Target BluEye TETRA Detector
The Target BluEye is a small display device with LEDs that indicates proximity of emergency services’ personnel and vehicles by reception of their TETRA radio system signals. It has a small oblate hideaway box and needs an antenna.
It does not ‘˜listen in’ to police and emergency services content, it solely shows the presence of radio in that system and its power of signal and thus proximity. It is, in old CB speak, a ‘˜POUND METER’ for the radios of Ambulances, Highways Traffic Officers, Fire Engines, ALL Police cars and helicopters and individual officers with lapel radios. There appears also, by experience to be a slew of cars with the TETRA system on board that you would have no idea about.
Here is a link to a page all about the history of the radio system: Link
In mine
IN A NUTSHELL
A detector for the radios that are used in all emergency vehicles. This works. It will go off a lot and there are gaps between transmissions, so it is simply NOT the demoniac ‘˜license to speed or be a villain’ that the policemen who were interviewed in the paper, said. Here is a link to the Mail Online’s article: Daily Mail
Product Details
Manufacturer: Target Automotive Nederlands
UK Distributor: CBS Automotive
Tel: 01223 563 030
Email: [email protected]
Website: Link
Typical Selling price: £999.00 plus installation, dependent upon vehicle
RATINGS
Overall 9.0 Brilliant. Simple Ronseal job.
HMI/Ease of Use 10 A doddle to operate
Build Quality 9 Nice but could look posher for Porkers
Ease of Installation 8 pro installation as an aerial is needed
Effectiveness 10 Utterly, in fact maybe too scary if you are a baddie.
Value For Money 8 Not cheap but awesome, so an eight.
Heartily Recommended:
And completely in a class of its own as electronic countermeasures:
FEATURES
– Power supply 10 30V DC
– Power consumption when display is turned ON: 300mA (350mA Max)
– Power consumption when display is turned OFF: 275mA
– Fuse: 3A
– Frequency Range: 380 to 400 MHz
– TETRA detection by waveform recognition, no decoding
– Temperature Range: -20 Centigrade to +70 Centigrade
– Dimensions: Central Unit 160 x 22 x 87mm (L x W x D)
– Dimensions: Display 64 x 40 x 7.5mm (L x W x D)
– Dimensions supplied antenna: 72mm high, 35mm diameter of base, 15mm diameter of antenna
(In my car, we used a through-glass type with a small square base and a wire element on the screen)
Editor Review :
This is a very new device and at time of writing, has just been a whole page in the printed Mail On Sunday, complete with a picture of the boss, wherein they decry this thing’s existence and state it aughta be banned. It isn’t, nor, in this land that cares a slice about freedom, despite our being the Most Surveilled Nation On Earth, should it be.
Like anything, a device is entirely down to how it is used and simple rules of civilisation control most people’s worst excesses. To blame the rocks for biblical stonings, or the eating of meat to allow the butchers shop on my all-but-local high street to have had cleavers in that made vile national news when gotten hold of by a psychopath, is jejeune.
For this, to be blunt, is seen as a ‘˜Police Detector’.
I have had one in my car for a while now and have also found it seriously useful for aiding passage of ambulances with the blues and twos, for you simply know it is coming before others around you, spot it further forward or back than you might otherwise and because I drive a Volvo estate, I can get the heck out of the way better. And you take that adrenaline blast as you encounter the full-on emergency driver getting to where they need to be, for granted. I always like to get out of the way and will flash and tootle and wave to help make it happen. This has been so useful, I feel smug for helping, rather than startled.
But again, would you pay a grand for that? And why would you want it?
It’s simple. To be absolutely honest, I do tend to break the speed limit a bit on an empty motorway. I did 5,000 miles of autobahn one summer in a Toyota Hiace with Jon Hiseman and Barbara Thompson (rest her talented diva soul) on a Jazz-Rock tour of studenty venues. But I do not do ‘˜ballistic’. Point is, I DO need the equivalent of having a paternal passenger saying ‘Oi MATE, c’mon, less OF it slow down, Fat Boy.’ From time to time. And having a thing tell you that some sort of TETRA equipped thing or person is nearby or approaching, does focus the attention. I have a Road Angel Gem+ as well, that alerts me to GPS locations of cameras and vans as well as the nav system having its own camera database, so I do have a LOT of data pouring in.
The key is to learn how to use it, not be over distracted by it and to learn how to let it make you behave better.
As for the thing about villainous use of it, I can see that unmarked cars and undercover stuff might have an issue with it but I can tell you that in a month or more, it goes off a LOT. You can use Highway or City setting to tone it down, as well as controlling the volume or simply turn it off but unless you do, it’ll make any villain weep.
For every single plod, every paramedic, every traffic officer becomes as scary as the Sweeney. And if an unmarked crew thinks you have one on board, they COULD power down for the five minutes while they attempt to provoke a road race (I really DO have a problem with that, having experienced it first hand and ruining my attitude for life. Mine was being threatened by an unmarked car in Wareham, Dorset, which made me fear and think it was drunk businessmen by their behaviour. I sped up to fifty in a thirty and they enjoyed their nick, not realising they had lit a flame of the worst antipathy that has never gone out. I know it is not all of them and I have this dear friend, oddly.)
But in a world with laser beams and recognition of our number plates so all-encompassing that we no longer even need to wear a tax disc upon our windscreens, where we are photographed and videoed (as city folks anyways) from a few times to dozens of times a day, where all sorts of electronic equipment is set to eavesdrop if they feel the need, well, I feel it entirely appropriate to equip myself to know what’s pointed at me. I would also like a Radar/Laser detector back on board but don’t have one.
Thus, I am entirely of the opinion that you and your road behaviour can benefit from owning one of these, especially if you DO own a monster that can get you into speedy trouble within the first hundred yards of insane acceleration. Mine is not powerful but if you own a car with real ability to bite yer bum, then you need to think about this. It’d be a grand-plus-install well spent, versus being stupid and banned.
I love mine and while it remains legal, it remains in my car and I feel no shame to call it the best damn Electronic Countermeasure I ever met. Recommended and State of the Art by default.