Has anyone ever received or heard of anyone receiving a traffic ticket whilst using a valentine 1 detector. I am just really curious of any detector and all the hype that surrounds this in New Zealand is quite unbelievable..:cool:

No radar detector is good enough to remove any chance of getting a ticket. There are just too many variables (plus the existence instant-on radar) to have a perfect detector (and if your detector saves you from a laser ticket, then you got lucky that you got the reflections from another car being hit instead of the laser striking yours).

 

That said, though, the directional features of the V1 have saved my butt in several situations where a detector without direction pointers could have led me into a ticket.

 

One recent case was that I had just taken an exit ramp and the detector started to go off, so I backed off to legal speeds and spotted what was obviously an unmarked police car parked on the side of the road (there was no one in it, but it's common for some of the locals (especially State Troopers) to leave their radar running even with the car off).

 

I passed and got ready to ease my speed back up, but happened to glance over and noticed that the radar was still pointing ahead (and still showing only 1 bogey). The radar hit was not from the unmarked car! So I kept my speed low and up ahead comes a State Trooper around the bend.

 

Like I mentioned before, though, instant-on reduces the effectiveness of any radar detector. Several times, I've seen the car ahead of time and started to slow down, then once I started getting close, WHAM, the V1 jumps to full-power for a few seconds, then dead silence again. Lesson learned: the best detector you can get is still no replacement for watching for cops.

Thanks for the feedback. Interesting to read that sometimes your've spoted the radar before the V1 has. Also the cop around the corner was interesting (good one V1). Cheers

 

No radar detector is good enough to remove any chance of getting a ticket. There are just too many variables (plus the existence instant-on radar) to have a perfect detector (and if your detector saves you from a laser ticket, then you got lucky that you got the reflections from another car being hit instead of the laser striking yours).

 

That said, though, the directional features of the V1 have saved my butt in several situations where a detector without direction pointers could have led me into a ticket.

 

One recent case was that I had just taken an exit ramp and the detector started to go off, so I backed off to legal speeds and spotted what was obviously an unmarked police car parked on the side of the road (there was no one in it, but it's common for some of the locals (especially State Troopers) to leave their radar running even with the car off).

 

I passed and got ready to ease my speed back up, but happened to glance over and noticed that the radar was still pointing ahead (and still showing only 1 bogey). The radar hit was not from the unmarked car! So I kept my speed low and up ahead comes a State Trooper around the bend.

 

Like I mentioned before, though, instant-on reduces the effectiveness of any radar detector. Several times, I've seen the car ahead of time and started to slow down, then once I started getting close, WHAM, the V1 jumps to full-power for a few seconds, then dead silence again. Lesson learned: the best detector you can get is still no replacement for watching for cops.

Interesting to read that sometimes your've spoted the radar before the V1 has.

 

But, like I mentioned, this was only because he had instant-on radar (so there was no radar to detect until he fired it up). When they aren't using instant-on, I detect them FAR before I can actually see them.

if I was going to invest in something like this and didn't want any tickets. I'd look at the laser and radar jammers on the market

Thanks for clearing that up Warp3 at the moment they are one (if not the) of the best on the market and talked about here in NZ! Thanks

JWX I'll have to do some more homework, thanks for your comments.

Cheers

On the note of jammers.

I have done some testing with these "passive jammers" that are on the market and have found them to be essentially worthless. While active jammers, which actually transmit a signal to jam incoming radar CAN work, they are very illegal most everywhere and are often NOT fast enough to counteract modern radar technology as they simply cannot interpret incoming radar and send out a counteraction in time to fool the police radar before he has a fix on your speed. Just some thoughts on issues that are much more involved and probably worth looking into. I imagine you can find plenty of resources online regarding these topics.

 

I have not done much V1 testing but do own a Passport 8500 which I am very happy with. Looking into comparisons on these products will lead to endless results and extremely mixed reviews.

 

-Heikki

Thanks hklaine I did a little reading around and found this from the Sales Department of Valentine 1:

 

"No, I don't see us doing any laser jamming. We don't think they work well, based on the tests that we have done. There is a new generation of laser guns that these jammers don't cover. In addition, these new laser guns have a very nasty feature: a code pops up in the officer's laser gun if someone is trying to jam it. This is very bad news, since the officer can then pick you out and follow you for miles, waiting for you to make a mistake, or just harassing you".

 

"Our two cents on this issue is to save your money. We jsut don't think that jammers---either laser or radar---are worth it".

Pete Kaufman

Sales Department

I started using radar detectors in the late 70's and stopped using them in the late 80's.

 

When I first got one, cops would crank the power output up and you'd pick them up a couple of miles away. I also had the advantage of working with an engineer who had been a designer for a speed radar company who filled me in on a lot of "tricks of the trade." I got rid of them when it was clear that most police had adopted effective countermeasures.

 

Instant-on is universal in this part of the country; there's a lot of falsing; and you absolutely, positively get a ticket if you get stopped. There's now a lot of laser use as well.

New Jersey, my home state, is luckilly one of the states where state cops still haven't phased out X-Band radar which is can be detected much farther than say K or Ka (which a majority of the local cops have now switched to).

 

If you don't speed now and plan to once you get the radar detector, then don't buy oneno matter how good it is. If you are the person that speeds either way, then drop the $300 or $400 for a good detector. If it allows you to avoid even a single ticket it could pay for itself.

 

I strongly recommend staying away from $100 Wal-Mart detectors as these provide nothing but a false sense of security and may make you more likely to get caught. I have run tests between the best of these detectors and the Passport and the difference is huge.

 

If anyone has personally run a Passport vs. V1 test or a Passport 8500 vs. X50 I would be very curious to hear the results.

 

-Heikki

http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=4&article_id=1993