Safe Speed Forums

Reply to me from our SCP stated ( and almost as if hand had been caught in cookie jar) that perhaps the device "transmitted data to police units "

If it's ANPR set to catch dodgy cars -why all the mind games .But then GS was never one for answering any awkward queations ,was he ,like

"Are you who we say you are " -sorry Steve C -question won't go away .


And Steve ( the mod) --it's more like catching an eel

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

There's nothing that suggests to me it is an ANPR camera, although there's nothing I've seen that suggests that can be ruled it out.
The only concrete answer we've had from greenshed is that there is an additional RF link which is nothing to do with the triggering of the slave from the gatso.

If you can, go out with a video camera, preferably one with the IR filter removed, and point it at this device (you might have to stand in the road - be safe). If you can see a constant emission from it then I would say it probably is ANPR; if not then I would say it isn't.
I can't see a reason for it to be triggered ANPR (triggered by detection of a speeding offence) when there is a nearby camera that would yield the same info.

Does anyone know of such a setup in southwest London?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Will try using my Phone camera -believe it shows up IR- from posts elsewhere about SPECS .Might take the other camera forsome decent pics too - unless some passing cop thinks I'm aterrorist . .

The additions are certainly gatso units - great big sticker on rear - but no mention on Gatso web pages on anything like them .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Since the cameras are almost certain to not be gatsometers but truvelos, I suggest that standing in view of them with a camera is not an intelligent thing to do....the police now have a tendency to arrest people taking pictures of almost anything, and truvelos can be used as static video monitoring units...
The things are almost certain to be infrared emitters ,coupled to the truvelo used as a video monitor, which would enable them for anpr in poor light.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Ones in question that I've stuck up photos of are most certainly Gatsos .What you say is interesting - out of six cameras localy, five are gatso and of the five Gatso ,four have the attachment -the truvello doesn't have it yet ,or perhaps because the attachment is a gatso unit .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

There’s an extraordinary amount of infra red in natural daylight. I know because I use an IR detector in my job to copy IR and IRDA into equipment I program and have to have the curtains closed. So using IR could be unreliable outdoors..

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

The use of ir emitters is widespread in speed cameras, as in all video surveillance systems.
SPECS has (usually) two [about] 20 watt emitters per camera.
Looking at a SPECS installation at night with a digital nightvision unit reveals the intensity of the ir output. Quite literally, they light the road for several hundred metres.
That, coupled with the legislated use of reflective number plates (you didn't think they were just used for their lovely colours ?) means that the plates stand-out from the other reflected light (and the negative of the received image is used anyway)
Looking at the SPECS unit at night with both eyes and nightvision revealed that the visible red was extremely low level (very hard to see) but that the nightvision image was very intense....I could see the brightness backing-down as I pointed the camera at the specs unit....so I think that the emitters are filtered from the mid-ir to the low frequency end...about 850nm.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

All SPECS cameras use IR emitters (LED array or bulb with IR pass filter). It may not be quite so necessary with daylight, but it’s a bit of a must during darkness
Then there is the issue of direction. Plates are retro-reflective, so for the most part they’ll reflect the light back to where it came from; this is to the advantage of SPECS (with inbuilt emitters).

I see Jo beat me to it. I raise him with this.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I think I may need to clarify my position here.

It is plausible this slave flash really is to accommodate a failing of the conversion to digital, not so much for the digital itself (for the reasons given) but for the way it has been used.

If the slave flash truly is necessary, IMO this would be a result of bad design (which is not impossible) - which is why I said "I'm surprised by this". At no point did I say your claim cannot be the case GS, but IMO opting to design such a separate module is the long way around a short problem. I also gave an obvious workaround (so satisfying the "challenge"); there are other workarounds.

Digital is better – if it is used right. With a little bit of effort, digital photography enthusiasts know how to get it right each and every time.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

In looking at their Gatso website Here it fails to mention the requirement of any additional poles etc so I have asked them ! I hope to here back soon.
I asked on Pepipoo too and got this reply here from Dr Science.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I personally have no issue with the concept of this being a secondary flash unit, it would come as no surprise to me that 'they' would implement technology that is not fully fit for purpose, and would therefore require a workaround to make it in any way serviceable.

I think the real issue, if we accept everything 'they' say at face value (and I do not include anonymous forum posters who lie and evade and are very likely charlatans whilst claiming to be officials of some kind in my definition of 'they') is the presence of an aerial, claimed to transmit, in the beaten zone of the Gatso radar. A secondary flash unit has no obvious requirement to transmit anything, and by all accounts these aerials are not ubiquitous. A puzzle indeed.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

On my way back from Royston I stopped and walked along the road to look at the units on the A505.
Both are gatso, and marked with the trade name. The "extra flash" has no antenna and has a diffuser fitted. The gatso camera unit has a flash unit fitted inside. Since they are new I consider them to be digital and not film. I may be going that way tomorrow and if so I will examine their output on my way back....late...but with the diffuser fitted I doubt that they are flash units....

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

At least I am honest enough to recognise that I need to understand and learn more and am doing so, and following up routes of learning and understanding that will give me hard facts and knowledge. Then I can enlighten others if they have not found out for themselves already or at a similar timeframe.
Where do your beliefs come from ? A link or two would be helpful.
Actually if a digital version is less good initially (were they in use without the additional unit - & I assume at some point they had to learn over time that they required the extra light (if this is what it is - still unconfirmed), but then needs a flash to enable further convictions then perhaps, isn't the answer to my question - yes ? - But no, if the units were tested prior to 'launch of digi gatso's' and so launched with the additional pole/flash or whatever it is.
Edited.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

On the point of the aerial -it's visible on the poor photo I put up early on this thread .
It's one of the spiral( rubber duck) ones ,about 12"-14" similar to this one http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=27694, so from a rough geustimate of length ,would be about 800mHz-1.2G,also dependant on any external loading /matching , but that would make it less efficient .

Maybe it's a case of 2+2 =5 ,but very shortly after the first one went operational locally ,unmarked cars were seen operating from a side road close by ,using a deafing fence as cover ,and the absence of a traffic car in it's usual weekly place .
Again - can some photo person advise - got the choice of my Digital camera /mobile phone camera - just tried them on a TV remote on video setting & both showed up the IR output -both as a burst of blue/white light on record .Actually the phone was the better of the two .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Just come back in from nearest gatso with add on - took digital camera ,which will see output of TV remote IR LED -sat opposite it for a minute or so( parked on opposite side of road inside the graduated area) ,with /without cars passing both ways -street almost in darkness - no sign of output from add on . Didn't want to take any flash pics -that might be looking for trouble .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

It has been said elsewhere that these new digigatsos are sensitive only to IR, or that the flash is IR. Is there any truth to either of these? Is it this: Gatso Digital RCS ?

If true, it would go a long way to explaining why a slave flash would be needed; there's relatively little light from an IR flash (film struggles even more with IR).


Is there any truth to the claim (from the PePiPoo forums) that the aerial is there to receive an "amber alert" which would temporarily turn it into a full-on ANPR system?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Steve, I beg to differ; in my experience, IR illumination produces a MASSIVE effect on IR sensitive receivers. Clearly I am not at liberty to go into much more detail, but suffice to say that if IR reception is the issue then I can see a
single IR flash, even a white flash with an IR filter, being more than enough!

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

If the camera has no infrared STOP filter installed then the ccd will be more sensitive at infrared than to visible light. That is why they have ir filters installed at production.
Let me put it this way: Using a device that is filtered to PASS ir and STOP visible light I can BRIGHTLY illuminate my garden with a 200mW ir led.
The ir emitters on a SPECS unit illuminate at ir the same way that a couple of spots using visible light would...*you* just cannot see it...but the cameras do.
And the cameras not only detect the ir, they amplify it as well.

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

That's not the reason why cameras have IR filters.

IR filters are used to eliminate the need for cameras to have really expensive optics (quadruplets or flourite, otherwise images will be blurred) and pixel dyes for the bayer filter (otherwise will get colour errors). Believe me, I've ripped apart and modified enough cameras (video and still) to know.
Take the other side of the spectrum (UV) for example: professional folks use skylight/UV filters for a very good reason (not just to protect their objectives).


It is true that peak sensitivity of photodiodes is in the IR band (800-900nm). However, the sensitivity there isn't a lot greater than that for red or green. However, my issue is not with the receiver, it is with the illuminator.


This is correct. I once made a ~120 LED & 5x1W LED IR array that worked over 50m. That's fine when the exposure time is 20ms and subjects are static. However, the game is totally different when you want a sharp photo of fast moving subjects. Reliably reading the VRM of a vehicle going at 150mph (equivalent of a pan of 51mph sideways from the POV of the 20 deg installation) requires a very short exposure.
Xenon flashes are great for this purpose in the visible wavelengths (delivers all its energy in ~1ms), but they give off buggerall IR, so placing an IR filter in front of one will result with a tiny fraction of the light output - arguably not enough for a good exposure (of the rest of the road and vehicle) even with a digital imager.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Figure 10. The spectral output of the 'raw' xenon flash tube is very rich in infrared.



http://msp.rmit.edu.au/Article_03/02a.html

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing