Valentine One users, a question...

[macfly]

I just did an 800 mile weekend going up the the wonderful Quail event, but the low point of the trip was the worse than useless VizAlert unit that is supposed to give you in helmet info from the V1 unit. I got 10,000 false alerts, and the two times the was a real CHP bogey it was the chirping of my unit in the tank bag that saved me!

Has anyone else come up with a really good way of getting in helmet warnings (audible?) for the V1 unit?

[Steve Carlton]

Did you disable X Band? It will generate a lot of false alarm and it's not the coppers in CA.

[dsl]

Originally Posted by macfly

Has anyone else come up with a really good way of getting in helmet warnings (audible?) for the V1 unit?

You could get the audio remote, and wire an earplug extension up to the seat/tank junction. Then just get a set of sound isolating, in-ear earbuds like the Etymotic ER6is. If you use earplugs anyways, the only extra work is plugging and unplugging, when you get on/off the bike.

Yeah the constant plugging and unplugging can get old, but I much prefer an audio warning over visual... it's easier to decipher radar bands and signal strength, and my eyes are already way over-loaded riding as it is.

If you want to get fancier, get a mixer and pipe in music or a GPS voice commands, then the plugging/unplugging will be more worthwhile.

Agree on turning X-monitoring off.

[macfly]

Who makes the audio remotes? Have you seen a unit like the one you describe?

Not sure how to turn off X-Band, but way out in the mountains, and the desert, miles from anything, it kept going off all the time - not the V1, just the VizAlert. In the top of the tank bag I could see the V1, so when the VA went off I'd glance down, and nothing. The false alerts were all VA, not V1.

[shreddr]

Originally Posted by macfly

Who makes the audio remotes? Have you seen a unit like the one you describe?

Not sure how to turn off X-Band, but way out in the mountains, and the desert, miles from anything, it kept going off all the time - not the V1, just the VizAlert. In the top of the tank bag I could see the V1, so when the VA went off I'd glance down, and nothing. The false alerts were all VA, not V1.

send a note to their tech guys, they are pretty responsive. I definitely don't think the VizAlert is crap, you just have some setup issues.

Cheetah Advanced Technologies Ltd > Contact Us

[AndrewA]

Originally Posted by macfly

Who makes the audio remotes? Have you seen a unit like the one you describe?

Not sure how to turn off X-Band, but way out in the mountains, and the desert, miles from anything, it kept going off all the time - not the V1, just the VizAlert. In the top of the tank bag I could see the V1, so when the VA went off I'd glance down, and nothing. The false alerts were all VA, not V1.

Here is the V1 Audio Remote:


IMHO, less wires is better - not because they tend to be a PIA, but there are so many more single points of failure...Not so long ago my setup included my GPS, Sat Radio and Radar all feeding into an Electric Ave. Apmlirider - this worked great when it worked, but it was complicated and weighed a ton.

I now use a two pronged approach:

1)The HARD system has been perfect for me so far, and it has never given a false alarm.

B) When the HARD indicates radar, I glance down at my V1 remote indicator mounted on my dash for type any other info that is available through the V1 when it is setup in my cage.


I have yet to disable my X band. Although I still occasionally get false alerts near box stores or strip malls, when it does go off it usually indicates a busy area that either cops might be around, or clueless cages might be pulling out of. More than anything, false X alerts are a render to slow down for my own safety.

[Droptarotter]

Someone is going to smash your left mirror, Andrew!

How do you like the superbike bars?

Cheers

[dsl]

IMHO, less wires is better - not because they tend to be a PIA, but there are so many more single points of failure...Not so long ago my setup included my GPS, Sat Radio and Radar all feeding into an Electric Ave. Apmlirider - this worked great when it worked, but it was complicated and weighed a ton.

Hiya Andrew..

Well, interestingly, my experience is opposite. I ran all battery farkles at one point, and just got fustrated at them always "failing" (ie, having to replace batteries), forgetting to turn things off, etc. so I went back to switched wired.

Oh yeah, also got this great passive mixer - no power required.

[Tirebiter]

+1 on the H.A.R.D. system and V1 remote that Andrew illustrates......no fuss, no muss

Brock

[Rick Lee]

I use an earpiece in my helmet and it has saved me countless times. Best money I ever spent.

[Guest24]

I use my Autocom to bring in the aural warnings. BTW there are still some small towns in the southeast that still use X-band radar. Laser warnings as we all know require an instant response if you expect to avoid the fast riding award.

[shreddr]

Originally Posted by Nail24

Laser warnings as we all know require an instant response if you expect to avoid the fast riding award.

the speed of light is 186,000 miles per SECOND! so how fast do you think it takes for a laser beam to leave a laser detector and then come back to give the reading? assume a LEO can use it 1/2 mile out, which means the laser beam will have to go 1 mile, so divide that 1 second by 186,000 which is 5 microseconds (millionths of a second) that is the reaction time you need to beat. I am guessing the detector response is probably slower than that.

[AZ-J]

shreddr, you are correct, on a dead-on hit, you will likely get a ticket. But, better to get warned from a hit on a vehicle in front of you. Then the V1 works every time.

[AndrewA]

Originally Posted by Droptarotter

Someone is going to smash your left mirror, Andrew!

How do you like the superbike bars?

Cheers

With the bars installed, the bike handles like a SM, and is perfect for the type of roads that I like to ride on. They are also friendly to my wounded throttle hand, which is in need of surgery.

Now that I know exactly how to set the bars up properly (no easy feat), I can swap the stock bars back onto the bike in less than an hour.

My bike is now a R1200S/G (G = Garanimals)

Originally Posted by AZ-J

shreddr, you are correct, on a dead-on hit, you will likely get a ticket. But, better to get warned from a hit on a vehicle in front of you. Then the V1 works every time.

+1

[squall_line]

Originally Posted by shreddr

the speed of light is 186,000 miles per SECOND! so how fast do you think it takes for a laser beam to leave a laser detector and then come back to give the reading? assume a LEO can use it 1/2 mile out, which means the laser beam will have to go 1 mile, so divide that 1 second by 186,000 which is 5 microseconds (millionths of a second) that is the reaction time you need to beat. I am guessing the detector response is probably slower than that.

Well, technically, any speed measuring device needs to send multiple pulses to gather the information necessary to calculate a speed. An "instantaneous" reading is only good for a position determination; it takes a differential of position with respect to time to actually calculate speed, and in a speed gun's case, this happens by way of doppler shift.

The flip-side, of course, is that RADAR waves travel just as fast as LASER beams do (all radio waves travel at the speed of light), they just lack the precision and "instant-on" reliability that a LASER has.

In any case, LASER detectors are just there to let you know when it's your turn to pull over.

[shreddr]

Originally Posted by AZ-J

shreddr, you are correct, on a dead-on hit, you will likely get a ticket. But, better to get warned from a hit on a vehicle in front of you. Then the V1 works every time.

unlike radar, the spread of a laser beam detector is very small, the likelihood of picking up scatter is nil. here is a blurb from Radar Roy:

Laser Enforcement

A growing trend today are police departments moving to laser (lidar) enforcement and it is estimated that there are over 50,000 police laser guns in use today in the USA.

These guns transmit a beam of infrared light at a frequency of 330 terahertz. This light beam is only 18 inches wide at 500 feet and gets smaller as you approach the officer.

This narrow light beam is aimed by the officer to a reflective area on your vehicle, such as your headlamps or front license plate. The officer can only use the laser gun while he is stationary.

Unless your radar detector is within this 18" circle, or it picks up "scatter" from the beam, your radar detector will never alert. And by chance it does, it is too late as the officer has already obtained your speed.

Therefore Radar Roy says: "NO RADAR/LASER detector is effective against this type of traffic enforcement."

[SergioK]

I use audio warnings via the V1's audio adapter. I rarely if ever actually need to look at the arrows. It's signal gets mixed in with the GPS via a MixIt2 audio mixer which lives in the tankbag.

As for Laser, yes, the lock is virtually instantaneous if the LEO is focusing on you. My buddy who's a LEO let me try the laser gun out when I was on a ride-along. At first it took me about 5 seconds to get a lock... he'd get a lock in about 1 second, each and every time. Kinda scary... and really makes it like shooting fish in a barrel. It then comes down to how fast of a speeding ticket do you want to write up. He wouldn't bother with 7-10mph over... he was looking for morons going 10+mph over. (in a 25mph zone)

[tm1100s]

Doesn't this organized and premeditated extortion of money from the general public under the guise of 'protection' qualify for something under the RICO act?

Sat in one of the local county traffic courts waiting for my turn and did some quick figuring about how many cases per hour, average fines and came up with a figure of about $40 million per year for traffic fines. One county.

Federal offense to jam radar signals.
So far, no such limitation on jamming laser signals.
Cars need to be much closer to the gun than for radar, the beam may be 18" at 500 feet but I read somewhere (sorry, can't remember where) that out past 300 feet things start to degrade. Sergio, do those units provide a range/distance number? This may be the defense.

[AZ-J]

RICO is for unlawful conduct, not ostensibly legal conduct.

[squall_line]

Originally Posted by tm1100s

Sat in one of the local county traffic courts waiting for my turn and did some quick figuring about how many cases per hour, average fines and came up with a figure of about $40 million per year for traffic fines. One county.

Um...

Almost $27,000 an hour in fines?

There are only 60 minutes in an hour. Even if you could try a case in 60 seconds or less, that would be an average fine of $450 per case, at one case per minute, or with 5 courtrooms trying cases at a rate of one case every 5 minutes.

Methinks your math may be off a bit.