Is it worth it

[osidak]

I have had a Valentine 1 for a long time and I have updated them several times. I have been having a crazy number of false alarms due to the collision avoidance systems on cars and traffic monitoring in the area. My last few drives I just turned it off because it a constant K band hit and I was ignoring it anyway.

Checked the latest update which is supposed to give me "Traffic Monitor Filter" and "Junk-K Fighter" - V1 is looking for $289 for this update. I am currently on Software 3.863

Not really wanting to spend $300 if I am not positive those filters actually work I pulled down the programming guide to see if I can make some improvements with what I have. I enabled settings "b,C,d,E,F and G"

I set k-band warnings to an initial delay (muted) to 30 seconds
To stay muted with 4 lights on the signal meter
To unmute at 6 lights
Mute rear K band signals

Took a trial run and it didn't seem to help much of anything

So currently I have K band disabled - Which bugs me even though I can't honestly think of a single valid K band alert in at least a 18 months.

So is it worth it to spend $289 - Do the new filters work well enough that you can actually run K band active again?

[aigel]

If driving in populated areas, the traffic app Waze on your smartphone will warn you of speed traps just as well as any radar detector. The key is that you have to have enough users reporting in the area you are in to make it reasonably up to date. Not good for long distance travel across wasteland, i.e. driving to Vegas at night, but sure great in and around population centers.

That's all I can offer that's constructive. Non constructive advice is to drive the speed limit and keep the $300 for a ticket in case you are busted while you aren't paying attention ...

G

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Waze

[osidak]

I mostly stay within a few of the speed limit but will admit to creeping up over the limit especially on longer drives.

I use waze almost 100% of the time for my GPS and I love the app for all its alerts (traffic, cops, construction, weather ect) but it also scares me a bit..... Think of all those distracted drivers keying away all those alerts. For cops I take note but 99% either they are writing a ticket and thus occupied or they are long gone by the time you go by.

I like having my V1 as just another tool to let me know what is around me even if I am not speeding.

[TimT]

You must have an older V1, To upgrade mine ( which is 7 years old) will cost $129

All the nanny aids on newer cars make using a V1 in urban areas impossible... I to have turned off the X and K bands...

I'm amazed that car mfgs are using the same spectrum of radar in the nanny aids that the Po Po use for speed enforcement... I wonder if the car broadcasting on K band has any affect on the accuracy of the speed gun???

Newer Audis seem to cause the most havoc...

[dad911]

Our only speeding tickets lately have been camera tickets in DC area. Will Waze warn of those?

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by dad911

Our only speeding tickets lately have been camera tickets in DC area. Will Waze warn of those?

Yes, Waze tells you where cameras are.

[sugarwood]

Waze will eat up your cell phone battery like Godzilla.

[Rick Lee]

I have the Escort 9500ix and it has a built-in GPS that memorizes the falses and then blocks them on a future pass. I had to send it in for a tune-up a few mos. ago and that wiped my stored falses out. Took a few weeks for them to get stored again as I drove by all the usual places. Man, has that thing paid for itself.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I find that the worst are the Infiniti SUVs as their collision avoidance system is based on laser and sets off the V1 laser band. This causes reflexive "panic slow downs" semi-regularly.

I'm trying to force myself to not disregard laser signals for this reason even though that band is now starting to get cluttered because of these sorts of vehicles and the false positives they generate.

To echo the above, Waze is an excellent app and I use it as often as I can both for notification of potential hazards and to report things like speed traps hazards etc. myself. By judiciously using the V1, the Waze app, good common sense and reasonable vigilance I can regularly run 10-15 over the RMP* ("speed limit") which frankly is about where they ought to be set in most cases anyway - they're stoopidly, artificially low most of the time.

* = Revenue Maximization Point

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by sugarwood

Waze will eat up your cell phone battery like Godzilla.

No it doesn't. I drive to NYC and battery stays at 100%.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Or just get a car charger. Sheesh.

Re: the Escort - I find that cops do seem to sometimes sit in / near shopping centers and other locations - possibly because they know there's a lot of radar "clutter" and people accustomed to ignoring the warning they get every day in that spot might not realize it's actually real that day (?) One big advantage of the V1 "bogey counter". Would the Escort be vulnerable in the same way (i.e. donut-dunker decided to get clever and "mask" himself with known or suspected radar false hits?)

Just curious. I'd rather get more "nuisance" hits than potentially miss a single real one because the software didn't pass the information to me...

[Jeff Higgins]

My son has a brand new V1, while mine is about five years old. The difference is remarkable with regards to how many false hits I get vs. the number he gets. I think my all-time record was when following a brand new Escalade - eight hits coming from it, the entire time I was behind it, in the middle of nowhere. I think I'm sending mine in for the upgrade.

[sugarwood]

Originally Posted by Shaun 84 Targa

No it doesn't. I drive to NYC and battery stays at 100%.

That's bizarre because it uses GPS, which kills that battery fast. You must have one hell of a phone that doesn't use batteries.

[sugarwood]

I have an Escort, and don't seem to get many false hits except in urban shopping areas..

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by sugarwood

That's bizarre because it uses GPS, which kills that battery fast. You must have one hell of a phone that doesn't use batteries.

It is a great phone. It never uses the battery when in the cars.

[pavulon]

Would the near constant laser reflections make a laser detector useless in one of these vehicles?

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

I find that the worst are the Infiniti SUVs as their collision avoidance system is based on laser and sets off the V1 laser band. This causes reflexive "panic slow downs" semi-regularly.

[GH85Carrera]

Update on V1!

I have a V1 that I bought long ago. I check the V1 web site and it was old enough I had to send it in and have it updated. It cost me $200 and they sent back my unit with the new guts. It can be easily programmed now to just ignore X band and K band. All it looks for is Ka and laser. With Laser from what I hear all that does it confirm you have been tagged.

Last year on my drive to Monterey, CA the V1 was pretty much useless will just constant false alerts and many were from big rig 18 wheelers.

This year I drove to French Lick. IN and there were two falses and the display even called the J for junk. Anytime it made a noise I was on 100% alert and it was always a real cop.

Check the serial number on your V1 and go to the web site. If it needs an update do it. If it is new enough just program it to ignore X band and most of the false alerts will go away. From what I have read virtually no cops use x band at all. Very few use K band and those are old units. Ka band is the unit of choice for mast departments.

[wdfifteen]

I sold my Valentine a few months ago. My reflexes and eyesight aren't good enough for me to drive like I used to. One of these days I'll be doing 50 in the passing lane with my left blinker on.
I once drove from Sterling Co. to Lincoln Ne at over 100 mph all the way. There was a real smart guy in a Mazda RX who followed me the whole way at about 200 yards. I used to hate the clowns that saw you pass them and decided to follow at 25 yards. You have to slow down. If the Val goes off and you hit the brakes hard at 90 mph the moron will be in your trunk before he wakes up.
I use WAZE a lot. The only problem is the detours it figures out are sometimes not the best. I plug my phone into the car charger and never have battery issues.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

There is a little bit of scatter with laser (when someone uses a laser pointer you can see red light even if it's not shining right directly into your eyes). Because of this, a laser contact is always a "brake HARD and DEEP, RIGHT NOW!" event (unless you're the only vehicle around in which case you're boned and get ready to take it in the shorts - shouldn't have been going fast solo).

Here's some more info. on it. Laser contact is not necessarily fatal, but you do need to react quickly and decisively to have a fighting chance (i.e. the next one doesn't hit you).

As a point of note, laser jammers are usually legal (and afford good protection). Radar hammers technically are not. They can't outlaw light, they can outlaw RF emissions.

Here's more (right off the V1 web site):

http://valentineone.com/v1info/laserdefense.asp