I was curious if someone could give me details about radar detectors and how well the actually work, and what brand/models are good out there? thanks

 

I'll start out with the stupid advertising BS that you can ignore and that will pretty much take of a lot of non-sense.

First things first, LASER is you biggest danger. There is NOTHING to detect until he has you in his sights and pulls the trigger. Unfrotunately, it is an instant speed reading and you've been had before the detector even goes off. You might get a warning if he shoots the car in front of you or he shoots you and misses. Laser is ONLY shot from the front or the rear. Concidering the detector is mounted in the front, it is unlikely that "360 degree laser " is much of a selling point. Don't get hung up on it. Nothing you mount on your dash is going to jam laser. If the little thing claims to have laser jamming, don't waste your money on it, it won't work.

Second and probably more common, but easier to detect, is radar. There is X, K, and Ka bands and they all pickup all three. Radar is also only shot from the front or the rear. Picking up the rear radar is a little easier with radar than it is with laser by nature. However, nobody shoots radar from the sides so don't get hung up on 360 degree coverage. There is also nothing you can buy retail that will actively jam a radar gun. It is against federal law for any company to make it and sell it in the united states. There are ones that claim to do it but it is basicly a joke. Do not waste you money on something that claims to jam radar.

There are simplistic ones and there are fancy ones. I for one never saw a point to all the fancy crap. You don't need arrows pointing to where the cop is. He is either in front of you or behind you and as long as it is beeping, slow the hell down. Some have better sensitivity than others. If the radar is on, my $50 cheapo one will pick it up in plenty of time just like the $250 V1 model. This, in my opinion, is not something you should ever spend more than $75 on.

 

basicly what he said is pretty acurate, radar jammers are jokes, they dont work....

as far as radar detectors youve got 2 options... you can get a decent one for 100ish new that has decent range but they get alot of falses and probably about 100-200 meters range (clear line of sight) and then the top of the line escort x50 (up too 2 miles range on clear sight), theyre known for 'tunnel vision" so theyre side detection isnt to great but side is almost worthless...those are about 200-250$....v1 has a glitch that causes the arrows to become very inacurate and it also has jsut as many falses as the cheapos


and laser is un avoidable unless you have a laser jammer which will not allow the laser to detect your speed (it will contiue to scan but never get a reading or range) which are supposedly legal, almost 100% sure they are in texas.


if you want more indepth discriptions or reading material, im on this forum for detectors and you get some great advice and such

radardetector.net

 

what you need to do is get a cb radio and talk to the truckers. thats the best cop finder ive ever had.

 

The best 2 hands down are the escort X50 (or their latest model)
and beltronics RX65 is a close second.

Cheap radar detectors are annoying you get so many falses when there IS a cop
you wont slow down..
Cordless wont detect POP radar even when plugged in.
you do get what you pay for esp if you are in a urban area.
out in the middle of nowhere a cheap-o one is fine because there isnt as much
background noise from door openers etc.

 

I've always had this urge to put a lil gps unit on all policecars so i'd ALWAYS know where they are. It'd be a sweet/fun project and would be awesome.

Aaron

 

yeah cheapos suck... i had one and would never slow down ... the one time it had a real alarm it was in the middle of nowhere but i was so used to fake alarms that i didn't slow down and got hit with a $131 ticket...valentin one is the way to go though...mom's boss had one and knew i was going on an eight hour trip and let me borrow it... saved my A$$ in atleast 4 georgia state trooper speed traps

 

If you can find out before hand what band is most common around where you live, see if you can find a model that can inhibit the other bands. For example, nobody uses X band around here but the stupid supermarkets set it off all day.

 

I bought the Beltronics RX65 because it was rated higher than the others out there. I love it....it picks up all the bands pretty quickly and from a very good range. Ka is especially used by the Highway Patrol and Sherrifs....X-Band and K-band are rare, but they are out there. Also, it's nice when they 'pop' you (ie. instant on/off) the Beltronics goes full blast to tell you to slow down...same with laser (always full blast).

Do your research, but I agree, don't get the sub-$100 ones...you'll get those wonderful false reading that you end up ignoring.