000 fine“
• “Not good at all bad communications! Ghost invisible radar not as described“

Nir Steel – President of Radar Shield Technologies

I’ll respect the privacy of Mr. Steel and his family by not posting any personal information.

However I was VERY SHOCKED to see that someone who is held in such high regard in his temple would lower his standards in by scamming people online.

Yechezkel Rodal – Bavaro Legal

Mr. Rodal was admitted to the Florida Bar on September 21, 2011 and is eligible to practice law in Florida.

In reviewing several of the cases that Mr. Rodal has been involved in since his acceptance into the Florida Bar, they all appear to be related to debt collection issues.

I sincerely hope for his clients’ sake that he takes the time to research their legal standing prior to sending out “ bullshit” C&D letters like he did in this matter.

Is the SkyEye Radar Detector another Scam?

Based upon Nir Steel’s and Radar Shields history in the radar detector industry it would be safe to assume that the SkyEye is another one of Rayee Technologies “Chinese counterfeit” radar detectors marketed by Radar Shield Technologies.

But I don’t base my reviews on assumptions.

So over the course of the next couple weeks I will have an associate of mine purchase a SkyEye GPS enabled radar detector who will then have it shipped to my office.

When I am finished testing the unit I will then ship the unit to Escort Electronics so they can inspect it to see if it violates their patent for GPS enabled radar detectors and post my reviews here, on my radar detector review website.

On February 10, 2011 I published my review and video of Radar Shield’s Ghost Pro radar detector ranking it the 2^nd Worst Radar Detector that I had ever tested.

On Monday, nearly a year after this review was published, I received this cease and desist letter from Yechezkel Rodal, an attorney with the Bavaro Legal firm in Plantation Florida.

Click Image to View

Mr. Rodal writes in his letter that my company (RadarDetector.org) persists in spreading untruths about his client Mr. Nir Steel and his company, Radar Shield Technologies and that my defamatory statements are affecting Mr. Steel’s business.

Mr. Rodal cites these two examples from my Radar Shield radar detector review:

1. That my “assertion” that the Radar Shield is “Chinese counterfeit” is untrue, defamatory and illegal, and
2. That my allegation that Radarshield doesn’t carry FCC certification is also false, defamatory and illegal.

Mr. Rodal “warns” me to cease and desist from spreading any “further” defamatory statements, reviews, comments, articles, videos, etc. against Mr. Steel or Radar Shield Technologies immediately.

His cease and desist demand includes e-mails, reviews, my websites, other websites, Facebook, YouTube and any other type of social media.

Mr. Rodal states that if I choose to ignore this warning, that his client, Mr. Steel would have no other choice but to proceed accordingly and file a lawsuit against me and my company, warning to “Govern yourself accordingly”.

My Public Reply to Yechezkel Rodal, Esq. – Bavaro Legal PA

Retiring as a Lieutenant with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office I typically have a great deal of respect for members of the bar and would address you in a more appropriate manner.

However your cease and desist letter is a misrepresentation of the facts filled with complete “bullshit” so I have chosen to address your concern here on my website.

First, let me explain to you a little bit about who I am and what I am all about.

After serving a distinguished 20-year career in law enforcement, I retired at the rank of Lieutenant.

During my career I was certified as a traffic radar instructor certifying 1000’s of police officers in the use and operation of various speed measurement devices including police radar guns.

I have been called upon to testify as an expert witness in numerous superior court cases throughout Arizona regarding the use and technology of police radar guns.

After my retirement in 1996 I launched the website Radarbusters.com which provides tips on how to beat traffic tickets and reviews of various speed counter measurement devices.

Several of these reviews have been published in magazines such as American Iron and Car and Driver.

I have been interviewed by various news shows including 20/20, CBS Good Morning, American Journal and the Speed Chanel.

I also attend trade shows such the Consumer Electronics Show and SEMA to stay up on the advances in our industry.

Thus I feel that I am very qualified to publish a review stating my opinion of a particular product in the radar detector niche.

As I have demonstrated in my review and video, I have keep very detailed notes regarding my experiences with products I test to support my opinions if asked to do so.

You state in your letter dated January 10, 2012 that my statement calling your client’s product a “Chinese Counterfeit” were untrue, defamatory and illegal and that RadarShield holds a registered trademark.

In reading my review I do warn consumers about the dangers of purchasing a radar detector from unscrupulous dealers that sell counterfeit radar detectors manufactured in China and Korea.

I also relate in my review that I found a new company that was selling “Tommy’s” detectors calling themselves Radar Shield Technologies (your client).

So I don’t understand your position in that if your client holds a registered trademark it somehow mitigates the fact that he sells “Chinese counterfeit” radar detectors?

Your second statement references that my “allegation” that RadarShield doesn’t carry FCC certification is also false, defamatory and illegal.

On October 27, 2002 a public notice was published by the Federal Communications Commission (DA 02-2852), which required that all radar detectors sold in the US be FCC approved and labeled with a FCC identification number.

My Youtube video review published on February 10, 2010 clearly demonstrates that your clients Radar Shield radar detector did not have this required FCC identification number attached.

Prior to the publication of my review, I did go to the FCC.gov website to check if your client had the required FCC FRN number and he did not.

After the receipt of your letter, I went back to the FCC website and found that your client did register for a number on 2/22/2011, 12 days after the publication of my review.

However this search on the FCC site did not locate any FCC type acceptance number assigned to your clients Radar Shield detector.

It should also be noted that within my review that I document my attempts to contact your client by telephone and e-mail prior to the publication of my review and he chose to ignore me.

Mr. Rodal, I have been in this industry for over 15 years and I have always published my honest opinion of the products I test.

Occasionally I publish a review of product such as your clients Radar Shield radar detector, which falls short in performing the way the manufacture and/or distributor advertises the product.

And I admit that I may get a couple emails or telephone calls because they don’t agree with my opinion and they leave it at that.

But never in my 15 years being in this industry have I never received a certified cease and desist letter from a law firm threatening legal action, so I consider your notice a “badge of honor” so thank you.

Your letter is framed and proudly displayed on my office wall.

But the issue I’m sure you would like me to address is if I will indeed cease and desist in publishing any further defamatory statements in regard to your client and your client’s products.

1. I am prepared to defend my opinion of your clients radar detector which I published on my website and in my video as I do not consider them to be defamatory in nature at all.My review (opinion) is based upon my 35 years of training and experience and is well documented.
2. Your request for me not to publish any “further defamatory” statements, reviews, comments, articles, videos, photos including e-mails, reviews, my own websites, other websites, Facebook, Youtube and any other social media to me is laughable, allow me to explain.If you would have taken the time to read any of my prior reviews either negative or positive that I have published on my website it is very rare that I publish any new commentary unless something newsworthy occurs with that product.So by making your request in your cease and desist letter you and your client have opened the door for further commentary.

So before I publish my “follow-up” review of the Ghost Pro radar detector in the coming weeks, I would like to extend this invitation.

If your client feels that my review was unfair and would like me to amend it and/or do a follow-up review of the Ghost Pro radar detector we can schedule a day for him to come out to our office for a follow-up review.

Prior to his arrival I will make 3 “blind purchases” of the Ghost Pro radar detector from his website and/or his eBay account and these detectors will remain sealed until his arrival.

Upon his arrival he can inspect the packages to make sure that they have not been tampered with and we would then open the packages and inspect the radar detectors for proper FCC certification labeling.

I would then have 1 off-duty police officer who is certified in police radar test the Ghost Pro radar detector against various police radar guns measuring the detectors performance, sensitivity, range and filtering.

This officer will also test the “stealth” capabilities advertised on the Ghost Pro website using two Spectre RDD devices.

If the unit performs as Mr. Steel advertises on his website I will gladly offer him a public apology on my website and pay all of his expenses in coming to our office and his acceptance would be the cheapest and the fastest way to put this all behind us.

However if your client does decide to proceed in his threats in filing a lawsuit against my company and me personally, my attorney and I are both prepared to counter with a formable defense.

Is the new SkyEye GPS enabled Radar Detector another Cheap Counterfeit Radar Detector Too?

Is the Sky Eye radar detector a counterfeit too?

Based upon your cease and desist order demanding me “to cease and desist from spreading any further defamatory statements, reviews, comments, articles, articles, videos, photos, etc” and your client’s recent decision to market a new radar detector he calls the SkyEye, “the smartest speed-trap defense system ever made” utilizing satellite (gps) technology I suspect that your action is to some how prevent me from doing a new review on this new radar detector marketed by Radar Shield Technology.

Well allow me to provide you with some additional information.

1. Escort Inc. holds the patent for radar detectors within the USA for GPS enabled radar detectors. Your clients marketing of this SkyEye clearly violates Escort’s patent so I would assume that once they find out about it, they will send Mr. Steel their own cease and desist letter and/or file a lawsuit against your client.
2. The SkyEye is detector that is very similar to the ones that were hawked by Rayee Technologies at the 2009 CES show in Las Vegas which I referenced as being a “cheap ass radar detector” and a “cheap counterfeit radar detector manufactured in China”
3. So based upon this information you may want to warn your client that he should expect a couple of new orders for this Sky Eye radar detector, one from Escort’s legal team and of course one from me to do a new review.

In closing I will also offer 1 additional tip that you may find helpful in your law career.

Before you send out another one of your “bullshit cease and desist” letters to an Internet Marketing professional, make sure that that you have a strong case and be prepared for the reputation management issues in both the search engines and social media spaces cause they can be a bitch to remove.

שלום עכשיו

Just returned from this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and had an opportunity to interview John Larson, the president of Escort Radar.

During this 8 minute video, John addresses many of the questions our radar detector community have been asking and discussed some of the new products that they are coming out with this year such as:

• The release of an Escort Live model for their remote mounted radar detectors
• Speculation about a front and rear antenna radar detector now that Valentine One’s patent has expired
• Escort’s new remote mounted radar detector called “Smart Radar”
• And John’s “State of the Union” of the radar detector industry

Simulated Photo Radar Photo VF-2

Recently we have received several inquiries about the SCD Eliminator photo radar jammer asking if we knew anything about the product and/or the manufacture.

Back in 2006 we tested a similar device that was manufactured in Victoria BC Canada and distributed by Tiger Lilly products, a Colorado LLC owned by John Turner and his daughter Jamie.

We obtained a VF2 directly from their company, for our review.

We first tested their photo radar jammer using a strobe device and out of over 100 attempts the unit failed to flash even once.

We contacted John and he felt that the power transformer was defective so within a few days we received another unit to test.

We installed this second unit decided to test the unit against 4 of the Scottsdale photo radar cameras.

In each case the unit failed and we post our review of the VF2 photo radar jammer.

A few weeks after posting this the review of the VF2, we received a telephone call from a customer who read our that review and told us that he had purchased a unit and that the transformer of the unit had melted, almost catching his car on fire!

So we decided to do a little detective work on this new SCD Speed Camera Eliminator and here is what we found out:

1. The site lists a telephone number of 720-635-3931.This is the same telephone number of 1stRadarDetectors.com website owned and operated by Tiger Lily Products.
2. The SCD Series Speed Camera website’s registrar lists their address on Victoria BC Canada.
3. And here is the biggest kicker!If you go to the distributor’s website you’ll see a photo of a Dodge Viper with a decal “Got Speed?” depicting the SCD Speed Camera in action.

This Dodge Viper was rented by Leon Gruner of Blinder USA, Robert Rosania of the Veil Corporation and myself in June of 2006 2005 from a Dodge dealer in Las Vegas for the Speed Measurement Labs radar detector test in El Paso.

During the entire time this Viper had this “Got Speed?” decal it never had Mr. Turners NEW SCD photo radar camera jammer installed on it as it wasn’t even yet developed!

Would You Spend Your Money On This?

Based upon the out and out lie on Mr. Turner’s website depicting the SCD 2 photo radar camera “in action” on a car which never had one of his devices the SCD Photo Radar Jammer installed on it, his prior history with the VF2 and having a customer almost losing his car because of a fire that had the VF2 installed, I certainly wouldn’t recommend this device!

What are your thoughts?

Today Escort Radar filed a federal complaint against Cobra Electronics in the US District Court, Western Ohio Division, case number 1:11 CV 797 for patent infringement.

Escort’s lawsuit asserts that Cobra’s iRadar detector and their iRadar community service infringes on two of their patents.

This will be the second time that Escort has pursued litigation against Cobra for patent infringement.

John Larson, the CEO and President of ESCORT relates.  “Our inventions and patents cover not only the identification and marking of false alerts, but also, the sharing of radar alert information between detectors, an idea we brought to the market with the ESCORT Live™ social network.  ESCORT and Cobra have peacefully coexisted since 2008, but with the iRadar, Cobra has overstepped its bounds, into infringement of our patents, and is capitalizing on our research and our ideas, including ESCORT’s multi-decade effort to build a network that permits radar detectors to share information in a network that benefits the driving community as a whole.  ESCORT was left with no choice but to respond.”

The first lawsuit was settled in 2008 in Escort’s favor.

Here is my take – I think that Cobra should had been called to task long ago for the way they have continued to market their radar detectors as 6, 8, 10, 12…. band radar detectors.

Hell we all know that there are only three radar bands (X, K and Ka) and one laser band in the USA!

But this lawsuit has nothing to do with their marketing, which I feel is misleading, but the hijacking of anther’s intellectual property.

However, in my mind they have proven to me that they will do what ever it takes to market low performance radar detectors rather then focusing on delivering on quality as Escort, Beltronics, Valentine and Whistler has.

What are your thoughts about Escort’s lawsuit?

Imagine owning a car so unique, so special that SEMA decided to give you one of the premier parking spots to show off your ride, right at the front door of the Las Vegas convention center.

This is exactly what has happened to a good friend of mine, Jim Cozzolino.

Jim owns this 1991 FXMD FX TA 1 Wide body NSX that is powered by a custom 3.3, forced induction FXMD FX 500 turbo charged engine.

Jim and his NSX has been featured in various competitions including the Castrol Top Car Challenge, Modified Magazine Tuner Shootout, Super Lap Burnouts and is a regular at NASA-AZ TTU and UMS time attack competitions.

Oh and one more thing, just so when Jim is out on one of his weekend cruises around Phoenix Jim has one of our Escort 9500ix radar detectors installed on the dash and a set of Blinder laser jammers installed in the grill.

Congratulations Jim and on your ride back home, please fly drive safe.

SEMA, short for Specialty Equipment Market Associations, is the world’s largest automotive trade show in the world and this year Escort Live stole the show!

Escort Live was awarded the Best New Mobile Electronics product for 2011 and the POP Mechanics Award as well!

Tomorrow at 3:00 pm Pacific we will be hosting a Live broadcast from SEMA that you can watch at your home or office as Escort unveils this amazing new product.

http://www.radardetector.org/escort-live/

Isn’t Anything Private Anymore?

I’m sure that you would agree that pervasive government surveillance which George Orwell wrote about in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is becoming more of a reality each day, however Simicon’s new photo radar system erodes our privacy to a new level.

Typical photo radar systems can only track one vehicle at a time, but the new Simicon system called Cordon can track up to 32 vehicles across 4 lanes of traffic.

Also as a car enters into range the Simicon’s OCR technology immediately identifies the license plate and maps the vehicle location date and time into its database.

The Cordon system is portable so it can be easily moved from one location to the next.

In the following video vehicles tagged with a green dot are driving below the speed limit, those with the yellow dot are changing their speed within the acceptable range and those tagged with a red dot are speeding.

Peak Gain Systems, Simicon’s North American distributor plan on making these units available to North American police agencies during the 1^st quarter of 2012.

(Simicon had filed a copy-write violation regarding this video, thus the video has been removed)

What are your thoughts?

Are you willing to give up your privacy allowing the government to track your every move?

How much would you be willing to pay out in attorney, witness and court fees to fight a $1700 fine and 6-month suspension of your driver’s license?

$2,000?

$5,000?

$10,000?

How about $60,000???

Well this is exactly what one 29-year-old motorcycle enthusiast had to spend to fight his speeding ticket.

Last May, 29-year-old John Bustutti was clocked on laser riding his Suzuki 1000cc motorbike at 149-km/h in a 60-km/h zone last May (92 mph in a 27 mph zone) in the Royal National Park in Australia.

(Full Story Here)

John was cited and he faced a fine of $1744 and a 6-month suspension of his driver’s license.

But John knew that there was no way he could had been clocked by radar doing this speed and fought back, ultimately racking up a legal bill in excess of $60,000.

Roy Zegers - 2005 Radar Detector ShootOut

To support john’s defense he sought the assistance of a good friend of mine Roy Zegers who has over 30 years experience in police radar equipment and countermeasures.

In court Roy proved that the officer was wrong by enlisting the help of a surveyor who measured the road and proved that the distance the officer claimed he used in measuring John’s speed was not long enough if in fact John was traveling at the 149 Km/h speed.

Hats off to Roy for coming to the aid of someone unjustly cited and to John who spent so much of his time and money to prove his innocence.

If you feel that you have been unjustly cited I recommend downloading our free Radar Detector Buyers Guide where we have a chapter that outlines many of the mistakes of police radar and lidar.

One of the great things about being Radar Roy is that you get to play with new toys before they are announced to the general public.

However, one of the bad things about being Radar Roy is that you have to spend hours and hours of creative thinking just so you can publish a new article or video about all these new toys.

I mean how often can you put a new spin on some new model wiz bang radar detector that really isn’t that much different from all the other models?

However with Escort’s newest launch Escort Live product, I didn’t have any problem with any of that creative thinking stuff because the engineers over at Escort had already done that for me.

I mean is that they took a concept that many of us have been dreaming about for years and made it into reality.

Plus Escort Live wasn’t some new wiz bang radar detector at all, but a simple interface that you connect to your Escort/Beltronics radar detector that connects you to a community of like minded drivers.

Several months ago when I was at the Escort Headquarters during my first introduction to Escort Live I was amazed at the simplicity of the design and interface.

Basically what the engineers introduced me to was an Escort Smart cord that had a Bluetooth interface that you plug into your (compatible) Escort or Beltronics radar detector, which then interfaces with your iPhone or Android.

Download their app, activate the Bluetooth, launch the application and you’re instantly connected to a worldwide community of other Escort/Beltronics users.

However there was one small problem during my introduction, this product was so new that there wasn’t any “real” Escort Live users on the network yet, just a bunch of Escort/Beltronics engineers (geeks) all of who were based in Cincinnati.

However I during my two day stay, I did get an opportunity to interact with them using Escort Live during my initial review.

As some of members of our radar detector community may know I’m a licensed general aviation pilot so on my first day I decided to take a drive out to Sporty’s Pilot Shop at Clermont County Airport, a 23 mile trip on I-275.

A few miles after crossing back into Ohio from Kentucky my Escort Live began alerting on my iPhone and Redline to a few spots that had already been marked as being “Speed Traps”.

Then coming down a hill I spotted two Ohio troopers that were shooting laser toward my direction.

I pressed a button on the Escort Live smart cord and made my first “Cop Spotted” notification.

A few seconds later my iPhone screen refreshed and my “Cop Spotted” alert had already been broadcast out to the Escort Live network.

A few minutes later I arrived at Sporty’s and my first reaction was “wow, what a small airport” as I had taken a number of Sporty’s DVD courses and for some reason had the impression that the Clermont County Airport was a much larger place then it actually was.

However, their pilot shop was extremely impressive!

I spent 30 minutes trying on headsets, looking over new manuals and ended up buying a new kneeboard for my iPad before I left.

I then headed back to Cincinnati taking the same road to check if my “Cop Spotted” alert I made earlier were still active.

As I approached within a few miles of my marked location I saw my “Cop Spotted” alert had changed from red to orange indicating that this was an older marked location.

I tapped on the icon and it showed that that location had been marked 42 minutes earlier.

I spent the remainder of the day testing out using the false alert tool that allows you to block known false alert locations, creating my own “cop spotted” alerts in the neighborhood of the Escort offices to keep the Escort geeks on their toes and to see some of the sights in and around Cincinnati.

A few days after arriving home my own cache of Escort Live units arrived which I passed out to friends and family so we could test them out within our own little community.

One of the first “Cop Spotted” alerts that were made was by my neighbor who marked an officer just around the corner from our homes.

I was a little perplexed when I first saw this “cop spotted” alert as I pulled out from my driveway as I literally live out in the middle of no-where in a private gated airpark community so it’s very uncommon to have any police in our neighborhood.

But sure enough, when I went around the corner there was an officer parked, so I marked the spot again to refresh the database to warn our community.

Over the course of the next several weeks we all shared information about radar/laser alerts, cop spotted alerts and speed traps that we all came across.

Then last week, Ron Gividen from Escort came out to our home/office to get our take on their product and to shoot a few videos.

The only negative thing that I could share with Ron was our network of users was so small as the Escort Live product had not yet been released yet to the general public.

However even our small community of users we were very successful in alerting each other of imminent speed traps.

Ron said he understood this and why Escort has decided to have a limited time promotional price till the end of the year of only $79.95 to get the user base built up fast.

Ron then asked me to think about a one-line quote to share my experience with Escort Live with our members.

And it only took me a moment to respond:

“Ron, Escort Live will change the way people think about and use a radar detector forever. Escort Live joins us into a community that will make us all a more intelligent and safer driver.”

Are you interested in learning more about Escort Live or to have a chance at getting one for free?

If so join me on November 2nd at 3:00 pm Pacific as we broadcast live from the floor of this years SEMA show.