Radar Detector recommendation . . .

[Blaze]

I haven't dealt with radar detectors in at least 5 years, and just started looking around. Does anyone offer a more conceiled model that installs low profile sensors around the car, and maybe a display that you can mount in or on the dash? I haven't been able to check out all the links posted in this thread yet, so I may have missed such a device.

[endeavorc]

Look at the K40 for remote units.

[nov26_2]

I've had a Passport 8500 for a little over 1 year with mixed success. I am in NJ and I seem to get a lot of false signals, never had it register laser. I pass State Troopers all the time without a beep. I have learned to always ignore the X band and look around when it registers K or Ka. With all of that said, I know of more than 1 occassion that the detector has spared me a ticket. I would be interested in trying the valentine for a little comparison.

[jim1969]

Escort has great remote detectors. [url]www.escortradar.com[/url]

[dv8ingvector]

will they upgrade the Escort Passport 8500 X50, like they will with the Valentine 1? i am in the market right now as well and thus far that is the only limiting factor, it sounds like the X50 is the best only draw back is it doesn't tell you what direction the warning is coming from, like the Valentine 1 does, that and the Valentine 1 is upgradable which is a big deal when you are putting out 300 for the x50 or 400 for the Valentine 1

[Trent Bates]

[quote name='dv8ingvector']will they upgrade the Escort Passport 8500 X50, like they will with the Valentine 1? i am in the market right now as well and thus far that is the only limiting factor, it sounds like the X50 is the best only draw back is it doesn't tell you what direction the warning is coming from, like the Valentine 1 does, that and the Valentine 1 is upgradable which is a big deal when you are putting out 300 for the x50 or 400 for the Valentine 1[/QUOTE] I'd like to clarify a little here: I haven't heard of Passports being upgradeable yet like V1s. The 8500 X50 has been tested recently to have slightly better forward range than the current V1. On the other hand, it's rearward range is very low while the V1's is nearly equal to it's front range. In my opinion, that gives you more total range (as if you are in the center of a bubble) than a front only unit (where you are at one end of a smaller bubble that sticks out a little further). Also, STG makes a very good point about the POP aquisition mode! Current V1's don't detect this. I'm not completely on-board with Mike Valentine's reasoning here either. Even if it's not proper procedure to use POP mode, it still puts the burden on you to fight the system. I get the feeling that Mike Valentine might be ignoring the issue on principle. I'll feel really good about his principles if/when I'm signing the ticket. (NOT!) Still, I have had very good luck with my V1 and I love the arrows! I've found that regular radar detectors confuse and distract me more than my V1 does. Passport does have directional units. It's much more expensive that what we are talking about here, but they do exist. I don't remember seeing any directional indicators on it though.

[Alex1]

x40 all the way [url]www.x40.com[/url] porsche recommends them... two leds in ur dash, mounted anywhere in car front and or rear with laser defuser... 1200 bucks roughyl, but its insane, beeps through ur car system and then goes silent and just blinks on ur dash, cops wont know its there, theyll pay ur ticket iwthin the first year of owning it too!!

[Trent Bates]

It's [b]K40[/b]. K40 has been all over the place performance wise in the last 15 or so years. Cincinatti Microwave/Escort and Valentine have been in the top for as many years. (Except for Escort's reorganization period) K40 used to repackage Uniden products. They don't have a great track record. For a while, Escort was repackaging/sharing with Cobra. No comment there except that my Passport 5000 is gathering dust after being completely surpased by the performance of my V1.

[KGreb]

Valentine's discussion on POP makes perfect sense. Basically, the POP guns will report a speed before all the internal electronics (esp oscillators) are guaranteed to start up. Oscillator frequencies tend to vary wildly during startup until they converge to the desired, stable frequency. POP is basically using an unstable, moving reference point to determine speed. It could be off by huge amounts and will never be off in the same way twice. This is incredibly poor and grossly incompetant design in my opinion. I'd guess that what the new passports are doing for POP is implementing a wider frequency window for Ka detection. While it might catch POP, it would probably false like mad. I had a Valentine One for several years with no tickets. The arrows are the single most useful feature, and saved me a ton of times. I made four sales for Valentine from folks who saw mine in action. Unfortunately, someone threw a brick through my window and stole it from a secured parking lot at my job. Hopefully I'll pick up another one around Christmas this year.

[Trent Bates]

AAAAAGH! I couldn't imagine being without my V1! I was stressing about the prospect of eventually sending it in for an upgrade and how I'd handle it! While I see the flaws with POP use, I also spent a little time reading the error variance chart for POP mode on Valentine's site. In some cases, POP could get a fairly accurate reading in those 67ms. (1-2 MPH off) I don't see enough resistance to POP being used improperly by the general public to make me comfortable. Furthermore, I don't really want to be put in the position of explaining why POP mode should not be used for speed enforcement to either a Police Officer or a Judge. That give their case a lot of credibility. Many times willful intent is all the seperates those found guilty from those found not-guilty. Demonstrating knowledge about Police speed enforcement equipment is not going to earn you any points! I'd really like to see Valentine step up to this situation instead of discounting it! In nearly every head-to-head test of radar detectors, V1 loses major points because of it's lack of POP detection. It's overall frontal range alone is equal to/better in all bands than the competitors, but it gets quickly dismissed anyway. Valentine One was the leader for [i]11 years[/i] and now it's coming in second or third because of this POP issue. For those that don't know the [color=Red]incorrect (See centerpunch's post below)[/color] history, Michael Valentine was at least 50% responsible for Escort's fame in the last 30 years. All of the original Cincinatti Microwave Escorts and the early Passports were designed by Valentine. When Valnetine split with his partner, Cincinatti Microwave ceased to exist. The company was restructured to be known as Escort. Valentine One is also based in Cincinatti. P.S. - I encountered a new situation a couple of days ago. My laser warning started going off while I was at a stoplight. I looked forward iinitially and saw nothing. (Usually it's caused by the third brake light on an Envoy or Blazer.) I looked down and realized that the laser signal was from behind me. It turned out to be the laser based braking system on the SUV behind me. That's the first of those that I've encountered. Once again, it was nice to have the arrows!!!

[KGreb]

Yeah, the Envoy and Trailblazer braking system will set off the laser detectors of most units on the market, not just the Valentine. If you dig through their web site this is noted. I had a small problem with my initial V1 and had to call tech support to get a replacement. Mike Valentine was the "technician" who handled my call :) I really like the fact that the head designer and company president was still working in the trenches.

[centerpunch]

[quote name='Trent Bates'] For those that don't know the history, Michael Valentine was at least 50% responsible for Escort's fame in the last 30 years. All of the original Cincinatti Microwave Escorts and the early Passports were designed by Valentine. When Valnetine split with his partner, Cincinatti Microwave ceased to exist. The company was restructured to be known as Escort.[/QUOTE] Wrong. I was the first employee of Cincinnati Microwave, now work for Escort, and here's the real story. Cincinnati Microwave was founded by Jim Jaeger and Mike Valentine (plus Mike's father), and began shipping the original Escort in 1978. After only 5 years Mike and his father sold their shares in the company in 1983 (that's 21 years ago!), OVER A YEAR BEFORE the miniature Passport was introduced. And Cincinnati Microwave went on to introduce other very cool products in the 1980's including the first Solo, a tiny magnesium-cased detector that ran 6 months on a 9 volt battery, and the Escort DSP, a downsized Escort with a supercharged DSP processor for amazing range. OK, in the 1990's the company was taken over by bean counters, and didn't do much great stuff until it was relaunched as Escort Inc. in 1997. Since then Escort has introduced the pretty-good Passport 7500, the great Passport 8500 (now upgraded to the 8500 X50), remote-mount detectors with laser jammers, finally a high performance cordless detector (The SOLO S2, not as sensitive as a V1 or 8500, but in the ballpark), and even the G-Timer Performance Meter, which is a fun gadget. No question, Valentine is a smart guy, and the V1 is a great detector. Just not the only one. Paul Allen

[Trent Bates]

[b]I stand corrected and red faced Centerpunch!!![/b] My information was pieced together from years of reading various news and articles about the industry. I'm not in the industry myself. I'm going to read you post again (because I've got some unlearning to do)!

[centerpunch]

[quote name='Trent Bates'][b]I stand corrected and red faced Centerpunch!!![/b] My information was pieced together from years of reading various news and articles about the industry. I'm not in the industry myself. I'm going to read you post again (because I've got some unlearning to do)![/QUOTE] No biggie, that's what most people think, because Mike has done a very good job of promoting his name.

[rao]

Paul, That is pretty neat. I fondly remember making the trek to Cincinnati Microwave in the mid 80's (probably 1984) and parking on the cool brick parking lot just to see where the magical devices came from. They gave me a t-shirt and I bought a couple of baseball caps and then sent me on my way. I had an original Escort, then an original passport (my favorate which was hidden in a stuffed baby seal o nthe dash with a remote speaker installed in the headrest of my Scirocco - this was serious business in the days of 55). Then another Passport, then another, then nothing for a while, then a couple of V1's. It also explains why you dug into the guts of the radio :)

[Trent Bates]

[quote name='centerpunch']No biggie, that's what most people think, because Mike has done a very good job of promoting his name.[/QUOTE] The more that I think about this and search my memory, I wonder if the automotive press also has a skewed assessment of how all of this happened. How long prior to shipping the first Escort did they work on designing them? I've heard that they started working on them around '75 sometime. I've also read many, many times that Valentine designed the first Passport. Is that incorrect? Perhaps he worked in it at first and it was finished by others? I am incorrect about the timing of Valentine's leaving, and the bean counter situation you mentioned. I believed that the two occurred around the same time and from a consumer perspective, it might appear that way to others as well. What is your job at Escort? I still remember the orange glow of the alert light, the shape, the meter, the toggle switch design, and the speaker perforations of the original Escort. It's funny that it evokes such warm feelings!

[centerpunch]

[quote name='Trent Bates']The more that I think about this and search my memory, I wonder if the automotive press also has a skewed assessment of how all of this happened. How long prior to shipping the first Escort did they work on designing them? I've heard that they started working on them around '75 sometime. I've also read many, many times that Valentine designed the first Passport. Is that incorrect? Perhaps he worked in it at first and it was finished by others? I am incorrect about the timing of Valentine's leaving, and the bean counter situation you mentioned. I believed that the two occurred around the same time and from a consumer perspective, it might appear that way to others as well. What is your job at Escort? I still remember the orange glow of the alert light, the shape, the meter, the toggle switch design, and the speaker perforations of the original Escort. It's funny that it evokes such warm feelings![/QUOTE] It's easy to think that Mike was around when we did Passport, because Passport has been the dominant product name we've used for twenty years! So when he says he is "co-inventor of the first Escort," it's natural for readers to assume he was there for Passport. The other reason is that since the Valentine One detector didn't come out until the early 1990's, it's natural (but wrong) to assume that's when he left Cincinnati Microwave. The company was incorporated in 1976, but both inventors still had day jobs. In the fall of 1977 the company was based in Jaeger's basement, I was a senior Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Cincinnati, and on an hourly basis, did the mechanical design (not the aesthetics, the detailed part drawings) for the housing and antenna for the original Escort. In the spring they leased a 5000 sq ft place, and I continued to work for them, even writing the owner's manual. We shipped the first Escort in (I think) June of 1978.... I ended up helping with whatever needed to be done, and when Mike left I was the guy heading the marketing and product development groups. We had toyed with the idea of a cheapie smaller detector when Mike was around, but development of the high-end Passport with its surface-mount technology was done after he left. I could blab on and on, and probably have. I was there until 1990, then left, then came back with the resurrected company in 1997, then left in 2000, then back in 2002, and mostly I've been working on the G-Timer. Those early products (Escort AND Passport) were so good, and so unexpected at the time, many people feel the way you do. I think the only current analogy I can think of is the iPod, which is probably one of the best thought-out products ever.

[Trent Bates]

Having a G-Tech Pro (the older style), I have been eyeing the G-Timer! Thanks for the insight on Cincinatti Microwave/Escort! It's very interesting to read about!

[centerpunch]

[quote name='Trent Bates']Having a G-Tech Pro (the older style), I have been eyeing the G-Timer! Thanks for the insight on Cincinatti Microwave/Escort! It's very interesting to read about![/QUOTE] FYI: We've just dropped the price on the G-Timers. The GT1 is now $99.95, and the GT2 is $179.95.

[Drift Monkey]

I don't use a radar detector anymore...(these isn't really a need for one IMO) but when I did, my weapon of choice was teh Escort 8500. I didn't need teh arrows as, when it beeped, I slowed down no matter what direction the cop would be coming from. It's quite easy to detect of they are behind or in front of you by listening. That and it was much louder than my friend's V1. I tried both, and the Escort just seemed to suit me more.

[Rimfaxe]

I like the idea of having a completely remote and hidden system. I've often thought that having the 8500 built into a self-dimming mirror would be the ultimate. LED lights and display on the bottom edge (that can be disabled in 'dark' mode). Interface so that it would mute the car stereo during alarm would also be good. Couple this with some laser jamming equipment near the front plate and I think the thing would sell!

[Blaze]

After looking at some of the hidden systems online, it looks like those will unfortunately be beyond my price range. I will have to settle for a unit under $300. I was looking at the Bel Vector 995's, anyone have any experience with these? I will try looking into the Escort Passports mentioned in this thread too....just hadn't had a chance yet.

[Magowin]

If your looking for something really cheap but performs just as well as the high end models look into the Whistler Pro-73 or the even cheaper Pro-58.

[nimaxpro]

[quote name='nov26_2']I've had a Passport 8500 for a little over 1 year with mixed success. I am in NJ and I seem to get a lot of false signals, never had it register laser. I pass State Troopers all the time without a beep. I have learned to always ignore the X band and look around when it registers K or Ka. With all of that said, I know of more than 1 occassion that the detector has spared me a ticket. I would be interested in trying the valentine for a little comparison.[/QUOTE] I drive in NJ a lot and have been using the 8500 for almost a year now. Had the laser go off a couple of times when following the Trailblazers and only 1 time for real. Was going to work in the morning on the NJ Turnpike about 2 months ago and saw a white car parked in a parking lot at a gas station (around exit 17). I thought it was a bit unusual for a car to be parked there in the morning, so I slowed down. Then, the laser alert went off. Sure enough, it was an unmarked Crown Vic with "Police" written on the side. I can't say that a detector saved me in this case, since any detector is useless against laser. From my experience with the Passport 8500 though, it's been pretty good, helped me out a number of times. No detector will save anyone from stupidity, but the Escort 8500 (and the new x50) is very much worth the $200-250. V1 is another option, but it's almost twice the price. V1 and 8500 both have their pluses and minuses, most notable difference are the directional arrows. Another significant difference is the POP mode (that V1 doesn't have). Both detectors have "bogey" counters (8500 shows up to 8 separate radar signals and their respective strengths in the "Expert mode"). Something else that hasn't been mentioned is the "Spec Display" mode on the 8500. It shows you the exact radar frequency of the signal. (for example: 10.525 GHz).

[05 Outback 2.5i]

[size=2][font=Arial]I don’t know if anyone is interested or not, but just to update this thread, the V1 is now available with POP detection…[/font][/size] [size=2][font=Arial] [/font][/size] [url="http://www.valentine1.com/pop/"][u][font=Arial][size=2][color=#800080]http://www.valentine1.com/pop/[/color][/size][/font][/u][/url] [size=2][font=Arial] [/font][/size] [size=2][font=Arial]Upgrade for POP detection for older V1’s is slated to be available by January…[/font][/size] [size=2][font=Arial] [/font][/size][color=black][font=Verdana]__________________ ~Scott & Nadia '05 Outback 2.5i Wagon Willow Green Opal/ Moss Green Metallic 225/60HR16 BFG Traction T/A's[/font][/color]