[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Radar Detectors? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 6/10/2004 2:54:45 PM EDT
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Hi, i'm in the market for a radar detector due to the construction of a police station near my home. The police there have nothing to do but give speeding tickets. We have very little crime. Anyway, i am looking at the escort 8500 and the valentine 1. What do you think i should get? Thanks, DEERSNIPER |
Virtually all of the more expensive radars have the same capability, regardless of brand. Escort, Cobra etc. all have the same feature. |
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This brought up a question I thought of a couple days ago; My son got a "laser tag" toy that has two small units with LEDs in them. They're about 1"x1"x.25", and the instructions say they use "remote technology". I can use our VCR remote to set them off. Now here's the question; Is there anything simple like that with the right frequency to set off a radar detector? That could be fun driving around "zapping" people, and watching them slow down/look around.   
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| my "friend" used to have a scrambler, some kind of devise put in behind both front and back plate it worked excellent only 1 ticket ever and its cause the officer saw "him" speening real fast.... only like $300 i dont know if they are against the law in some states |
The sensors for automatic doors set off radar detectors. Maybe you could rig one of those up. |
Unless it is an active jamming system, which are considerably more than $300 and very illegal, those "jammers/scramblers" are worthless. Your friend was getting lucky in not getting tickets. |
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Just a word of warning from one of the more friendly JBT's. You are aware that most radar/laser units that we use are equipped with a "standby" mode, right ? If an officer really cares about defeating detectors, he will utilize it. You will not be able beat it. He will already have your speed locked in before you can get your foot off the accelerator. On a personal note, I do not give warning tickets if I observe a detector in the vehicle. Flame on. |
The point of the detector is to catch a signal when you zap the car driving half a mile ahead of me. Of course if mine is the only car on the road, it doesnt work. |
Well a garage door opener would set them off a few years ago!  I am planning on getting a V1!  I wonder if we could get a 'group buy' together from Valentine?  BigDozer66 |
What he said. |
My laser detector detects laser beams being directed at cars that are a considerable distance in front of me. As soon as the detector goes off, I slow down immediately. My unit has saved me from police laser units MANY times. In fact, I haven't gotten a ticket since I purchased a laser detector. |
I think someone beat me to it. I haven't chased tail lights for about 8 years since moving to SID, but the key is that the detector catches the radar/laser as it registers the cars ahead of you. If you're all alone on the road, yer screwed!
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True. There are situations where the signal will be detected, even if you are not the target vehicle. My unit does have a "fastest" mode as well. My unit will read every vehicle (line of sight, of course) and display the speed of the fastest moving one. All I have to do is (correctly) pick out which one is traveling at the higher rate of speed. |
Bingo! You hit the nail on the head. All the roads in my area are always fairly busy, so it's a cold day in hell when I'm about the only car out there. In the rare case that I am, I just slow down a bit. |
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Funny story. A friend of mine stopped someone with a V1 and the guy insisted my friend couldn't have possibly clocked him because he had his V1 on at the time. Even suggested something was wrong with my friend's RADAR unit. Guy even mentioned taking it to court. But this guy was a dumb ass so he probably wasn't using the detector right.  P.S. Crowded roads is what LASER is for.
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Yup. If I could have a quarter for every speeding ticket I write with a radar detector in the car I could retire a year or so early. |
Yeah, and if you REMEMBER he also said that both times the detector would not have helped. One time because his wife unplugged it and the other he was paced.  www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=238841
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Also kind of funny, Mike Valentine is the guy who helped develop the original Escort detector back in the day. To those suggesting both, (while I'd usually agree) having 2 good radar detectors together will be counter productive, they will fuck with each other. www.valentine1.com/pop/ Is this the standby mode someone mentioned? |
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Valentine One for RADAR www.lidatek.com for LIDAR Both expensive, but worth it. Jay |
Not if you have an Escort Shifter ZR3 laser jammer, which can also be used in conjunction with the Escort 8500 X50, to give you the best available protection on the market. The Shifter ZR3 will defeat all known laser guns aimed DIRECTLY at your car at least 94% of the time, according to independent testing. Valentine doesn't make a laser jammer. So Valentine users are screwed if an officer "zaps" their car with his laser gun. |
No. standby is when the RADAR unit is on, but not transmitting RADAR. POP is some BS that MPH Industries came out with that it says defeats detectors. The problem is that POP mode readings can not be used as evidence (from MPH's own mouth), and POP mode is error prone upwards to 104 percent. That is, POP mode says you were doing 112, when you were doing 55. I've always liked MPH industries stuff, but until they recall everyone of these POP equipped units, and disable POP, I'll bad mouth them every chance I get. Jay |
Sorry! The guy you mentioned is NOT the same guy I was talking about. The guy I'm talking about specifically mentioned that he had two tickets in the last five months, with the Valentine ON both times. It's possible it could have been a different discussion board, but I know what I read. |
Doh!  Truce  The guy probably should've broken his speeding habit. |
The width of a LASER beam can be as little as 2 ft wide, and unless you mount it in your head/tail light lense (Main target of LASER operator) a LASER detector/jammer is of little to no use. |
That was SWIRE, last week, here in GD. (too lazy to search for link, you can...) |
Spending money on a radar detector tells me you're an asshole who habitually speeds, and you've probably skated quite a few times due to the detector. If I get lucky enough to nab you for speed, I'm gonna add every other violation I can find. I won't make any up, but I won't give you any warnings, either. Motor vehicle accidents cost lives and millions of dollars every year in property damage, and despite what some of the whiners on this site say, speeding is a significant contributing factor in many crashes. And no, I'm not gonna quote the stats for you- look them up yourself, I don't have time. |
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I've used radar detectors, had a lot of tickets, and beat a lot of traps, here's the lowdown: Laser - If cops are using laser, you are screwed unless you spot them first, look for them hiding by light poles as they generally have to be outside the car. You can't pick this up ahead of time even if they are hitting other cars, so you have no defense but your own eyes. The good news is, laser is much more expensive and at least where I live, VERY few cops have it or use it. Radar - 2 types - Don't know the real terms for them #1 Always On - This is the lazy cop that just goes down the street or sits on the side of the road waiting for someone speeding. If you have a good detector, (V1 is top of the line), it will pick up this beeping from maybe a mile or less away depending on terrain. Needless to say, everytime they've left their radar on I've picked it up in plenty of time with my V1. Sometimes annoyingly soon as I hear the beeping get closer & closer and it's a good mile away in traffic. #2 "Instant On" - This is the kind where they flip a switch and boom, the radar hits you right away. In general, you are NOT totally defenseless against this with a good detector. If traffic is heavy, my V1 picks up the intermittant "super beeps" as I call them, and I can tell everytime if it's a cop using instant on or something else. Gives me time to slow down usually. HOWEVER, this only works with a lot of traffic. If there's not a lot of traffic, for instance my last ticket at 2am with no one on the road, you aren't gonna get any warning because you're the first car to come by in a while so you won't have any advance warning. I've had about 6 detectors over the last 8 years. For the past 3 years I have used my V1 & it has been amazingly helpful. It isn't full proof, but the other detectors I had were NO WHERE good enough to detect enough in the ways I describe above. Pretty much they just beeped here & there and you can't tell the difference between an automatic door and a speed trap. They are worthless IMO. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. There's a reason the V1 cost $400, and its well worth it, but NOTHING is full proof. If you're going to get a detector, IMO, this is worth it. Not to mention they will upgrade it for you so you don't have to buy an all new one, but I have never sent mine in for upgrades. Still works great and has been through a couple wrecks and sweltering heat sitting in the car. |
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Out of those choices I would pick the 8500. Now if you want a real setup. You should try the Escort SRX built in detector/shifter. The SRX radar detector mounts in your grill and there is laser shifters that go in the front and back of your vehicle. A small concealable read out screen is mounted inside the vehicle. |
I almost enjoy getting speeding tickets these days, because after the cop writes me that ticket I know I'll pay a lawyer less than half what the friggin fine (TAX) is & the city/county/state doesn't get the revenue, my lawyer buddy does  My small part in helping keep the economy going! |
I'm not sure you're familiar with the more recent jammers. Some of them have as many as four sensor units that are placed on the front and back of the car. They are very successful in defeating police laser guns. They're not infallible, but the better units successfully defeat laser guns 94% or more of the time. Good enough odds for me. |
The SRX is sweet, but not priced for the average person on the street. For less than half the price of the SRX, you can get the 8500 X50 detector and the Shifter ZR3 (jammer), which will do just about as good a job. |