Which radar detector is best ??

[richm]

Hi,

I don't need one, but am asking this on behalf of a friend who just purchased a 3.0R 2005... He asked me what model radar detector the club recommended. He didn't seem to buy the "we drive responsibly" theme.

He wants to know which radar detector to get. The Escort 9500ix due to its gps capabilities and learning ability of false reads or the Beltronics STI xr as it warms 4 seconds in advance. From you guys who actually have one and used one which model you would recommend, not limited to the above two?

Thanks for your help. I am hoping we can encourage him to join once he sees all the great knowledge that is here.

Cheers.

[Guest]

if he dont speed he wont need one and he would have saved some money aswell

-smurff

[richm]

 smurff said:

if he dont speed he wont need one and he would have saved some money aswell

-smurff

+ 1.

He drives like an absolut nana actually. Doesn't like going about 3K revs as it may use too much fuel. His argument is that he drives 1000km+ per week of Akld-Hamilton and may make the mistake of going over the limit.

He is serious about buying one, but he wants to make the right decision based on users' experiences.

[Scoobydoo]

Valentine 1, Bel STi are pretty on par with each other. I have the Bel and have found it great, although radar's are slightly usless these days, and a cop that isn't lazy will still get you.

Radars can't pick up the new technology speed camera's from far away as they operate on the low-powered K band, and once they do pick them up, it's normally too late.

They will pick up if a cop is pointing a laser in your direction, but again if you get lasered, you have NIL reaction time and if you're speeding, then you're nicked.

If you want true protection, you'll get a good radar, as well as a system that can block Laser. You want one of these:

http://www.laserstar.co.nz/

[aim]

That's sneaky... using parking lasers to confuse speed detectors...

[subiv5]

As explained above. Radar detectors are pretty much pointless for Motorway driving slash driving in general these days. Not worth the money

And BTW have heard that the laser jammers are pretty average as well anyway so basically just don't speed!

[MercuryFree]

 Scoobydoo said:

They will pick up if a cop is pointing a laser in your direction, but again if you get lasered, you have NIL reaction time and if you're speeding, then you're nicked.

This. Takes iirc either 0.3 seconds or 0.6 seconds to lock onto your speed. Either way you're screwed, and laser is how cops operate these days...

[Scoobydoo]

Yep.... my radar didnt help me when I got caught by a laser...

[richm]

Hey guys, My friend is very grateful, he writes:

They’re kinda confirming what I was afraid of…

That the police radar has gotten too good to detect…

Thanks, that’s exactly the reason I asked if you could put up the post…

[richm]

Update:

Can report he purchased his 1,2K radar detector in any case. He is worried about receiving a potential jail term from accidentally drifting above the speed limit... ...seriously. ???

Look forward to hearing from him if it works or if he sells it on TM.

[boon]

Oh they detect Police. They detect them real good - if there's a Ka band radar being used within 2000-odd metres of a Bel STI it'll be beeping like crazy.

The problem with that is the cops who are actively out trying to catch people use instant-on where the radar is kept in 'HOLD' mode, non-transmitting. Then when they spot a car, they flick it on and it will pick up your speed within ~100ms.

Points to note, they're only useful within about 400-600m range depending on conditions.

To pick one of them up, you have to be driving in the right traffic conditions so that you can pick up reflections from them checking cars ahead of you on the road, so that you can adjust your speed accordingly.

If you come around a corner and a cop car turns on any form of speed measurement, pointed at you, you're nicked. That's if you're speeding of course.

Unless you're using a high quality laser jammer. The top of the line ones you can probably sail past the cop and their gun will just show jamming codes on the screen.

[ODB]

look i seriously dont buy the "they are useless" line of thought.

Sure if someone is specifically targetting you with "instant on" you have zero chance.

However lots still use the Ka band.

I pick them up lots on way to Mt Hutt.....they are pinging other people a few clicks down the road and i get the signal too.

It gives me 30 sec or so to slow down.

There is no fail safe method, but i always prefer to have as much information as i can get!

[caspros]

And I agree. From my experience, it's almost like they have to ping you twice to get a proper reading. Last time I was pulled over for something unrelated to speeding, she said she'd originally caught me at xxxkm/hr, but couldn't get the second reading to confirm it. My detector picked it up on instant on and I slowed down.

Now I go everywhere with cruise control on as I can't risk it, but still it's always good to know as ODB says.

[wildturkey]

I ran a V1 and it saved my ass so many times with ample warning. Sure not full proof.......but pretty good protection. Used in tandem with good laser jammer a worthwhile investment if u can afford it.

Escort redline is another good one with great sensitivity to K band which is used in cams in vans...........only prob is around the city it does tend to pick up other K band signals.

[mitSUBishi-guy]

hi, interesting reading this thread. Seems to be some thought that it's all laser these days but I personally wouldn't discount a good detector that can pick up Ka.

I borrowed a friend's Bel mid-range detector earlier this year and it saved me several times. Most noticeable was a run back from Rotovegas one evening. Just gone dark (no moon so very dark), no traffic and running through the mountains just outside of Roto, heading back to Auckland. Sat on a nice cruising speed in the ticket zone when the detector went off. No traffic in sight, bit puzzled so I buttoned off before the next bend. Came onto a long straight and well off the road, parked up with no lights was a copper who flicked on the radar when he saw my lights come into view. SNEAKY B*STARD. That saved me a good couple hundy in fines. It didn't save the bloke behind me though - he got lit up as soon as he rounded the bend.

So laser can't be beat but I've seen more cops with 'normal' radar which means a good detector is still worth buying.

[smokn4]

 richm said:

Hi,

I don't need one, but am asking this on behalf of a friend who just purchased a 3.0R 2005... He asked me what model radar detector the club recommended. He didn't seem to buy the "we drive responsibly" theme.

He wants to know which radar detector to get. The Escort 9500ix due to its gps capabilities and learning ability of false reads or the Beltronics STI xr as it warms 4 seconds in advance. From you guys who actually have one and used one which model you would recommend, not limited to the above two?

Thanks for your help. I am hoping we can encourage him to join once he sees all the great knowledge that is here.

Cheers.

just tel him dont speed

[uwa8nc]

 subiv5 said:

As explained above. Radar detectors are pretty much pointless for Motorway driving slash driving in general these days. Not worth the money

And BTW have heard that the laser jammers are pretty average as well anyway so basically just don't speed!

I Agree,i have had so many detectors,But personally i Think a Valentine Does the Job,But they are very Pricey!

[richm]

Here is my friends update after owning for two weeks now.

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I believe that it is a valuable tool to help protect against tickets. After doing much research online, and from other owners, and now with my own experience, it will certainly not guarantee that you won’t get a ticket. In fact, I believe that one still needs to maintain the same level of vigilance of one’s surroundings as a driver without a radar detector.

So why own one then? Well, it’s one more tool in your arsenal to help prevent getting a ticket, because it can “see” the electronic eyes of the state (radar), which of course, you cannot see. Similarly, the radar detector cannot see the visible spectrum of light, which you can. Eg: you can see a highway patrol car that doesn’t have its radar switched on, the radar detector cannot. Working together, I reckon you can significantly reduce your chance of getting a ticket.

On two occasions now, the detector has warned me about a highway patrol car that I didn’t see. Once, at night he was about 1 or 2 km behind me when the detector went off, so all I could see were his headlights… without the detector there was no way to tell it was a patrol car, until he shot past me and picked up an idiot in a V8 holden who had passed me at a high speed half a minute earlier. The second time was in heavy rain, and to due the reduced visibility, I didn’t spot him until he was really close. The detector spotted the car maybe 800m before I saw him. Both times I was doing the legal speed limit anyway, but appreciated the warning, to ensure that I paid extra attention to my speed and therefore did not attract unwanted attention.

he highway patrol cars often drive along with the radar off, one can only assume that they’ll flick it on only if they see and suspect someone doing something dumb. So, it this instance, if you were going far too quick, and were not on the watchout, similar to someone without a detector, you’d be toast. But here’s the thing, I suspect that the police would only suspect you were doing something dumb if you really were, so if you’d only slightly gotten above the speed limit (by accident), they probably wouldn’t be able to tell and hence wouldn’t turn on their radar; just as you couldn’t tell your speed has crept up slightly too fast as well. So no drama, no radar = no ticket.

What I bought

Graham at radardirect.co.nz, the chap who introduced NZ to the Valentine1, is now recommending a GPS enabled Escort 9500ix as the best non-permanent detector. After much research, I took his advice and bought this unit. Main factor in my decision was its ability to auto-learn and lock-out false alarms. I decided that this was more important to me than having the most sensitive detector available. Why? 1) If it false alarmed too often, my wife would probably not let me use it when she was in the car, and 2) I would probably become immune to it, and not slow down when it went off. If you watch vids on youtube, of the 9500 ix vs. the most sensitive detectors on the market today, the Bel STi or the Escort redline (bel and escort are the same company); there’s only a few seconds it in between the 9500 vs. the most sensitive detector one can buy.

2 weeks later, I think that this was the right choice. Here’s why,

Annoying False Alarms

In my drive between Hamilton and Waihi beach, I go past no less than 6 of those really stoopid “slow-down, there’s a sharp corner up ahead” signs that transit is now installing everywhere to waste the tax payers money on. (My personal opinion is that these active signs are more of a hazard than a safety feature, as they distract the driver by flashing away in one’s peripheral vision, and who are they gonna save anyway? Only someone who hasn’t driven the road before, in which case that person would be going slower, and paying extra attention to the old-fashioned posted corner speed signs anyway…). With the police now using k-band in town in patrol cars, and k-band in the speed camera vans; all these signs run off k-band too; so false alarm city… The cool thing with the GPS unit is that it will and has auto-learned these k-band false alarms, and so it doesn’t go off when I drive past sources of k-band false alarm anymore. If I’d gotten the Redline of STi, I’d be putting up with 12 false alarms a day, 5 days a week, just due to those stupid signs, let alone banks and petrol stations!!! (currently driving from Hamilton to Waihi Beach daily for work).

Real threat being masked by a false alarm

Here’s an example where having a GPS unit really helped: In a 70 zone as one leaves a small rural town, there is one of those signs that says “your speed is XX km / hr”. These run off k-band. My unit false alarmed due to this the first few times I drove past it. Last week, it went off again. At first, I thought “stupid unit has un-learned the sign again”, but just in case, I looked down at my speedo to confirm that I was doing less than 70km/hr, check, yes I was only doing 70, so ok. I spotted a suspicious looking van a few seconds later, some geriatric old-guy (far past retirement age) had walked around to the back, opened the door and was rummaging around like he was checking that he hadn’t forgotten something. In other words the actions of the old-guy made it look very much like a private van pulled over. Radar detector was still going beserk, so I slowed right down to 60 (in a 70 zone) to make sure I didn’t get a ticket in case this van really was a camera van. It wasn’t until I was right upon it that I made out the camera through the back window… this time the camera was much harder to make out than usual. The van’s radar was shooting through the area that was still in the range of the electronic speed camera sign, so here’s the thing, if I had one of those super-sensitive detectors, I would have known that this was a false alarm spot, my detector would have already been going nuts due to the electronic sign, and I wouldn’t have realised that something different was up… the GPS unit had already silenced out this electronic sign, and so when it went off, I suspected something else was up…

No warning

If you do some research, you’ll learn than the new k-band speed camera vans are very difficult to detect because the power output is so low. So far, there’s only been one occasion where the detector hasn’t given a warning until I was right in the beam. If I’d been speeding, I would have been toast. Turned out that I’d spotted the van miles ahead anyway, so I was only doing 90km/hr (100 zone) as I went past anyway, to make sure I didn’t get a fine. Comes back to my opening statement, one still needs to maintain the same level of vigilance as a driver without a detector…

In summary, with me driving 1000kms per week I’m glad to have the detector, as the ability to “see” the electronic eyes of the state gives me some additional info to help avoid a ticket due to accidental non-compliance with the posted speed limit.

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[ODB]

nice write up, but tells me nothing that i dont already know.

[richm]

 ODB said:

nice write up, but tells me nothing that i dont already know.

Ever consided these forums, to be not just for your benefit? There are a lot of good points there for someone considering to buy one.

Otherwise, there are plenty of other threads to read.

Thanks.

[Guest the_return_of_the_jedi]

[ODB]

those buying them should know all of the above?

most of it is common sense.

if they dont know and havent considered...why are they even buying one???? wank value?

[ODB]

radar saved my ass this morning on way to mt hutt!

Sneaky pig was hiding around a corner using his Ka band to get you across a field. He was right up amongst some trees on a back road just past Hororata!

My detector smelled bacon and gave a blip 500m back so i slowed right up.

Soon as i got around the corner went nuts but by this time i could give him a cheeky wave on the way past!

[Guest the_return_of_the_jedi]

wank factor tho wasnt it?

nice one admitting to speeding on a public forum tho

troll is super lame

[ODB]

dude you should know what the feck you are talking about before you open your mouth and let your inner retard emerge!

First off i was doing about 115km/h. It is speeding, but mitigating factors are that the stretch of road is about 10km long and straight as an arrow, and it was at about 8am on sunday morning in the country. You see feck all traffic past hororata until you get closer to the mountain. It was dry and clear visibility wise.

I was driving to the conditions, just not to the letter of the law. I know which is safer.

Secondly, if you had bothered to read the thread and not just randomly rant, my claim of "wank factor" was levelled at people who buy radars in ignorance of their utility. I wasnt claiming they are wank factor. I have been extolling their virtues in the thread since its start.

You have been exposed as a mega tool time and time again on here. Cease and decist!

I eagerly await your abusive, single word PM.