What's on your Christmas list?

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GiveMeABreak
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by GiveMeABreak »

The laser beam at about 300 Metres is reported as being about a meter wide. So picking up radar scatter at greater distances than this from a targeted vehicle in front of you should provide additional warning, but realistically, you really need a GPS based system these days to be of any real use which also provide the locations of known mobile locations as well as all the fixed sites in Europe. Mine has the verbal warnings (I swear it's the same lady that did the technical voice over for the Citroen C6 Suspension video) as well as the range.
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doctle
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by doctle »

I Ireland we have speed vans. Their website will helpfully tell you in advance where they will be and at what time. Fixed cameras are well signed yet people get done for speeding all the time, you'd wonder why!
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GiveMeABreak
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by GiveMeABreak »

Yes we have more mobile vans here in the Welsh wilderness - but the problem is that you don't know where you are going to be driving all the time and don't really have the time to faff about looking online and remembering all that - there are too many other issues here like the constantly changing road speed limits that the Local Authorities seem to be doing almost weekly! So whilst you are concentrating on what the speed is, where you are going, and watching out for OAPs on a mission and Boy racers hurtling round the country lanes, kamikaze sheep, dive bombing kites, remembering where a speed camera may or may not be is not really practical. I have to say that for 95% of the time I drive within the speed limits - but because of the frequent changes in road limits - you can't always remember if you are in the 40 or the 30 at a particular stretch - and that's what caught me out!

Anyway - I was offered a Speed Awareness Course and this particular one was much better than the one I went on 5 years ago - they actually had modern videos - not some 1970s rubbish with Ford Cortinas and the like! So now I can work out what the speed limit is regardless - which is probably the most useful thing on the course. Which I now hope will be the last time I'm on one - but at least no points and no fine! The only purpose I got my GPS laser / radar detector is for awareness and reminder of the speed limits not to deliberately speed.
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by Hell Razor5543 »

If the pulse on a speed trap has a WORKING range of ONE mile you can, in theory, DETECT the pulse while you are still TWO miles away from the trap. The pulse has to have the strength to travel to working range and back, and does not stop at the 1 mile point but carries on until it completely dissipates.
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GiveMeABreak
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by GiveMeABreak »

Depending on your radar detection range of course - but that's as I said - radar scatter as the operator has to aim at a specific car - you will only pick up what is dissipated beyond that. But having the GPS warns you well in advance according to the settings and counts down - so covers you both ways.
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Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur »

Dream List....

Driveway
Double Garage
Bodyshell Inverter
Xantia, BX or XM Estates, Hillman Imp Californian or Saab Sonnet
Dash Cam
Donations to my partner's favourite Hedgehog Sanctuary, they're really struggling

....money to purchase the above and space to store them!

....as a minor update, just in case anyone remembers my Thread from a long time ago, which much useful advice about Dash-Cams, I didn't feel I could 'stretch' to even the cheapest of those, but I did purchase
1.... USB port fallen into device, possibly in post, so didn't work at all
2.....didn't focus
3.....did work but had a big red line through the screen
1 was s/h, 2 & 3 were new
and gave up, figuring you can't get a working Dash-Cam for less than £15

I recently purchased a windscreen mount for the i-phone figuring I'd give that a go stuck to the screen on 'video mode' for £2.50 and while being a bit 'Heath Robinson' it might avoid the agro of routing wiring tidily. After non-arrival and investigation, I was given 'Proof of Delivery' to an area over an hour from me.
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by doctle »

GiveMeABreak wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 11:47 Yes we have more mobile vans here in the Welsh wilderness - but the problem is that you don't know where you are going to be driving all the time and don't really have the time to faff about looking online and remembering all that - there are too many other issues here like the constantly changing road speed limits that the Local Authorities seem to be doing almost weekly! So whilst you are concentrating on what the speed is, where you are going, and watching out for OAPs on a mission and Boy racers hurtling round the country lanes, kamikaze sheep, dive bombing kites, remembering where a speed camera may or may not be is not really practical. I have to say that for 95% of the time I drive within the speed limits - but because of the frequent changes in road limits - you can't always remember if you are in the 40 or the 30 at a particular stretch - and that's what caught me out!

Anyway - I was offered a Speed Awareness Course and this particular one was much better than the one I went on 5 years ago - they actually had modern videos - not some 1970s rubbish with Ford Cortinas and the like! So now I can work out what the speed limit is regardless - which is probably the most useful thing on the course. Which I now hope will be the last time I'm on one - but at least no points and no fine! The only purpose I got my GPS laser / radar detector is for awareness and reminder of the speed limits not to deliberately speed.

The speed vans are on rural roads always on the same places on the road and only on roads where someone has died in a car crash. In the bigger towns and cities they do change the speed limits randomly and this is where you'd find a cop, usually on an overpass shooting fish in a barrel. Oddly satnav on my phone seem to get this information fairly quickly so having satnav running may help.
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GiveMeABreak
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by GiveMeABreak »

Yes I understand that, unfortunately round here they also change the speed limits on the roads quite frequently, it’s going from 40 to 30, and the number of 20 mph zones is increasing all the time. I already have satnav built-in to the car and that has risk areas, but it doesn’t work with mobile speed traps only the fixed ones so I find that having the radar detector with GPS is a secondary back up.
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Marc
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CitroJim
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by CitroJim »

Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 13:16 Dream List....

Driveway
Double Garage
Bodyshell Inverter
Xantia, BX or XM Estates, Hillman Imp Californian or Saab Sonnet
Dash Cam
Donations to my partner's favourite Hedgehog Sanctuary, they're really struggling

....money to purchase the above and space to store them!



Nice one :) My only real wish is to hear that Ray Noon, who a lot of us know through his Citroen endeavours, especially of the XM kind, has entered remission from his cancer and that in 2018 he gets the all-clear...
Jim

Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
doctle
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by doctle »

To briefly get back to Christmas I need a new wife from Santa. According to the current wife I have to clean the windows, it's December, it's almost always dark and it's bloody cold outside.
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Michel
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by Michel »

doctle wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 13:46 To briefly get back to Christmas I need a new wife from Santa. According to the current wife I have to clean the windows, it's December, it's almost always dark and it's bloody cold outside.


Mine said that. She thinks I did it too.

I actually paid a man to come and do them all one day when she was at work.
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Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur »

can be hard to find a window-cleaner though: I recommend Distilled Malt Vinegar and doing them on a dull day, especially immediately after it's rained
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doctle
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by doctle »

Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur wrote: 20 Dec 2017, 20:38 can be hard to find a window-cleaner though: I recommend Distilled Malt Vinegar and doing them on a dull day, especially immediately after it's rained

She discovered B&Q sells the old pink windolene so its wash the frames and sills then rub it on and polish it off. Grrr
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Richard_C
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by Richard_C »

I had a man ring me up about my windows, said I needed cleaning. I said about time too, I'd been waiting in all day for him to turn up and hope he had his own long ladders because one side of the house is hard to reach. He got all huffy and accused me of misunderstanding and said it was my computer needed cleaning, so I asked him was he sure because my computer had a screen but no windows to see in or out. He got even more huffy and said it was my operating system he was talking about (sort of implied I was a bit stupid) and he could see it needed cleaning so I asked him what sort it was and he said Windows 7 so I said I would have a look and said - oh, my windows says OSX on it. He hung up, so I still need someone to come round and clean my windows.

Meanwhile for Christmas I would like a roof-rack launched anti radar/laser gun missile system that destroys the equipment but leaves the person intact, my old SAAB 9-5 back but in factory fresh brand new condition, and a roundhouse like the old Great Western sheds so I can keep a dozen or so cars and use any one of them without having to shuffle the pack.
Richard_C

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Past Citroens: Dyane (x2), 2CV, Visa, BX (x2), Xantia, Xsara Picasso, C3 (x2) C5 X7 Tourer, Synergie 1.9TD, C1
Others: Hillman Hunter, Cortina Mk 1, Maxi, VW Type 2, Granada, SAAB 900, SAAB 9-5, R5 Gordini
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white exec
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Re: What's on your Christmas list?

Unread post by white exec »

Some FCF humour at its best. Wry and Pithy*.

*Weren't they an old comedy duo?
Chris