It's been sometime since anyone has commented on the Passport 9500ix. Any realtime thoughts on the false signals and blockouts ? Has Valentine suggested their working on a GPS version ?

Rennlist users seem to prefer the V1.

I have no experience with either but am shopping.

Thanks

 

I think most swear by V1. By far, V1 seems to generate a lot more false alarm. 9500ix is much more quiet. Almost too quiet. Feedback I'vd heard is that those red light camera and speed trap warnings are useless on the 9500ix. If you drive a lot of freeway, I'd defintely get a V1.

 

+1 on the Valentine. Their customer support is very good as is their product. The only real "issues" I have with mine is a tendency to false alarm (laser warning) when certain LED tailights are picked up. I can also tell almost every time I am approaching a Lexus SUV which seems to generate some sort of signal which causes a brief K-band warning as it gets closer. Despite these little niggling distractors, I am spoiled by Valentine's ability to pick up radar sources at a distance and the situational awareness provided by the arrows.

 

I have a V1 and do mostly highway driving. I didn't used to get as many false alarms, but all of a sudden a couple of months ago on the same exact route I always drive to work there's a half dozen that didn't used to be there. Confusing...

The Colorado State Patrol seems to have changed frequencies or something though because lately I've been having trouble picking them up. I should probably look to see if Valentine has a software update I can download.

 

I pulled a Valentine and the passport for my audi s5. I had to switch to the passport because I was having issues with my cars side assist program setting off my Valentine one. so I've had the passport for around a month now and I have no complaints for it and the storing seems to work really well and naturally it just happens as you drive along, there is very little work that has to be done to get the radar detector to store information. as for the red light cameras and speed cameras there aren't enough in my area of New Jersey to really make it a worthwhile feature but I decide to get it anyway in case of doing cross-country trips and to provide higher alert availability. it does definitely seem like the Valentine one gets much further arrange the.
well that helps

 

On the Highway w/ V1 :
a) short travel distance of less then 20 miles: do you use the system if you've traveled the road weekly ?
b) on a longer Highway what speed over the post will feel reasonable ?
c) on a dark, open road ahead without other drivers, separation at least 30 sec. apart; how will you drive ?

 

Yes. The police here move speed traps all the time and there's a lot of places to hide, especially in the summer with the motorcycle cops with LIDAR.

Depends on my mood that day. I'll regularly do 20 over but hit far in excess of that if I've had a bad day or the road has a long sight line.


Depends on where I am. Around here, I keep it to 20 over or less in general. If I'm going through Nebraska or Oklahoma in the middle of nowhere, I'll cruise at 120.

 

I like my 9500ix. But, it is the 1st and only detector I have owned. Cops got a little too aggressive for my taste last year when the economy tanked so I finally had to fight back.

I think both will false a good bit because there are so many other things using the same frequencies. If the source is stationary like a building with RADAR equipment, the 9500ix will learn those locations and stop alarming on them - good for repeated trips on the same roads - not so useful for one-off trips in new locations. My last trip on new roads - about 600 miles, I got 3 real hits on actual patrol cars and the rest - a dozen or so - were from truckers equipment I am guessing. So you do get falses. Maybe the V1 would "point" to the truck for certainty - although you still have to "deal" with it either way - best to slow down and then sort it out - or slow down and not worry about the where, but rather the when.

Would be cool if they also shared a "falsie" database like they do the RedLight database - but even that would not help for truckers.

I don't make a habit of running "orange and pink lights" but the RL Camera warning is OK - nice "heads up". Bad news is that it will warn you of an RL camera on a road that is, for example, under the freeway that you are traveling on - sort of useless, but probably requires more "smarts" to detect that condition.

V1 seems to have more zealot fans - maybe it is just that good - or...? Zealots, of any sort, worry me though - nothing in my experience is "that good" and I was put off by V1 advertising style - that and I liked the tweaky idea of a GPS location database in the Escort.

Seems almost like a style choice - are you a jeans or khakis person. Unless there's a technical problem (like the Audi example) or the jeans stain your tan seats, either will probably be useful.

 

Good point
I use the Passport with the option that shows the frequency number. After awhile one learns which number belongs to automatic doors and so on. I also notice that commonly police using K-band have a variable number, so when I see a uncommon frequency that shifted one or 2 numbres, I slow down at once. The Ka band is notorious to be radar band.

The Passport has also decent laser detection, but do not trust any detector for that, in that case a shifter is much better and the ZR4 can be attached to the Passport, I don't think the V1 has such option.

I do like the quietness of the Passport, makes you respect the alarm when it goes on...

 

I just took a 1200 mile round trip to Road America and slapped the V1 in one corner of the windshield, and the escort 9500i in the other. I wanted to test them side by side on the same conditions. Some say this would not work, that they would interfere with each other, but they did not appear to. Some cheap detectors give off K band signals which will be picked up by other detectors, but neither the V1 or the Escort give off an outgoing K band signal, which is why they are invisible to radar detector detectors I assume.

I've owned a 9500i for about 2 years now, and recently picked up a V1 as the previous owner of my M3 had his hardwired in and it seemed like a good solution. My buddies have always had V1's and have been happy with them. I have always been happy with the escort, haven't gotten any tickets, etc.

I do use laser shifters for lidar, so laser detection isn't that important to me. With laser, the minute the detector goes off is usually the minute you know you are getting a ticket....unless you get very lucky and pick laser scatter off someone getting tagged next to you. If you are out lone wolf on the road and get hit with laser, there is no slowing down in time.

Initial assumption: My initial assumption was that the V1 was going to pick up more junk signal than the Escort as they are known to do, but I figured the Ka and K band warnings from LEO’s would be pretty equal. Note, once out of a metro area, I find that a lot of the LEO's in rural areas in the Midwest shoot K band as well as Ka band radar, so while you get a lot of K band falses in town, it is important to have this detection out on the open highway. I was hoping not to have to test the Laser detection qualities as the tow vehicle does not have shifters installed, and in 1200 miles never did.

Conclusion: What I found was that my initial assumption was correct. The V1 chirps so much that I wanted to toss it out the window after 5 minutes on the road. Cat in the tree….beep. Cloud in the sky….beep. Overpass……beep. Navigator fallen asleep next to me….beep. X band X band X band…grrr. Now with that being said, you can shut the X band signal off on the V1 in the factory settings. I didn’t do it because I wanted to fully test the units on all bands, but I could have. Why it isn’t shut off from the factory, I don’t know. I did find a lot of inconsistencies in the false alerts between the two. Sometimes the Escort would make a beep at you, and sometimes the V1 would beep at you (X band or K band). Occasionally they beeped together. I found that the V1 was more sensitive to all the signal bands overall. The Escort is built to determine what is junk and what isn’t, and filter it out without making a sound, and it does a great job of that. The V1 is designed for situational awareness....alert you of everything and you can decide what is a threat and what isn't. Unfortunately, it appears the Escort filters out a little too much. It missed 2 LEO’s shooting K band in Wisconsin completely. The V1 lit up like a Christmas Tree on those occasions. The closest the two came to in performance was in Ka band warnings, but the V1 was always still a step ahead, usually by a few seconds. I was almost always on the brakes before the Escort ever made a peep (I wasn’t speeding, just checking my brakes of course , I would never tow a race car on a trailer at 90mph, lol).

As far as the arrows are concerned, after using the escort for so long, you can figure out where the signal is coming from you from how the sensitivity beeps at you, it isn't rocket science, so I don't know that those are a really big selling point IMHO.

Anyway, needless to say the escort is for sale. The 2 misses **** me off, and the V1 gave a few seconds more warning on Ka band every time, and IMHO that is sometime all it takes to avoid a ticket.

 

One more note: The 9500ix does add some speedcam alerts and a few things, but the GPS function on my 9500i is pretty much worthless IMHO. Yes you can block out some of the false signals, but it seems like it forgets them after a few months, and you find yourself relocking those same signals out again later. The escort already filters out most of the crap, so like the arrows of the V1, I don't know that I would look at it as a huge selling point over the V1 not having GPS and vise versa with the arrows.

 

I am a traveling salesman and have been using the V1 since 1996. I've found V1 upgrades and customer service to be very good.

Personally I'd rather have a false then miss something. With the V1 or other detectors you can tell the false alarms by the band and/or signal strength.

There is 1 part of 1-75 norht of Tampa that throws a false k band all the time..only lights up 1 light but there are times when the cops are sitting behind some tress at this false signal waiting to nab you...so again I'd rather have a detector that is more sensative that one that is not or one that "thinks" for me and says those are false signals when they might not be false signals.

 

V1 completely invisible to specter?

 

......But an overly sensative radar that is constantly going off is useless if you have to slow down every 2 seconds. I am looking at a V1 myself, but I am just not sure. i have an OOOOld Passport, but it works great in my area for Radar. I always know the deep throaty sound when there is a cop. I just bought the Laser Interceptor, and thought I should knwo when I am being hit by laser so I can at least slow down.

 

I had a Passport 8500 for about 6 years, and it worked well for me. But I decided to get a V1 this year, as it fits better next to the rear view mirror. So far I have no complaints, and I do like the directional information. I just drove 1400 miles from LA to Vancouver and was not bothered by false alarms at all. If I'm in an area with a lot of building intrusion alarms, I turn the volume down for a while so I can still hear it but it isn't a nuisance. You being in Oregon, I don't blame you for wanting maximum protection including laser shifters, as I find Oregon State Patrol to be everywhere when I'm driving through the I-5 corridor.