P-Car944

NeverFastEnough....

The 9500i is the same as the X50 with abunch of "Cobra" gimmicks added to it. I have tested the 9500i and the GPS will not alert you to a real police radar signal after you set the GPS to a certain location if the cop is running radar at that point. The 9500i will be silent and you wont even know that your being targeted by radar...ticket time. Yeah the V1, might be aged but why change something if its not broke. The V1 is still the best at what it does and proves in testing and real experiences. Every other radar detector will just leave you guessing.

NeverFastEnough

P-Car944...

Thanks for the heads-up. I was kind of wondering that...that is why I have not been brave enough to try the GPS/radar location programming yet. The speed feature is nice though especially if you have changed tire sizes, checking speedo accuracy, etc.

The V1 is the most informative, but I never could get used to the ugly beast. They really need a cosmetic update or something, then it would be tough to beat.

photonscience

Saw this happen the other day - I was about a 1/4 mile behind a 350Z who passed me at around 90. A NJ State trooper, who was parked on a dirt shoulder behind a overpass pylon, must have hit the Z with instant-on because I saw the Z's brake light come on just as my radar detector went off. Just as I get to the trooper, I see his light bar on, but he's going nowhere. Turns out that he must have tried to accelerate out of the soft dirt too fast, because his wheels were now up to the axle in mud spinning madly. hate to laugh at another's misfortune, but....

Kigiin

Don't know about your areas, but all the cops around here use Ka. There is no more K and X bands in the areas I frequent. So I have no concern telling my 9500 to ignore X and K in the areas I normally drive - and thank God because there are a lot of K and X falses (all shopping centers - which are everywhere).

The only way to get nailed as you describe is to turn off the exact kind of radar signal where a cop would later set up using that exact radar signal - never would happen where I frequently drive. Further, but not sure about this, does the 9500 know the exact frequency of the radar you just told it to ignore? If so, then it would detect the same band, but a different frequency of it.

I still use a 8500 X50 in my 993 and after having the 9500 for a month in my truck and I don't know who much more I can take of all the X and K falses.

P-Car944

If the radar signal that you "locked out" on the 9500i is close enough because the "Freq" Mode is not that accurate in the 1st place it can lock out of actual police running radar and you wont know about it.

NeverFastEnough

I think when you set up the 9500i to ignore radar in certain areas it is band specific...or at least the pictures/propaganda that came with it would lead you to think so. I have not been brave enough to try it. Also I was wondering how large the area is that it ignores...we all know that those door/motion sensors can trigger our radar detectors for blocks. That is too large of an area to "ignore" and something can easily hide (or does it really ignore the whole area or just a small part of it...ie. it will just false alarm again a few metres down the road?).

I agree, it used to be X-band that all those motion sensors had, but now it seems to be K-band as well. Most cops here usually use Ka and rarely K. Laser is even more rare.

When I travel into Canada they almost use exclusively laser in the west, sometimes K or Ka. In the past they found many cops were getting brain and testicular cancer which they tried to link to the radar gun being mounted on the A or B pillar of the car, or the bike cops holding the radar gun down by their hip between targetting vehicles. I do not know what the final verdict was though. And this was a long time ago in the old X-band and early K-band days.

Laser of course is harder to detect and now they can easily hand-hold point-and-shoot, without the old cumbersome (visually obvious) tripod mount.

fbfisher

V1 saved me Friday night. As long as you hear the alert, hit the brakes, then look to see where to "bogey" is coming from - you're golden.

P-Car944

The 9500i is GPS based so if your 9500i has already locked out a K band "false" alert and then a cop decides to park in that close area and run a K-band....24.150 +/- a few 10th (est 150" away) the 9500i will still lock out that K band signal since its in its data base now...The 9500i is a gimmick that Belscort is banking on...

Edgy01

Only one more thing is better than a radar detector,--LASIK surgery.--so that you have 20-20 eyesight. That alone is a great detector.

fbfisher

Really? LASIK allows you to see around corners, over rises in the road and gives you night vision? At $400 my V1 is way cheaper than LASIK and gives me these abilities. 20-20 eyesight is good, but not better than a V1.

boolala

I wouldn't paste that ugly V1 on my windshield if you gave it to me for free. The bottom line is that I haven't gotten any tickets with the K40 (nor anyone else here that I know of) so what's the relevance of the increased sensitivity?

Kigiin

Doesn't matter - no K or X bands in my area any more - just Ka and laser. Therefore, I am good to go to lock our all X and K bands, especially in areas where I frequent often and know the source of the false.

I don't know about you guys, but on my short 15 minute drive to work I get 4 or 5 false X and K band alerts - gets very annoying. I know areas outside my local area where cops still use X and K so wouldn't lock them out just in case those X and K band cops try to use strip malls, etc. to disguise their frequency.

In the end, you have to use your brain in addition to the radar detector.

FotoVeloce

My Escort 8500 x50 had bailed me out of a speed trap as recently as this morning.

FotoVeloce

I have to agree. It's so ugly I don't care how much better it might be.. it's just FUGLY. Now.. if Valentime has been doing the arrows for so long I'm wondering why other manufactures have not tried a similar type of product? I have to admit that I'm very tempted by the arrows, but not enough to look past the two-bagger face of the V1.

P-Car944

It called Mike Valentine owning the "True Dual Antenna's and Arrow's" patent til 2011. I have never seen Passport out perform V1 in real world tests. Plus the Arrows dont leave you guessing like the rest.