Next we’ll set up and configure the ALP. Out of the box it ships as a parking sensor only so we’ll need to enable the laser jamming functionality and then customize the rest of the features we want.

Here’s a video that will walk you through the update process and explain what the different options mean. Note: New features have been added since this video was created in 2015. The written version (last updated in 2021) is under the video and has been updated to include new features.

AntiLaser Priority Configuration Page

Go to alpupdate.com and then underneath “Configure,” click the blue Enter button.

Select the appropriate region.

You’ll be dropped into the configuration area.

Profiles

Profiles are super cool. Rather than run one group of settings, you can load in multiple settings profiles and switch between them on the fly between 3 different pre

defined configurations. For example, you can run your ALP’s in jamming mode for day-to-day use. If you see a cop ahead and want to be a superstar and kill your jammers before he even shoots you, you can switch over into detection only mode where you’ll get notified if he shoots you and even what lidar gun he’s using, but your jammers won’t jam him and you won’t raise any suspicions. You could also switch over to another profile that disables all lidar jamming and detection abilities altogether and leaves your ALP’s as parking sensors only.

Note: This feature is only available if you’re using the optional HiFi module or Bluetooth module. If you have the standard control pad, you can still use different profiles, but you’ll need to keep different USB drives in your car. Each USB drive will have a unique profile and you switch between profiles by physically plugging a different USB drive into the ALP.

If you’re using the HiFi or Bluetooth modules, go ahead and click the “Use profiles” checkbox in the top right of the configuration options page.

We’ll run through the individual settings first and then we’ll come back to the profiles at the end of this post and go over some profile combinations you may want to use once you’re familiar with the different options available.

Customizing Your Settings

Most of the options, like volume controls, are pretty self-explanatory, though you’ll get a better feel for them and may want to change some settings once you start driving. For example, you may find that the volume is fine when sitting in a quiet parking lot, but it’s too quiet when you’re driving on the highway with the windows down. (You can test this by entering the menu with the control pad while driving.) So feel free to configure everything and don’t be afraid to come back later and tweak things further.

If you’re not sure what any option does, hover your mouse over the blue ? icon and it will pop up more detailed information.

Master Audio Volume: Adjusts the main volume of the ALP including menu beeps, parking sensor beeps, alarms when you get shot with laser, etc.

Parking detection (PDC) range control: Adjust how sensitive your parking sensors are. If you’re picking up other vehicles too easily in traffic, especially those with shiny chrome bumpers, you can back it off. If you want further detection range, you can crank it up. You can also disable the parking sensor capability altogether.

Silent Power-up: Quiets things down on startup for you.

LED Mode: The ALP has two indicator LED’s, one in the control pad and another external one you can place somewhere convenient. Under normal mode the LED’s are bright, under dim they’re dim, and under dark they’re off. Auto-dim automatically adjusts the LED brightness for daytime and nighttime driving based on the time of day and requires a GPS antenna. You can also adjust their brightness independently by selecting dim and then adjusting the sliders. Once you get shot or go into the menus, however, both LED’s will light up full power.

Status LED: Allows you to make the LED’s solid instead of blinking.

Parking detection and port monitoring: If you’d like to enable / disable parking sensor capability on individual sensors, you can do that here.

Installation on LCC equipped cars (laser anticrash): If your car has laser assisted cruise control or collision avoidance systems built-in, you can let the ALP know so it can filter out those signals. Note: This should only be used to filter out false alerts from your own vehicle, not from other vehicles around you.

GPS receiver present: If you purchased the optional GPS receiver, click yes to enable the GPS-related options.

“GPS Signal Lost” voice message: Customize how the ALP alerts you when it loses a GPS signal.

PDC SPEED limit: Disable parking sensor functionality when traveling above a certain speed. This requires a the GPS antenna. It doesn’t use your phone’s GPS if you have your phone connected via Bluetooth.

Enabling Your Jammers

Out of the box your jammers ship as parking sensors only and you’ll have to enable your jammers here. At the bottom under “Advanced Options,” you’ll see 3 different boxes.

PDC Only: Parking sensor only

PDC & DLI: Parking sensor & laser detection

PDC & LID: Parking sensor & laser jamming

Click on the blue box all the way over to the right that says “PDC & LID.” This will enable your jamming functionality and will open up more features underneath.

The alphabet soup of PDC, DLI, and LID I’ve never bothered remembering. :p In short, the left option (green) is your parking sensors only. The middle option (yellow) adds detection of laser guns and announcing what gun you’re hit with, but it won’t jam. The right option (blue) enables your laser jammers.

The colors also correspond to the colors of the LED’s on your ALP when they’re in your car. Basically remember that blue means you’re protected. Green or yellow means you’re unprotected.

Laser Jammer Specific Options

Audio volume of Laser Alerts: Adjust the volume of your laser alerts independent of the master volume.

Audio volume of Radar Alerts: Adjust the volume of your radar alerts independent of the master volume.

Pro Mode: By default when you get shot, your laser jammer alarm goes off continuously and the lights light up. The lights and sounds will stay on, even if the officer lets go of the lidar gun’s trigger. Pro Mode will make it so the LED only lights up when you’re actually being targeted so you get more information. There’s also an additional sound that will play only when you’re being shot. This is helpful to know exactly when you’re being targeted and when he stops shooting you, if you’re getting a direct hit versus perhaps picking up scatter, etc. Very useful feature. For simplicity’s sake you can keep Pro mode turned off, but having it turned on provides additional useful information during a lidar encounter and is recommended for advanced users.

Menu button short press function: With a single press of the menu button, you can switch on your fog lights (an ALP accessory available overseas) or switch your jammers into parking sensor only mode. The parking sensor mode is a useful option for people who use the standard control pad and want to kill their jammers before they’re shot. This will not provide laser detection, only parking sensor capabilities. If you’re using the optional HiFi module, keep this function disabled so it doesn’t conflict with using profiles which are activated by a double press of the menu button. I’ll cover profiles in more detail towards the end of this section.

LID Speed Limit: If you have the GPS antenna connected, you can have your laser jammer functionality enabled only when you’re traveling above a preset speed. To disable your jammers, you’ll need to either a) use the LID timer to automatically kill after a few seconds, b) press either button on the control pad during an alert, c) tap anywhere in the ALPconnect app when using Bluetooth on your phone, or d) using the Auto LID option to disable your jammers when traveling below a set speed. If you’re using Tx sensors, your jammers will turn on above 18 mph, a limitation ALP built in to protect against their competitors figuring out how the Tx sensors work by studying them in a lab.

Below set LID Speed Limit: When you’re traveling below your predefined speed you just set, do you want your jammers to switch to parking sensor only (PDC only) or both parking sensor and laser receiving mode (PDC & DLI)?

Auto LID: Enable this option to give your ALP’s the option to automatically kill your jammers when you drop below a predefined speed. When enabled, the different speed options will show up.

Auto LID Speed: Automatically kill your jammers when you slow down below your chosen speed. This is another great way to automatically kill your jammers when you brake. (This option shows up if you enable Auto LID.)

LID Time: One of THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS to know about your jammer is that you NEVER want to jam a police officer for a long period of time. There’s a term for it called “Jam To Gun” or “JTG” where the officer starts shooting you and then you jam him continuously all the way until you pass him and so he gets no reading off of your car. This is a terrible idea, even if jammers are completely legal in your area. (You want them to stay that way, right?) The ALP’s do allow you to do this which is useful for testing purposes, but you can also have them automatically disable themselves after a preset period of time. The LID time is basically how long your jammers will jam for until they automatically shut off. Your goal is to get down to the speed limit within about 3 seconds or so of being shot and kill your jammers. You can kill them manually (Jam To Kill, or “JTK”) by pressing either button on the control pad and you can also have your ALP do it for you. 4-5 seconds max is a good rule of thumb. I wouldn’t recommend any longer. This is also a great option if anyone else drives your car, that way they don’t inadvertently JTG an officer if they get shot and don’t know anything about your ALP’s or JTK’ing.

After LID timeout: After your jammers time out, do you want them to immediately go into the warm-up phase or do you want them to continue detecting police lidar so you can tell how long you continue to be shot for? If you select “DLI & Warm-up”, your jammers will continue to alert you so long as you’re being targeted. Once you stop getting shot, your jammers will stop detecting lidar and go into the 60 second warm-up phase.

Laser Scanner Override: If you encounter the Poliscan which is typically set up as a fixed photo lidar system (in use in Maryland and in certain countries overseas), you can set the ALP for unlimited jam time specifically for the Poliscan, overriding the automatic shut-off features used for normal handheld laser guns.

Skip first warm-up: When you first start your car up, do you want your jammers to arm immediately or wait 60 seconds?

Poliscan: Enable / Disable Poliscan jamming abilities. The Poliscan is pretty tough to jam and there are some sources of Poliscan false alerts. There’s a filtering option available you can enable to help deal with these falses and it works great. If you’re still getting falses and don’t have the Poliscan in use in your area, you can disable Poliscan jamming capabilities altogether.

Poliscan false rejection (PFR): Enable filtering of Poliscan false alerts. Note: This feature shouldn’t be enabled if you plug older AntilLaser G9 or G9RX heads into your ALP CPU. (The G9 series jammers were the predecessor to the ALP.) If you’re using the newer ALP heads that come with the ALP, don’t worry about it. Leaving this on will help filter out false alerts.

Stalker: The default mode of “Max” could throw errors on some versions of the older Stalker LZ1 lidar guns and so you could switch to “Optimal” if you’re concerned about that. However, Stalker moved away from those guns in 2013 and they’ve since been discontinued so it’s recommended to set your ALP to “Max” nowadays.

VoicePack mode: Simple gives you a simple alarm when you’re shot while Detailed will announce which gun you’re being shot by which is very useful information.

Radar Detector Specific Options

Radar antenna model: If you have the optional Radar/GPS module and a radar detector such as the Net Radar DSP plugged into your ALP, you can select which radar detector you’re using and the customize the different radar detector specific settings and filtering options available. (We’ll go over the options for the NR DSP. Some options change if you select another radar detector, but many are similar.)

Activate dual mode: If you’re running both the original Net Radar and a second Net Radar MRCD antenna in close proximity, select yes.

Mark connected antennas: Front 1 is your NR or NR DSP antenna. Front 2 is if you’re using the optional NR MRCD antenna. (The NR DSP has MRCD capabilities built in and doesn’t need an additional MRCD-specific antenna.) Rear is for your rear antenna to give you directional information.

Note: Each of the different antennas need to be adjusted individually. If you adjust the settings for the Front 1 antenna, for example, you’ll still need to go in and configure your Front 2 and Rear antennas when applicable.

Radar bands: Select which radar bands, X, K, and/or Ka bands, you want the detector to pick up.

Ka-POP helps you pick up 67 ms Ka POP radar. Leave it off.

K-Traffic filter helps you filter out traffic sensors on the side of the highway. Leave off unless you get regular blasts of K band every mile or two as you drive down the highway.

K-filter helps you filter out false alerts from other vehicles with blind spot monitoring systems. Enable this.

K-POP helps you detect 67ms K band POP radar. Leave it off.

MRCD enables detection of the MultaRadar CD radar gun in use in Alberta, Quebec, and some places in New York.

K Band Options: Fine tune exactly which range of frequencies the detector alerts to on K band. Police in the US transmit across all of K band so K Wide is recommended.

Ka Band Options: Choose which segments of Ka band the detector scans for.  With the original NR, the detector always sweeps all of Ka band and the segmentation options are just muting. With the NR DSP, Ka segmentation actually adjusts which frequencies the detector scans for which means you’ll have a performance boost if you disable unneeded segments.

In the US, you can set the NR DSP to scan for 2/5/6/8 and you’ll be set. I’d also recommend disabling K5 and only running 1/2/3/4/6 to cut out Honda/Acura BSM’s.

Learn which segments are needed across the US.

Read this article about Ka Band segmentation for more information.

Ka band at Full Strength: For the first 3 seconds, treat every Ka signal as a full strength alert, then alert normally. Disable if you want a weak signal to sound like a weak signal when you first detect it (recommended).

Radar Filter Profile

Choose which radar filter profile is the default setting.

Highway is maximum sensitivity at all times.

City yellow filters out X and K band signals when they’re still weak, only alerting you to stronger signals.

City red is even more aggressive filtering, requiring signals to get stronger still before you get an alert.

You can change filter profiles on the fly by double pressing the power button (left button) on the control pad or by tapping on the filter setting on your phone app.

Radar Filter Thresholds

Adjust how strong a signal needs to get (on a scale from 1-10 where 1 is a weak signal and 10 is a full tilt strong signal) before your radar detector alerts.

Radar Automute

Alert at full volume for 6 seconds and then reduce the audio volume to a quieter level after the radar detector has your attention.

Radar Speed Limit

Low speed muting. The radar detector will only alert when traveling above a set speed.

Radar Speed Limit Bands

Choose if low speed muting applies to X/K/Ka bands or only to X/K. Ka is almost always a high priority and legitimate alert so it’s good to know about that even when traveling at low speeds.

Mute car-radio during Radar Alerts

If you’ve wired the stereo mute cable from the ALP into your stereo, you can choose if you want your radar detector to mute your car stereo when you get an alert.

Configuring Different Profiles

As mentioned in the beginning of this post, if you’re using the optional HiFi or Bluetooth modules and want to program multiple profiles into your ALP, you can do that. If you’re using the standard control pad, you can do the same thing but copying different configuration setups to different USB keys and then loading in the appropriate USB key as desired.

If you’re using the built-in profiles options, you switch by pressing the Menu button twice.

On the phone you’d click on the profiles button in the ALPconnect app.

To program the different profiles, you can click on the different tabs for Profiles A, B, & C at the top of the configuration page.

To the right of those tabs where you checked the box to enable profiles in the first place, there’s a pull-down menu to make it easier to copy settings from one profile to another.

Here’s an example of 3 different profiles I like:

Profile A: Jamming mode

4 sec auto JTK, Dim mode. Control pad glows dim blue so I know my jammers are turned on and armed without them being too bright.

Profile B: Detection mode only

Normal brightness, LED’s will glow yellow and are set to blinking mode to make sure it gets my attention and lets me know my jammers are deactivated. If I want to temporarily kill my jammers before I get shot, a double press of the menu button switches me into detection mode only. I’ll still get notified if I get targeted and which gun the officer is using.

Profile C: Parking mode only

Normal brightness, LED’s glow green and I have the Status LED set to constant to let me know they’re in parking mode without attracting too much attention to themselves otherwise.

There’s a bunch of other creative ways you can set up your profiles as well for different purposes. For more ideas, take a look at this thread where people are posting up their ALP profiles.

Loading the Settings into Your ALP

Finally once you’re happy with the settings you’ve chosen, download the settings, copy them over to a USB drive, and plug that USB drive into your ALP.

If you’re using the standard control pad and will be keeping multiple USB drives in your car, it’s handy to have them color coded so you know which is which when you reach for one. I like these Verbatim USB drives. The blue I use as my main jamming profile, for example. You can use any USB drives, of course. Just make sure they’re quality brand name ones. Don’t use cheapy ones which have been known to cause problems with the ALP.

Also, if you load the settings into your ALP and then later find you want to change something, if you’ve saved the file you downloaded from the website, you can reupload that file back to the ALP configuration website and it will automatically set the configuration page back up the way you last left it. Very handy!

Now that you’ve got your ALP set up, let’s talk about getting them tested to make sure they work and then how to use them when you’re out on the road.

Continue on to Part 8: Get Your Setup Tested

ALP Setup Guide Sections:

1. Why go with the AntiLaser Priority?
2. Deciding how many heads you need
3. Proper head placement
4. Proper head installation
5. Register your system
6. Update to the latest software
7. Configure your settings
8. Get your setup tested
9. How to use your jammers
10. Installation & setup checklist

Firmware updates are vital for your jammers. You get important bug fixes, helpful new features, and most importantly, updates to support new laser guns as they come out. Let’s go over how to update the different aspects of your ALP’s.

Firmware Update

Go to alpupdate.com, then click on “Firmware upgrade.”

Under “Control Box update,” there will be a spot to enter in your control box’s serial number. It’s the same one we needed for registration.

The serial number is located on the control box itself (the main white box that everything else plugs into) as well as on the box that the control box ships in.

On the next page, solve the anti-spam math problem and then download the firmware update.

Note: Remember your control box serial number! You’ll need it again every time you go to update your jammers when new firmware updates are released. Once you install your ALP’s, it won’t be easy to find the number since your control box will be tucked away somewhere in your car and you will have already recycled the packaging box. I have the serial number saved in my password manager. Be sure to write yours down and save it somewhere you can access later too. The serial number for the individual heads you won’t need for updates, only the control box. If you have multiple ALP systems for different vehicles, you’ll need to save the serial number for each system.

Control Set Update

You’ll also want to update your control set, aka the control pad that you install somewhere in your cabin. If you have the standard control pad, not the optional HiFi module, download the “Basic Control Set.”

HiFi Module Updates

If you purchased the optional HiFi module to give you voice alerts, download the “HiFi Control Set” instead. You don’t need both.

Additionally if you purchased the HiFi module, download one of the voice packs. There’s different languages and different voices available. You can preview the voices and then download the one you prefer. I run the female English voice, but you can run whichever you prefer.

Note: Be sure to keep the filenames as-is. Don’t change them. You’ll also want to use a high quality USB drive like this one with your ALP. Cheapy ones have been known to cause problems with the ALP so it’s best to stick to brand names.

Copy all of these files over to your USB drive and then plug that USB drive into your ALP. This will take care of updating the different components of your ALP.

Performing a Factory Reset The First Time

The very first time you go to update your ALP, you’ll want to perform a factory reset first. You see, the ALP is smart and it learns how many heads you have plugged in to your ALP and even which ports they’re plugged in to. This way, if a head ever fails, you’ll get an error so that you can do something about it. It’s much better than finding out the hard way. 😉

Now there are many times that your ALP will be powered on before everything is all set up and installed in your car (factory test, dealer test, garage installer test, customer test, etc.) and so your ALP doesn’t know when everything is fully set up for driving. By doing a factory reset, the ALP will learn how many heads are now plugged in and if anything changes, you’ll get a warning. That’s why you’ll want to do the factory reset once everything is fully installed.

Here’s how you do the factory reset:

• Long press MENU to enter Yellow menu (LED will change yellow)
• Press NEXT (Menu Button) five times (5)
• Press ENTER (Power Button)

Once that is complete, it’s then safe to start loading in updates, voice packs, and the settings you’ll create in the next section.

Next let’s go ahead and set up and configure your ALP with the settings that you prefer.

Continue on to Part 7: Configuring Your ALP

ALP Setup Guide Sections:

1. Why go with the AntiLaser Priority?
2. Deciding how many heads you need
3. Proper head placement
4. Proper head installation
5. Register your system
6. Update to the latest software
7. Configure your settings
8. Get your setup tested
9. How to use your jammers
10. Installation & setup checklist

In this section we’re going to cover how the heads should be physically installed in your vehicle. Here’s the overall idea:

• They should be installed horizontally, not vertically.
• They should not be installed behind any bodywork or grills. The receivers and transmitters both need a clear line of sight in all directions.
• Your heads should be straight and level.
• They should not be pointed in or out. They should point directly ahead.
• They should not aim up or down. They should point straight ahead.
• They should be flush with your grill to a few mm ahead of them.
• Front center head (regular or Tx) should plug into F2 port of ALP CPU. Left and Right heads can go into F1 and F3, it doesn’t matter which.
• If using rear Tx head, it should plug into R2 port of ALP CPU. Standard rear head or heads go into R1 port.

Messing any of these up can mean the difference between being able to reliably jam lidar guns or not, so it’s important to do this properly.

I’d also like to add that not every installer knows these things. Many can do a fantastic job at wiring everything up and making everything look beautiful, but they may or may not necessarily know how to install jammers for maximum effectiveness, so that’s what we’ll focus on in this part.

Can your Heads be installed behind your grill?

One of the most common mistakes I see people make is installing their jammer heads behind their grill.

This may be done for a variety of reasons:

• People don’t want to affect the look of their vehicle
• People don’t want to cut their grills
• People don’t want their jammers visible, especially if they’re in areas where jammers are banned
• People don’t know that this seriously compromises the performance of their install

If you put a laser jammer behind a grill like this, the grill itself will physically block the receiver from being able to see the incoming lidar beam well from every angle and it will also physically limit the transmitter from being able to send out its jamming pulses.

Here’s another example that will help illustrate the point even more clearly.

You can see right away what the issue is here. Sure you may get lucky if the angles happen to be just right, but this seriously compromises the install and although it would certainly be preferable to have your heads less visible for aesthetic reasons, you won’t have a properly functioning install and you will be wasting time and money.

There’s a common saying: “Stealth the car, not the install.”

Here’s a look at properly installed laser jammer heads.

Notice how professional this install looks. The heads fit nicely in the grill and they look like parking sensors.

Should your heads be pointed Straight, Up, or Down?

You want your heads straight and level, parallel with the ground, aimed directly ahead.

I’ve done some testing with aiming the jammer heads up to see if it helps against overpass shots and while that does work, I got punchthroughs on level terrain. When I aimed my jammers straight again, they worked on both level terrain and from up at an angle.

Aiming your jammers directly ahead is important for maximum performance and it’s for that reason that laser jammers come with a bubble level to help you check this.

Improper jammer head orientation is one of the biggest causes of punchthroughs in testing so this is one of the first things we look for when a PT happens.

Should your heads be aimed Straight, In, or Out?

Similar to what we talked about in the previous section, you want your jammer pointed straight ahead, not aimed left or right, both in or both out. Sometimes we call this having your heads toed in or toed out.

I’ve often seen heads toed out when people align their heads with the contours of their vehicle. Vehicles often curve back a bit (you’ll see it in the illustration below) and if you try to have your jammer heads parallel with your car so that it looks good, they may wind up pointing off to the side rather than straight ahead.

Now you may think that pointing your heads out slightly may help against officers sitting on the shoulder off on the side of the road, but we’ve actually found that jammers work best aimed straight ahead. Doing this gives you the most solid level of protection against targets both ahead of you and off to the side.

Jammer heads can be quite sensitive to misalignment and like I said, this is one of the biggest causes of punchthroughs.

It’s why jammers typically ship with adjustable brackets. Rather than supergluing them to your car or using 3M doublestick tape which doesn’t allow for slight tweaks once they’re set, using an adjustable bracket for your heads lets you fine tune your head orientation for maximum performance and then keep them solid in place once you have them where you want them. Using a sturdy yet adjustable mounting system is ideal.

Make sure the front lens of the jammer sits just in front of the bracket, not in the bracket itself. Some people have cracked or damaged the lens by pushing it into the bracket itself with too much force. It’s best to let the lens sit right in front of the edge of the bracket.

Quick tip: To make sure your heads are both pointed straight forward, use a long straight edge. I like using a long bubble level like this one because I can make sure they’re not only parallel, but also level with the ground. (You can also check to make sure the ground is level too.)

Some cars are rounded and stick out at the front so you may not be able to get a straight edge like this flush with your jammers because your car is blocking it. If that’s the case, you can make two extensions at 90 degree angles at the same distance apart as your jammers and that’s a great solution. Take a look at my crude drawing to better understand what I mean. 🙂

Note: If you’re installing a third head in the center of your grill and that center head winds up farther forward due to the curvature of your car, that’s okay. They don’t all necessarily have to be on the same plane, front to back.

Should your heads be flush with your grill?

How far forward or back should you stick your heads?

Generally you’ll want the heads flush with your grill which looks good, or a few mm ahead of your grill. There’s two main things you want to look for:

• You want your heads to be able to see in all directions and not be blocked by any paneling.
• You want to make sure that your jammer heads are far enough forward so they aren’t getting reflections from your grill a few mm in front of your jammer head, especially if you have a shiny grill. Reflections could confuse the jammer.

A good rule of thumb is that if the lidar gun can’t see the jammer, your jammer can’t jam the lidar gun. So if you have any bodywork that’s physically blocking the view of the jammer in any direction, if there’s any part of the grill that could interfere with the jammer, that’s not a good location for it. Sometimes you’ll need to move your head farther forward so that it’s not being blocked by any body panels.

Here’s an example of a great install. You’ll notice how the head is mounted basically flush yet it still points forward as the grill curves back.

(The only thing to change would be to have the heads be just in front of the metal bracket.)

Here’s a look at the other head, looking down from the top. Notice how it’s just barely sticking out in front of the grill. Perfect.

Bubbles In Or Out?

The ALP heads have bubbles on one side. The laser receivers are behind the bubbles. The transmitters are behind the flat side. Usually the school of thought was to have your bubbles out to get them closer to your headlights since those are your primary targets. If your jammers were super far apart, people would sometimes have their bubbles in to get closer to the center of the vehicle.

ALP heads are quite small and so it really won’t make a difference. This was more of an issue for older generation, wider jammers. At this point most people still go bubbles out since that’s what we’ve gotten used to, but ultimately it just comes down to what you feel looks best on your car. 🙂

Now that we know how to install our ALP heads properly, let’s go ahead and look next at how to set up the ALP, update it, and use it properly.

Continue on to Part 5: How To Register Your System

ALP Setup Guide Sections:

1. Why go with the AntiLaser Priority?
2. Deciding how many heads you need
3. Proper head placement
4. Proper head installation
5. Register your system
6. Update to the latest software
7. Configure your settings
8. Get your setup tested
9. How to use your jammers
10. Installation & setup checklist

In the last section we covered what areas of our vehicle a police officer will target with their lidar guns: Headlights/taillights, grill, and license plates. Knowing this, we need to make sure that our laser jammers fully protect these target areas.

Front Installs

Lidar jammer heads each cover an oval shaped area of the car with a diameter of about 24 inches. For the most effective performance, you should try to space them out no more than 24″ from one another. Knowing this, here’s a look at what two jammers placed on opposite ends of the upper grill would look like in terms of coverage area.

This is a textbook dual head setup. You can see the two heads themselves (the green rectangles in the grill) and the coverage they provide (the green ovals). You can see that they’re covering all the main target areas including the headlights, grill, front plate, and even down to the foglights.

Sometimes the grill makes it a piece of cake to install your heads. Sometimes some drilling and cutting may be required. Here’s a look at the dual head setup on my Miata. I’m not comfortable hacking up my own car so I had a professional do the work.

Allow me to explain a few key points of why this placement works.

• They’re far out enough to cover the headlight/foglight area.
• They’re close in enough to provide sufficient coverage for center mass / front plate shots.
• They’re up high enough so that as you first start to crest a hill, your heads are able to see over the hill too.

On some cars it might be far more convenient to mount the heads down lower. BMW’s with their vertical grill slats are a great example.

One of the nice things about ALP’s is that their increased sensitivity means that we can get away with placement options like this that we weren’t able to before with earlier generation jammers. This used to be a no go before and while installing higher would be ideal, this install would still perform well in practice.

The normal heads need to be mounted horizontally which is why they need to be mounted in the lower air intake. They won’t fit horizontally in the vertical grill slats. However, if you use a Tx head in the center of the vehicle, you can install the normal heads vertically.

• Standard heads must always be installed horizontally when not using a Tx head
• When using a Tx head, standard heads may (but don’t have to be) installed vertically
• Tx head should always be in the center of the vehicle
• Tx head should be at least 20″ above the ground to minimize reflections off the road ahead of you
• Tx head should be at least 8″ away from a normal head to prevent interference

If the car is larger or wider, two heads may not be sufficient to cover the entire area of the vehicle so 3 heads would be required, especially if you have a front plate far from the headlight area. Here are standard configurations for triple head setups.

In this install the two outer heads are spaced farther apart and the central head covers the middle area.

A similar idea works well for larger SUV’s and trucks. I’ve seen people get away with 2 heads on some SUV’s and it works fine since the ALP’s are quite sensitive, but 3 heads are generally the way to go.

In general you’ll want the 3 heads in line with one another, especially if you don’t have a front plate. Sometimes it’s not convenient to put the center head in line such as when you have a vehicle badge in the center of your grill.

If that’s the case, it’s okay to drop the center head down a little bit. +/- 6″ up or down is a good rule of thumb. A slightly lower center head can also help make sure you have your front plate covered well too, if applicable.

If you encounter the DragonEye, you can replace the center head with a Tx sensor.

The Tx head has to be mounted at least 20″ above the ground to prevent reflections from the road up ahead. This is only an issue for sports cars that are lower to the ground and in that situation, if you have a wide but low sports car (like the red Corvette up above), you’re better off with 3 standard heads, even if you encounter the DragonEye.

If you don’t face the DragonEye you’re better off with 3 normal heads on a larger vehicle too.

Otherwise, if you face the DragonEye and you have the ability to mount a Tx head at least 20″ off the ground, go with the Tx head for the center head.

(In case you’re wondering, the ALP supports 3 heads up front max. There’s no way to do 3 normal heads and one Tx head up front for a total of 4 heads or to have multiple Tx heads on one side of the vehicle. Now technically it is possible to do 2 Tx heads up front, but that’s more for a possible future option. There’s currently no benefit to doing 2 Tx heads per side.)

Rear Installs

2 Standard Heads in the Rear

When it comes to rear installs, placement is pretty similar across different vehicles. Most people install just above the license plate towards the tail lights. It’s generally pretty easy to run the wires in through the license plate light area.

With some cars the license plate is way down low, far away from the tail lights. Take a look at the Infiniti G37.

You’ll see here that the standard placement location in green just above the rear plate is pretty far away from the tail lights.

I’ve seen some cars struggle with this location, especially with earlier generations of jammers, and they’ve sometimes had to go for a higher location like the one shown in orange. They’d attach their jammers to their trunk itself and the heads stuck out the back. It was ugly, but it worked.

With the ALP’s, this is another area where the increased sensitivity helps. The lower location in green is more difficult for the jammers, but it can still work nonetheless. Make sure you test, test, test after you get your system installed! We’ll cover testing towards the end of this guide once you have your system installed and configured.

1 Standard Rear Head, 1 Tx Rear Head

On smaller vehicles that face the DragonEye where you can’t space the two heads really far apart, you could opt to use 1 standard rear head and 1 Tx rear head like this.

However, personally I would feel more comfortable having 2 standard heads in the rear for maximum sensitivity and laser detection and 1 Tx head in the center to really counter the DragonEye.

3 Rear Heads

For larger vehicles that would benefit from having 3 heads in the rear, the ALP CPU only has ports for two rear heads, but there’s a trick to getting 3 heads in the back. You’ll use 2 standard heads and 1 Tx head. The two standard heads will plug into a splitter which plugs into the R1 port. The Tx head will plug into the R2 port.

Again the Tx head (red) will be in the center and the standard heads (yellow) will be off to either side.

• Rear Tx head always plugs into R2 port of ALP CPU
• Standard head or heads always plug into R1 port of ALP CPU

Fine Tuning For Your Specific Vehicle

The sample setups that I’m showing you here are basically designed to show you the ideal placement locations in ideal scenarios. When you take a closer look at your car you may find it tough to install heads here due to the shape and design of the grill, a lack of mounting locations on or behind the grill, not wanting to cut the grill, etc.

I would recommend sticking to these textbook locations as much as possible. That said, some vehicles aren’t jammer friendly and there’s no good way of installing your heads without cutting something up.

Even with mesh grills it can be done. Some people look into alternate replacement grills with horizontal slats or buy a second one off eBay that they’re more comfortable cutting into. Some people go into their factory grills. That said, it can be made to look good. Check out this install for example on an Audi S6.

I’ve also seen some creative installs where people have fabricated custom brackets to help their jammers blend in with their car better.

As you can see, each vehicle is different so we can’t say one size fits all, you know?

Getting Specific Recommendations For Your Vehicle

If you need help deciding on the best locations for your vehicle, you can post photos of your car up online on the Laser Jammer Placement Suggestions section of RDF and people will chime in with suggestions. You can also check out photos of other people’s installs in the Show Off Your Install section. (Not everyone installs their jammers well though so you can also take a look at people’s followup comments to see what they think about the installs.)

Now that we have a good idea of placement locations front and rear, let’s take a look at how the heads themselves should be installed to make sure they can properly protect you.

Continue on to Part 4: Proper Head Installation

ALP Setup Guide Sections:

1. Why go with the AntiLaser Priority?
2. Deciding how many heads you need
3. Proper head placement
4. Proper head installation
5. Register your system
6. Update to the latest software
7. Configure your settings
8. Get your setup tested
9. How to use your jammers
10. Installation & setup checklist