Re: Radar detectors - advice? for sale?

["Paul M. Moriarty" <pmm@igtc.com>]

I have to agree with John here.  In my opinion, radar detectors fall into
two categories, there's the Valentine One and everything else.

Several years back, I got caught doing 105 on I-5 in CA (yes, it was
foolish, and I make no excuses.  I had just bought a new 944 at the time and
was caught up in the excitement of the car).  The fine came out to $660, and
two points on my license (in CA, this is the same number of points that you
would get for DUI).  My insurance _doubled_ as there was no option of
traffic school for "Speed in Excess of 100mph".  I figure that ticket cost
me over $3000 when all was said and done.  The V1 costs $399.

Since buying the V1, I have not been stopped and that includes a run from
Chicago to San Jose, CA at an average speed of 78mph (as figured by the
nifty trip computer in my '88 M5).

Will other detectors do the trick?  Maybe.  A lot of older detectors have
better X-band sensitivity than their modern-day counterparts.  However,
they're not as good with K-band and some older ones don't even deal with
Ka-band (instant-on).  Also, expect tons of false-positives on X-band from
glass-break detectors in store windows if you live in an urban area and your
detector doesn't have some intelligence circuitry to filter them out.  I
turned my V1's intelligence mode off here in San Jose one day and was
bombarded with X-band false-positives virtually non-stop... this isn't very
useful.

If your detector doesn't save you and you're stopped and the officer sees
the detector, expect no mercy.

A good detector will pay for itself after 1-2 prevented tickets.  Save your 
pennies and buy the V1.

-> Paul <-

'88 BMW M5
'94 BMW 540i
'97 Jetta GLX - now with it's new owner


John A. Kilpatrick writes:
> On Feb 5,  9:54pm, Eric Wang wrote:
> 
> > I'm not looking to spend over $60, new or
> > used.
> 
> To be honest...a radar detector is one of those things that if
> you're not going to do right then you shouldn't do at all, if
> ya know what I mean.  A cheap detector will either give you
> a) a false sense of security or b) no sense of security.  Either
> way, it's kind of waisting money.  I'd just save up for the
> Valentine One.
> 
> --
> John A. Kilpatrick                        Systems/Network Administrator
> kilpatri@sgi.com                       Silicon Graphics Inc., Team TREX
> http://reality.sgi.com/kilpatri/	                 (650) 933-4387
>                "Every journey has a first step..." 5.21.99