Radar detectors

[TSiWRX]

^ NP, glad to help.

[EvilCamaroSS]

I love my Escort Passport 9500i It has saved me TONS of cash. I can think of 2 experiences just this year where someone was "Rabbit"ing me and my detector went off. I hit the brakes, they think I brake check them they fly by me and get a huge ticket. lol

 

It has saved me also in the fact that a lot of the police around here are lazy and just sit with the radar on, hardly ever using laser. I did get hit with Laser twice and they got me both times, I have found it easier to slow down in time with normal Ka band, even though reading through this thread has contradicting evidence to this.

 

I have been using an escort detector for so long, I now feel paranoid driving without it.

[up_on1]

I hear that. My 8500 X50 goes everywhere with me. My truck, motorcycle, and my wife's van.

I'm just waiting to hear a review on the new 8500 X50 to see if I'll bite the bullet and upgrade what I already have.

[TSiWRX]

I love my Escort Passport 9500i It has saved me TONS of cash. I can think of 2 experiences just this year where someone was "Rabbit"ing me and my detector went off. I hit the brakes, they think I brake check them they fly by me and get a huge ticket. lol

 

It has saved me also in the fact that a lot of the police around here are lazy and just sit with the radar on, hardly ever using laser. I did get hit with Laser twice and they got me both times, I have found it easier to slow down in time with normal Ka band, even though reading through this thread has contradicting evidence to this.

 

I have been using an escort detector for so long, I now feel paranoid driving without it.

 

The in-vehicle 9500-series' detection range ("sensitivity") is decent. Not great, but definitely still well within the norms of the "top dogs" bracket.

 

As long as you are within detection range for the detector (assuming that the enforcer transmits RADAR in a manner that is within the responsiveness capabilities of the unit) and out of view of the threat, you're golden.

 

So, that plays two scenarios:

 

(1) Either the enforcer left his RADAR engaged, and you were able to pick up the scatter/reflections off ambient or, alternatively....

 

(2) He'd triggered his "Instant On" at another vehicle, while you were within detection distance, and left that signal on for long enough of a duration that you get an alert (i.e. within responsiveness).

 

While those are the actual, technical, "save" scenarios, from real-world encounters, it's virtually impossible to distinguish a "save" versus just plain good luck - or even the good graces of the enforcer.

 

For example, there used to (maybe he's still there? I haven't been on RD.net in a long time ) enforcer from TX whose personal "threshold" was actually quite high (+15, in an industrial-area posted 45 zone). I also know, personally, a local enforcer who, while his absolute limit is nowhere near as gracious, he gives alert/attentive drivers a break: if he sees that you're reacting to his presence/announcement with an immediate but appropriate speed drop, he'll let you slide - he considers the oblivious or the obviously otherwise engaged (i.e. yapping on the cell) as more of a danger. Every enforcer, every scenario, is different, and as-such, it's not completely possible to attribute a good turn-out to, absolutely and without a doubt, either a true "save" or just plain good luck.

 

Speaking purely on technology alone, RADAR, when it's truly "Instant On," is just that, "Instant On." No detector can detect RADAR *before* it's engaged, so even the most responsive detector - the quickest to alert - is a reactionary device only. Sensitivity, or how far the detector can "reach" down-road, compliments responsiveness, but neither can stand alone; although it is true and accurate to say that depending on your particular threat profile, your chosen detector can compromise on one or the other of those two properties and still fit the job.

 

There is virtually no latency between the time the operator sends the "Instant On," to when he gets the reading. And if you're the only vehicle on-road at that time, it's all that much easier.

 

LIDAR is a different story.

 

Nominally, latency is 0.3 seconds or less. But in the real-world, depending on a host of factors, that can go down to near-nil or may be stretched upwards of a second, two seconds, or even ten times that figure...even without considerations of active jamming.

 

Empirically speaking (several enthusiasts in TX and again in FL cross-confirmed such results, a few years ago), it's impossible to out-brake "Instant On" RADAR, when you're the target. However, an alert driver, in a good vehicle, given that there's a bit of luck involved, it actually is possible to out-brake LIDAR.

 

 

 

----

 

 

I'm just waiting to hear a review on the new 8500 X50 to see if I'll bite the bullet and upgrade what I already have.

 

^ Remember to verify and validate the source of the review. Be sure you know everything about them, before you subscribe to what is said by them. The speed-detection countermeasures industry is dog-eat-dog, so you have to be very careful who and what you believe.

 

Also, remember to truly dissect the details of the review/test.

 

To-wit: To this day, the old (c.2003) S7 Rev5 8500x50 units are still revered and highly sought-after by speed-detection countermeasures enthusiasts. The reason isn't because they're super-sensitive or super-responsive; it's neither. Nor is it because the unit has great "false-rejection" capabilities - compared against today's units, particularly those that use a GPS-overlay, it also doesn't. Rather, it's because the unit has such well-rounded capabilities that it doesn't really have any holes in its armor: so that when paired with a knowledgeable and alert user, it becomes an extremely effective tool, even in today's threat atmosphere.

 

[2005legacy2.5i]

^ NP, glad to help.

 

 

What radar/ lasar Jammer system(s) do you run in your car?

[TSiWRX]

Currently:

 

My '05 LGT - Laser Interceptor Quad (2 front, 2 rear), two Laser Pro Park systems (2 heads front, one head rear - all are with the TruSpeed update), an Escort 9500i, and a Cheetah GPS-Mirror. I also have LaserVeil G4 on my headlamp lenses, and a non-standard front plate that's covered with LaserShield.

 

My wife's '09 FXT has a two-head LI (front), LaserShield over the front plate, and it's hardwired for my detector (I keep my old S7 Rev.5 X50 in her car) as well as the GPS-Mirror.

 

 

My wife's car's been like that since we got it back in March of '09. My LGT has been in its current state since 2009 or so.

[EvilCamaroSS]

Currently:

 

My '05 LGT - Laser Interceptor Quad (2 front, 2 rear), two Laser Pro Park systems (2 heads front, one head rear - all are with the TruSpeed update), an Escort 9500i, and a Cheetah GPS-Mirror. I also have LaserVeil G4 on my headlamp lenses, and a non-standard front plate that's covered with LaserShield.

 

My wife's '09 FXT has a two-head LI (front), LaserShield over the front plate, and it's hardwired for my detector (I keep my old S7 Rev.5 X50 in her car) as well as the GPS-Mirror.

 

 

My wife's car's been like that since we got it back in March of '09. My LGT has been in its current state since 2009 or so.

 

Why two different jammers?

[TSiWRX]

Just overkill.

 

The rear, in all honesty, might actually *need* three or even four heads - more preferably the same system, so that they don't "cross-talk" (more on this later) to achieve a true JFG - (J)am (F)rom (G)un (instead of Jam To Gun, since the vehicle is heading away from the source, so "more power" is needed *closer* to the source) - since it's such a hard profile to protect.

 

You've got much more upright surfaces than at the front of the car, with both reflective elements within the tail-lights as well as the DOT/SAE mandated "reflectors," plus a State-mandated license-plate that is often made with reflective materials embedded into its surface and cannot (at least not without significant risk) be replaced with a non-reflective replica or, in some areas, even covered with a plate cover. Combine that with the fact that these elements are often widely dispersed over a large area and that you're going to need to defeat the incoming beam "starting from zero" (instead of defeating the beam starting farther away), when it's at its most powerful as well as when it's a much tighter cone.

 

And that doesn't even account for the fact that the rear-enforcement scenario often incorporates the enforcer shooting from odd angles and elevations (i.e. from an on-ramp, as your car is passing by).

 

So not only is it the hardest for your jammers to "see" the incoming beam - it's also the hardest to get the jammer heads to fire their return pulsetrain in a manner which will actually get it to the LIDAR source.

 

It's really the perfect storm.

 

Having more heads simply increases your chances of the jammer both picking up the signal as well as to send it back to the source. If every shield you've got against an incoming onslaught of arrows happens to be 6 inches wide, you'll want to have as many of those shields to cover your body with as you possibly can, right? Same idea here.

 

Now, with two different systems, I said that one of the concerns is "cross-talk." This describes the situation where the signals from one jammer system literally confounds the other jammer system's, causing the LIDAR on the receiving end to actually either get a valid return that documents your speed - to "punch-through" (effect a "PT") - or to just allow that PT to happen earlier than what you would otherwise expect, from running only one system.

 

Cross-talk can happen in one of two ways.

 

First - and this has been well-documented to occur - is that adjacent emitter/receiver heads from two different jammer systems somehow "see" each other's outgoing jamming emissions, and that causes one or the other system to key in on that pulsetrain (instead of the target LIDAR device's pulsetrain). The incorrect pulsetrain is seen as invalid by the targeting LIDAR device, and PT is effected. Typically, this happens either when there's adjacent structures that cause reflections of one of the emissions to be "seen" by the other head (and this can be anything from the car's physical body [which is the most common cause - and traceable to improper installation techniques], to a passing vehicle, to even a highly reflective road-side structure), or, alternatively, in night-time situations, when heads which are too-closely spaced are somehow placed in a less than optimal manner, again causing one to "see" the other.

 

The other, more worrisome, but yet never completely proven. type of cross-talk occurs in the theoretical scenario of "what happens in the LIDAR's processor?" - i.e. if two separate jammers both respond with their proprietary jamming algorithm, what's to say that *something* (be it the specific pulsetrains or even the temporal shift of the signals) won't cause the LIDAR device to reject one or both signals as invalid?

 

So, yes, there are worries - big worries.

 

But like running two RADAR detectors together, if you know what you're doing, and you can configure your system in a way which will render advantages - but keep any potential detriments to a minimum - then there are benefits to be had. These, though, are very, very specific considerations, and you really need to know what you're doing, before you undertake them.

 

For me, on my LGT, it actually started out as me trying to find a replacement for my old and then-non-functional Escort ZR3. I first arrived at the LPP, which was, at that time, what I needed, and which I paired with a "fixed" ZR3, thereafter.

 

Time passed, and the LI came to fruition, and I needed something a bit more comprehensive than the LPP (the LPP-TruSpeed debacle), so I added the LI, and ended up with three jamming systems on one car. Later, the ZR3 again malfunctioned, so I removed it, and I LPP finally came forward with their TruSpeed fix, which I upgraded to.

 

Now, I typically run only the LI, but the LPP remains resident, as back-up.

[mhoran89]

Escort 9500ci is the top of the line right now. However everyone I know has had a valentine and they swear by it.

[TSiWRX]

Again, there's no absolute "best."

 

Any of the top-dogs will more than just be decent, in the real-world, but each has its own set of advantages as well as weaknesses.

 

Although conventional wisdom, proven with quantitative data, warns against running multiple detectors in the same vehicle, there are many enthusiasts who run multiple-unit systems, in very, very specific ways - so that they can cover those weaknesses.

 

And remember, even if a specific detector fares well in a specific "test," there's nothing to guaranty that the detector that you receive will perform up to the same measures. It's been proven by independent auditing that individual, unique-detector (i.e. "your" V1 versus "my" V1 versus "his" V1) differences can be up to 3 dB, on any particular frequency.

 

First, remember that's a logarithmic scale.

 

Second, remember that, for example, for Ka-"band" alone, there's three frequencies - 35.5, 34.7, and 33.8 GHz.

 

So if one detector is super hot on, say, 33.5, maybe it'll pick up a Kustom threat from super far away...but say that detector is cold on 34.7...so what if your local enforcers used Stalker?

 

Also, you have to look at the test itself: is it a good reflection of the real world? any potential for bias (i.e. vested ties - hint, there are many).

 

There's really no way to say "best."

[Havok1212]

any one have a good idea of where to mount the valatine 1...im in virginia so they are illegal....i have the senser mounted in my rear window for now and i have an extra display for it i just cant find a good hinding spot for t that i can easly get to

[executor485]

any one have a good idea of where to mount the valatine 1...im in virginia so they are illegal....i have the senser mounted in my rear window for now and i have an extra display for it i just cant find a good hinding spot for t that i can easly get to

 

I've seen/heard of people putting it in the headliner and then you can have the remote display on your steering column or something like that.

[TSiWRX]

^ Yep.

 

RADAR will pass through headliner and other interior "dress" material (such as thin plastics or seat coverings), so most who live in forbidden zones custom-install in locations like the headliner (search this in the various BMW Forums, it was a favorite trick back in the late '90s to early '00s), using a false/extended CHMSL housing (search RadarDetector.net - for a member called suicide4life's install on his Mercedes), or the center roll-bar/windbreaker bar (the Honda S2000 guys loved to do that), or even the seat headrest (one particularly in-depth install overseas used this method of concealment, in the passenger side headrest).

 

What you will give up will be LASER reception, but in most detector-forbidden areas, RADAR is king due to the ease-of-use.

 

Now, the question becomes your worry of RDD usage by enforcement. The V1 is not Spectre immune, so you have to be careful. Good tactics are a must:

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3256081&postcount=22

 

^ In the fourth section of that specific post, I highlight what The VEIL Guy advised in the past. Remember, if you jam on the brakes, that is a clue.

 

I'd also advise you to read through the overall thread (http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/5th-gen-legacy-radar-detector-mirror-mount-stealth-wiring-instructions-153635.html?highlight=custom+hidden+detector+install), as it goes into what you're thinking about.