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Comments
To me the radar detector is just one tool in the arsenal of safe driving. In CA anyway, over 50% of the Highway Patrol cars either does not have or does not turn on the radar.
My 1st issue was that I missed the directional arrows on the V1. Please, no one debate me on the accuracy or usefullness of the arrows. That's not the point of my post. Anyway, missing the arrows aside, I found the rear-antenna of the V1 to be a life saver time and time again. You just don't realize how my times radar is behind you and you mistake it for a week forward single on a regular detector. As far as picking up radar, both the V1 and 8500 were close. Across K, KA and X bands the V1 always reported an alert .5 to 1.0 seconds before the 8500. When leaving the scene of radar, the V1 was always the last one to complete reporting the presense of rader. After 2-weeks of using the V1 and 8500 head-to-head, I return the 8500, kept my V1 and have never looked back.
I ended up buying a Bel 940 from Circuit City to test out. If I really like it, I'll put it in my wife's car and go with it. If not, I'll just return it.
I ordered an Escort 8500, and barring a complete disaster (in which case I'll return it and use the Bel), I'll probably live with it. I'd like to get a real comparison to the V1, but like I said I doubt I could do a real fair test in 30 days that would justify the time and effort to order another expensive detector, knowing I'll be returning at least one of them.
It was a tough decision, because I felt like I was going to have to live with it semi-permanently, but what pushed me over the finish line was this:
I personally DID want the arrows, but the V1 was $100 more and risked what appeared to be questionable Ka performance if you believe some website reviews. The speedzones result made me feel better about the V1 on Ka, but that test didn't indicate the performance would be much better than the Bel or Escort either.
I had been leaning earlier towards the cheaper Bel 940 for comparable performance until I saw the over-the-hill tests, which made me really nervous about getting the best performance possible in what I felt was a common "real-world" situation. That test basically dropped the Bel off my list as the leading candidate.
The Valentine seemed to do well in that test, but the Escort led it, and in conjunction with the price difference, I decided to go with the Escort and try not to think about it anymore. They tell me my Escort should arrive in about a week, and so I'm going to use this Bel as a "tester" in the meantime.
Is there a compelling reason for this? Radar detectors are legal, and so is there a real reason to hide from the police the fact that you're using one?
And besides Virginia and D.C. here in the US, most provinces in Canada and nearly every country except Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Spain ban radar detectors.
But you can sure bet truck drivers especially and many others living in these banned areas still want to use detectors. So, detector stealthiness (both electronically and visibly) becomes a major issue for many detector customers.
This is another area where V1 comes out ahead. It is completely invisible to VG2 detector-detectors (because V1 uses a frequency not scanned by the VG2) and is greatly helped by its magnesium (and not plastic) case where the new Spectre RDD is concerned.
-tom
A friend who travels a lot is telling me that there is a new type of radar coming out that will make all the present detectors obsolete. Has anyone else heard this? If it is true, does it pay to wait for new and improved detectors, or is this far enough away that I should not worry?
I appreciate the advice from those here.
Mark
While I have no knowledge of any "new type of radar coming out", I DO know that if there ever was one, it would be many years before it was in common use. It therefore couldn't "pay" to wait for new detectors. In fact it might COST you significantly if you received a speeding ticket while waiting for what may or may not come.
scipio1:
Incidently, the cost of a speeding ticket is also something that I don't understand others ignoring when they feel that paying the extra $100 for V1's directional arrows isn't worth it.
Blane: For me, cost isn't the issue. Convenience is. Another detector to test is another one I have to repack and send back at the end, and with my schedule I might miss the deadline and end up paying for both. Couple that with the question of whether I'll really have the opportunity to try both more than superficially, and that's where it stood.
So, if possible, it is best to keep the detector as out-of-sight as possible, including from drivers behind you. That can be done by disguising it, mounting it high, not letting the cord dangle down where it can be seen and not letting the warning lights appear to anyone driving behind you or some other clever solutions.
Got the Valentine 1 and set it up for a run through the Bay Area down to Gilroy. A couple of concerns popped up here: (1) Even in full L mode, lots of X band false alarms everywhere. In fairness, I didn't use the Bel along the same stretches so it's hard to say if it's V1 specific, but a concern nonetheless.
At Gilroy, the V1 picked up a CHP cruiser running in the other direction, and once again on 101 on my way back just south of San Jose. Here's the other concern - it did seem to me that the amount of warning I got with the V1 was much sorter than what I got on the I5 with the Bel.
Still, I'm not convinced its the V1's fault. It did detect them in time, and the 101 is more hilly and windy than is the 5. Also, I was running with the Bel in Highway mode along the 5, but had placed the V1 in full L mode on the 101 due to the Falsing X alarms.
Questions: what is the recommended mode for the V1 on the highway, esp. a highway within a metropolitan area like greater LA or the Bay Area?
Truth is, I'm willing to give the V1 the benefit of the doubt for now. I LOVE the direction arrows and the bogey counter. The hidden display I ordered with it is quite good too, although I'm still getting used to looking for it when an alert goes off. These early results, while certainly not good, are not necessarily representative of anything. I'm just a little worried though, because after investing the time and effort to run the wire through my M3 as inconspicuously as possible (something that took me 2 hours), I'm definitely leaning towards keeping it unless it proves to be completely uncompetitive. Still, the results are for now a bit worrisome.
The V1 will get it's big test next week on the drive back down to LA. The Escort 8500 will be waiting for me down there, and will get its turn one I get back.
There's still a win-win possibility here. My wife is now enamored of the idea of a radar detector, so if the V1 and escort work out, I may end up keeping both. If not, the Bel has proven itself more than capable of being an economical alternative my wife can use for her car. I'll post an update next week.
I've abandoned the idea of using any but the "A" (All threats) setting on my V1. I can live with a bit of extraneous noise, but not with the possibility that I am screening out even one REAL signal. I adjust the two sound levels to my liking and press the mute button occasionally.
By your description I run your same routes, so I was amused to see you had some of the same perspectives.
I don't know for sure that the V1 gave me less warning, because I may have been going a little faster today, and obviously the alerts didn't happen at the exact same places as last week so perhaps terrain had an effect. What I do know is that I felt much less confident after today than I did last week.
The weird thing is that on one pass, the forward sensor gave me very little warning, although I was in a pack to the left of a caravan of semi-trucks. I got much more from my REAR sensor once he passed, including some reflections off cars from in front of me. Is my front sensor #^%*%$?
I even went so far as to move the V1 around on the windshield and re-wipe the front sensor cover to make sure it wasn't dirty. The falsing is, I think, a little worse on the V1, but I don't really care much about X and K, since the only real threats I've encountered have been Ka. The possibility that the Ka performance is off has me EXTREMELY concerned, since I had all but decided to keep the V1 and the concealed display. ARGH.
I'm going to call Valentine to see if I may have a faulty unit, since most of the reviews indicate the V1 has good Ka range.
The Passport 8500 was waiting for me here when I arrived. I'll try it out this weekend if I can. It only comes with the coiled cord though, a big disappointment since it will be harder to wire unobtrusively. I really like the setup I was able to put together for the V1.
V1 owners, help me out here. Is there something I could be doing wrong, or perhaps I'm just imagining it? If you are heading down a straight and relatively flat freeway at 85-90 and there's a cop firing Ka driving the other way, how much warning do you expect to get? Last week I felt like I was getting 15-20 seconds of advance warning before seeing him. Today it was more like 5-10 seconds, tops.
For the record, my V1 is wired to the left of the rear view mirror, standard windshield for a BMW M3 convertible, suction cups are on the bottom end of the upper sun tint so that the detector itself hangs just underneath the tint.
According to my calculations you've traveled about a quarter mile in those ten seconds at your (not quite legal) rate of speed.
Since Ka band radar is often used in "instant on" mode, triggered manually by the police officer, you might get NO warning before you are clocked. The brand and model of your detector wouldn't matter.
You might want to consider easing off on the accelerator pedal.
I have (in addition to my V1) an Escort Solo 5 cordless. The detection range is pathetic compared to the V1. I surely hope that they've improved things with the Solo S2.
A couple of things to mitigate that thought: in my admittedly short experience with a radar detector, the CHP cruisers rolling down the I5 seem to have been firing almost continuously at the traffic on the opposite side. Once again, not a fact but a theory based upon a small and inconclusive number of observations.
Second observation of concern: I have not yet had a single warning with the V1 that has come at the range of the ones I got on the Bel last week. Once again, this is based upon an extremely small sample size, but if you shelled out $430 I'm sure it would make you a little nervous too.
As for the speed, yes, it was above the speed limit. No defense there. I will say that I was by no means the fastest, not even out of the ordinary at that speed (I rarely was out outside a pack of at least 4 cars running together - the I5 runs very fast in California). If I had to venture a guess, probably 75th to 90th percentile, with a 95% confidence interval (that's to say an alpha/2 of .025). Believe it or not, I believe the CHP was targetting people marginally faster than me.
But back to my original point. Is this normal for a V1, or do I have reason to believe mine is faulty?
To best answer the question in your last paragraph, I would have to know if your V1 is operating in the "A", "L" or "l" alert/filtering mode. If you are set in any but the "A - All Alerts" mode (the one that I always run with) it is surely possible that your BEL unit, if operating in an unfiltered mode, could be picking up signals at a greater distance. Since I have no recent experience with BEL units (I had one that only covered the X and K bands about ten years ago.) I can't comment further.
The range of a detector can be severly limited by the tint band usually found on the top 10% of windshields. This could explain a perceived better response from the rear compared to the front. This reduction will get worse at higher frequencies (K and Ka band). If you are wondering is this is the problem, try the detector just sitting on the dash (they work best on a visor up as high as possible - as long as there is little tinting on the windshield).
Here in western Canada, the "new" radar that made detector use almost hopeless was the exclusive use of "instant on" moving or stationary radar. If there is lots of traffic the detector is still useful (you can see the officer checking vehicles ahead or behind you and can see him/her getting closer). If there is very little traffic you get no warning. The RCMP are very good at checking you just when you get your first visual view of their car. Sometimes they will turn the radar on contiuously just to slow down traffic.
I drove down to LA today with the Passport 8500 (slated for my wife's car). The detection range was phenomenal. I'd get more than a minute before seeing the CHP cruisers. It's so good, I almost feel guilty about how unfair it is for the CHP... OK maybe not hehehehe.
I saw more CHP today than I have ever seen on the SF to LA leg. I counted 5 white corvette interceptors and 6 black-and-whites firing radar full-out coming in the opposite direction. So far my month-and-a-half long trial has yielded only Ka band radars... all the X and K alarms seem to have been false. Do the CHP, LAPD and Bay area forces actually use anything other than Ka?
I drive about 350 freeway/highway miles per week, and here in Central Ohio (where it's relatively flat), I routinely encounter an impressive number of laser or "Lidar" speed traps, which are often very cleverly hidden just beyond a "blind" curve in the highway, where a driver may not SEE the Lidar trap until it's too late.
But that's why I think my V1 is messed up... the Ka goes off, I slow down and look up and there the cruiser is right away. Anyway, tomorrow is the trip back up to SF, the V1 will be in the test seat.
I have a two way trip coming up next week. Hopefully I'll be able to put this to rest at last.
All high-end radar detectors use the same basic technology. They have very high gain (sensitive)super-heterodyne shielded RF receivers and digital signal processors that make an attempt to filter out false alarms. It's a trade-off between "too many false alarms to be useful" and "filter too much and get tickets." No surprise, all three units have similar RF receiver technology and filter in a similar way. The laser detectors all use the same commodity photo-receiver technology that measures light intensity at a known wavelength. A clean windshield makes more difference than laser receiver brand.
You can buy new Escort Passport 8500's and BEL 985's on Ebay. The going rate is ~$250 for the 8500 and sub-$200 for the 985. The only place you can buy a V-1 is directly from the company at $400 plus shipping. The V1 violates my 11th commandment "Thou Shalt Not Pay Retail" sensibilities.
All three units are low emissions so they won't false other radar detectors and can't be detected by radar detector-detectors. Be a good citizen and don't buy a radar detector that will false mine on Ka-band.
In the forward direction, there's not all that much difference between the three. The V-1 has a rear-facing RF receiver, directional, and threat count information so it's better if you happen to drive in an area where there are a lot of K and Ka false alarms and crafty police. If you often drive at speeds where you'd get driving to endanger tickets, I guess the V1 is the way to go since it is better. I drive at speed limit + 15 and any of these units are adequate for my purposes.
Escort and BEL are owned by the same company (they also own the old FuzzBuster trademark) so I'd expect that their digital signal processing filtering algorithms are similar.
Conclusion:
If you have the $400 plus shipping burning a hole in your pocket or if you drive at speeds that could get you tossed in jail, get the V1. If you want similar performance at half the price, buy a BEL 985 on Ebay or spend slightly more on Ebay for an Escort 8500 if you happen to like the features and packaging better.
personally, i really liked the bel 940 i tested for a week, but $200 from Circuit City is too much for it.
I know what some people say about testing detectors in the same car, but a V1 company tech told me it should be fine, so I decided to run them side by side, just for kicks.
The verdict, the V1 performed magnificently. Radar detection range was as good as the Passport's, and detection to the rear was superior.
A couple of incidents today made me feel a LOT better about my V1. Travelling up I5 today, from LA to SF.
First, I got a rear Ka warning on my V1, nothing on the Passport until the V1 approached full warning. No surprise I suppose, that's what a rearward antenna gets you, especially with few things on the flats to bounce a signal off of. I get passed by TWO local police K-9 SUV units. Obviously not patrollling, but running very very fast with the radars lit up. I have to say thanks for providing me with invaluable test material. Here's the rub, after they pass I continue to get Ka lighting up, but still from the rear! After a few minutes of confusion, I decided to slow down to test a hypothesis. Sure enough, the signal strength grows. I needed gas anyway, so I pulled off on the exit slowly to see if a CHP cruiser would shoot by. Nothing. Weird. Then, as I pull out past the stop sign into the gas station... and there he is, four cars behind me on the onramp. WHat do you know? The arrows worked like a charm. Otherwise I would have assumed the continuing light-up was reflections from the K-9s ahead.
As a side note: I've now proven to myself that radar detection is HIGHLY directional. Warning dies off very quickly once a cruiser passes and the radar is facing in the opposite direction, whereas warning when the radar is pointed at you is very long-range.
The second incident was similar, with another CHP cruiser pulling up from the rear. ON the I5, the rearward antenna seems to add more value than it does in other places, because on the I5 superspeedway, the CHP is able to cruise at 100mph+ and sneak up on you from behind. The V1 rear warning gives it a significant edge in that scenario.
One close call, a CHP cruiser cresting the a very steep hill in front of me. I was about 200 m from the top when he came over, and there was virtually no warning, I got him barely a second or two before I saw him crest the hill.
Overall, I'm sold. The V1 has now earned its place in my M3. My complaints with it are that (1) it provides way, way too many false Xs. Even in full autologic on the barren expanse of the I5, it goes off constantly. Thankfully, CHP doesn't use X so I just ignore it, but the poor filter is just awful. I'm willing to concede that this might be partly due to the close proximity to the Passport. Valentine seems to infer that close proximity can cause the V1 to false more often, and if this is the case, ok.
(2) My other pet peeve with the Valentine is that the difference (visually) between X, K and Ka warnings is difficult to read. Only a small, small light goes off, and in the dark good luck telling which one it is. The audio alert difference is better, but I strongly prefer the Passport and Bel, which clearly tell you what is painting you.
Putting aside those complaints, the V1 has proven itself to be a great performer after all. For the first time since it's arrived, I feel completely confident in it, and I couldn't be happier.
The Passport still gets great marks. Forward radar detection seems to be on par with the V1. The filter is 50,000 times better at screening out falses. I like the way there's an extra mute button on the lighter adapter. The only areas it falls behind in is the rear detection and the warning arrows, which proved to me today that they are valuable for the roads I drive. Even still, I really like this little silver detector, and the price difference makes it all the better. I'd use this detector every day if I had to, and I'd feel great about it.
Final verdict: I now feel like I own two of the best detectors on the planet, and I'm keeping them. The V1 is hardwired into my M3, and the Passport will soon be wired into my wife's 330. Like em both. If $100 makes a difference, I'd buy a Passport. If not, I'd now say splurge and get the Valentine One.
If your X-band falses are really that bad AND you feel completely safe without X-band detection, you can disable X-band in your V1:
http://www.valentine1.com/lab/mikeslabrpt3.asp
-tom
PS: Thxs for your detailed radar detector reports. Good work!
I frequently travel the I5 corridor from the San Jose area to LA. I have a Bel 985 and have used it going on three years. I bought it in Oct 2000, after researching the others: Passport 8500, V1, settling on the Bel 985.
For the 181 dollar difference, the V1's benefits did not outweigh the price differential , or put another way the price/performance ratio was not as good. Is it a great detector? Absolutely, and so is the Passport 8500.
While I realize the main object of this thread is to discuss the relative points on radar detectors, in my travels on I5,
I have noticed that fully 50% of the CHP cars either DO NOT HAVE and /or did NOT have turned on, their radar detection equipment.
To rely solely on these detection devices might prove more costly than the price of the piece. Not too much substitutes for good sight patterns!
Stay safe out there!!
I thought they didn't use it, only city, etc cars did.
Of course, I live in the middle of the country and don't get out much....
In any case, I can tell you that the I5 between LA and SF has plenty of Ka lighting up the area. The CHP radar cars seem to congregate near specific towns though.
Ruking, what audio alerts does the 985 have? I wish the V1 had something like that. The audio beeps and blats are distinctive, but aren't as immediate as a voice screaming "Ka! Ka! Ka!"
1. a characteristic X, K, KA band tone for each.
2. synthetic voice announcing X,K,KA, band.
As a subset, as you head into the source of the emission, there is a clicking sound that gets more intense, sort of like a metronome speeding up. Of course, vice versa as you move away from the source of emission generation.
While I have very rarely encountered the laser band, this one band is tonal URGENT !!!(last place was in Santa Barbara, CA !!??
Last week in LA I got multiple LIDAR alerts on the V1 along the 101 between LA and Thousand Oaks. In a very strange twist I got repeated LIDAR alerts for almost 3 miles. I was being followed by an Audi S4 and the alerts went away after he moved on. A couple of possibilities occured to me: Maybe it was some electronic weirdness in my car - the V1 was on its temporary mount in the 911 C4 rather than its permanent mount on the M3. Alternatively, the S4 was running something very weird - like a jammer or perhaps an adaptive cruise control system?
I still haven't encountered a verified LIDAR trap yet, although in Manhattan Beach they now have signs up "Patrolled by Laser".
A bit OT, but I got a portable car nav system for my wife's sedan. Quite the toy!
The only problem with all these electronic gadgets is juggling around the power cables and finding electric outlets.
LoL! I don't think so. It simply means that there's a speed trap near a laser research facility. It's highly unlikely a research facility would be on the same wavelength.
tidester, host
Which nav system did you get? I've been checking that and a newer radar detector (I inherited my Dad's BEL 850i).
Mark
Functionally, it is as good as the BMW OEM system. Here are my quick observations:
(1) The unit is FAR smaller than the Garmin GPS StreetPilot 3. While they look close in size in pictures, the Garmin is much thinner when you hold one in your hands. The problem is trying to find one you can touch before buying.
(2) The directions are one step versus multi-step for the BMW. Example: BMW shows a couple of intervening streets and says "Take the second turn on the right" or "take the onramp and bear right onto I-4-oh-5 south". Navman does one step at a time: "turn right. Bear left. Continue for 6.2 miles"
The BMW is easier to understand when you are looking at the screen with the "turn arrows", the Navman has a incredibly superior map function. The better voice instructions depend on preference I think.
(3) The Navman takes SD cards. I got the 256mb add-on card for $70 i think. Extra memory for the Garmin is more expensive.
(4) The Navman mountings are not nearly as flexible or useful as the Garmin.
(5) The Navman is very sleek, with that Sony Vaio look and color.
I bought it online from GPSExplorer.com. They were very good, very helpful on the phone for decision-making info. I'd definitely buy from them again.
There seem to be two pricing levels by the way, retail and internet. Retail the Garmin and the Navman are basically $1000. I got the Navman for about $815. With rebate the Garmin goes for about $680.
On the radar, there's been plenty of posts here, so I won't beat the dead horse, but the V1 worked best for me. Alternately I could see buying a Bel 945 for less than half the price and still getting really good performance. If I was compromising, I think I might have settled for the Passport.
Thanks for the info on the Nav system. I have seen both the Navman and the Garmin units online. I plan on checking a local dealer to try and see them in person. The Navman sounds like a nice way to go. The important thing for me is portablility.
Question on the V1: can it be mounted someplace other than the visor or windshield? Maybe behind the front grill, and then use the remote attachment? Has anyone here done anything like that?
Mark
In my last car, I wrapped it in speaker grill fabric and hung it from the headliner beside the interior light. It worked very well there.
I've seen many people put theirs on the rear package shelf (right below the rear window). That's probably where I'm going to mount mine in the current car. I'm thinking maybe a box of tissues for cover, though, as it will be visible from outside of the car in that location. The headliner spot was so well hidden that I didn't bother to remove it when having the car serviced. Now, that's confidence!
Sean
I personally have given up on the concealed display. I might use it for long highway runs in the dark, but it's too much of a hassle to change my behavior (looking down instead of up when the alert sounds) for everyday use.
Are you in VA/DC? Because otherwise, I'd just mount it high on the windshield. You can run the flat cable underneath the headliner so that all that peeks out is maybe 2-3 inches of flat cable. I really like it that way.
If you do live in VA/DC, it's up to you, but I probably wouldn't even bother with the V1. I don't know if they do the same here in the US, but in Canada they can confiscate the unit. That's pretty expensive, especially because it's not undetectable by police. Of course, maybe you could keep a cheapo $30 detector around to hand him while hiding th V1 if he busts you.
Mark
Please tell me how LIDAR can penetrate an opaque cardboard tissue box enough to trigger your detector. That speaker grille fabric will definitely cut down on the laser reception too.
Thanks. That occurred to me after I posted my message.
tidester, host
I have no idea whether the speaker grill fabric hurt the laser reception or not. It has large holes in it, so I suspect it didn't, though moving the detector farther away from the windshield undoubtedly did. That isn't a priority for me, though. They don't use laser in my area, so I've never gotten an alert, even when the detector is mounted on the windshield.
Laser alerts aren't very useful. It is possible to pick up stray bounces from cars ahead, but generally when the alert sounds it means you've been clocked.
I've had a car broken into twice, so I am much more concerned about that. The damage caused by that more than made up for any lost laser warnings.
Sean
The radar detector wasn't in there at the time, but the stereo was. They destroyed the dash pulling it out with a screwdriver (for leverage, not for removing screws). The car was repaired, but it was never the same.
A detector is just too tempting a target, and I don't want to have to move it around or take it with me every time I leave the car. So, it isn't going in until I can hide it well enough to not worry.
Sean