There's no crying in softball

[jmaellis]

Okay, not that it has much to do with the original topic of this thread, but I can shed some light on this radar issue (if you really want to know). I'm a 15+ year LEO, radar certified, moving & stationary.

radar guns send out waves and measure the speed with which those waves are returned to the device

The radar unit measures the change in frequency of the radio wave, not it's speed.

Baseball v softball - I haven't a clue why that would be different unless it is related to the path of the ball relative to the position of the gun - that IS important, since the radar gun basically is measuring the doppler effect of the moving ball on the radar waves. But, again, I would expect the variability to be relatively small so long as the gun operator is REASONABLY behind the catcher (not off to one side or the other much).

I also don't see why a different gun or calibration would be needed for a baseball vs. softball. The angle could make a difference .. the greater the angle of offset to the target the less accurate the radar (always a reduction from actual speed). Size of the target, length of track and speed of the target all factor into how far from true speed the radar might register. There is an equation to figure this all out if you have all the relevant data. Regardless, the poster is correct, as long as the radar unit is not offset by much, it's not likely to make much (if any) difference.

All radar guns must still be calibrated. For police officers, this is done by placing a tuning fork in front of the gun, supposedly every shift, to simulate a moving car and to give a particular reading.

Radar units are "calibrated" by the factory in accordance with a recommended schedule, department policy and any relevant law. Tuning forks (usually frequencies for 35 MPH and 50 MPH) are used to check the accuracy of the radar, usually at he beginning and end of each shift (that was my practice anyway) Tuning forks don't calibrate anything, they're used to check/verify the accuracy of the factory calibrated unit.

This is how things were for the radar units that I used. Any tinkering with the insides of the units was strictly done by the manufacture. I suppose there could be units out there that are not used for law enforcement purposes that might allow tinkering or self calibration .. dunno.