Device To Beat Micro-wave

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31479, 20 September 1967, Page 1

Device To Beat Micro-wave

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Sept. 19.

An Auckland firm has plans to market 508 micro-wave detection devices for motorists, but the Post Office says it will not issue licences for them.

Mr G. C. Bourne, the chief radio inspector at Auckland, said today that any equipment- other than an ordinary broadcast band receiver would require A special licence. “Licences would not be granted unless there was a legitimate need for the equipment,”he “and that certainly would not include equipment to detect traffic officers’ niierO-wave detectors.”

The plans of the Auckland transformer company to market micro-wave detection devices were revealed in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court today. A radio and television serviceman, Thomas Pedro Kirk, I aged 30, Was fined $6O, on a charge of theft , as a servant. Kirk was accused of stealing radio components valued at $19.35. During the hearing, before Mr J. R. Drummond, SM., a small instrument capable of detecting micro-waves from a traffic officer’s radar set was produced by a C. 1.8. constable. The device was alleged to incorporate parts which Kirk had stolen from his employer, the Auckland Transformer Company. Kirk, represented by Mr L. P. McElwee, pleaded not guilty. Cyril Lloyd Herbert, the

general manager of the Auckland Transformer Company, said the company was working on a prototype micro-wave detector while Kirk was employed by it Constable Alan Henry Huckstep produced a radar detection device which he had found in Kirk’s home. Richard Peter Oakey, the company’s senior scientist identified a printed circuit used in the detector and said he had himself designed it For Kirk, Mr JMcElwee claimed that the parts had

been left lying around and apparently discarded where Kirk worked. , Kirk had watched with interest the attempts to perfect the device and after helping to dismantle the prototype devices bad built his own from parts. “He considers his device far superior to the company’s one and has taken steps to protect his invention,” said Mr McElwee.

The device the company intends to market is contained in a small box suitable for

clipping on the dashboard of a car and is reputed to give warning of a micro-wave speed trap as much as a mile and a half away. Mr J. A. Arthur, the superintendent of the Auckland district of the Transport Department, said that when he had investigated the device he would probably make a report to the Minister. The instruments will be able to be clipped to sunvisors or attached to windscreens and are expected to cost about $32 each.