are driving towards each other, each with a radar unit operating in the moving mode? Do the microwaves from each others radar jam one another? Does in affect them at all?
I don’t know a lot about radar but I do know that it’s based on a pulse-echo principle – send out a short pulse and listen for the echo. Since the echo returns at the speed of light, the sender doesn’t listen for long. It seems to me there wouldn’t be interference from another radar in the vicinity unless its pulse happened to coincide with the listening portion of the cycle, which, as noted, doesn’t last long. So they probably don’t interfere, IMHO.
I don’t know if radars in general (and police radars in particular) use slightly different frequencies for each unit. If they do then the odds of interference are smaller yet.
The radar waves are sent in short pulses so it is virtually impossible that they would jam each other even if they were exactly the same frequence. I understand that the guns take about 50 readings at a time and choose one.
But I am sure that if either car was speeding it wouldn’t get a ticket.
Witn nautical radars you can get interference when another radar is operating in the same band as the one you are using. The interference patterns usually appear as a spiral pattern of small dots. Most modern radars have a setting that can suppress this interference.
One useful function of “radar interference” is in Racons, which are a type of radar transmitter installed on some major aids to navigation (large bouys, lighthouses, etc.). When a Racon detects a radar signal, it sends out a morse code pulse in same band as the radar that it detected (for instance, I believe the Boston harbor bouy sends out a morse ‘B’). This will appear as a pattern of short and long lines (dots and dashes) extending out from the radar reflection of the navigational aid. It can be quite distinctive when you see it on radar.