[MEM-TEK]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick post of some interesting stuff I found while comparing my 9500ci's horn assembly to my STi's horn assembly...

Here are some quick shots I took today comparing the 9500ci and STi radar horn assemblies. Note that the horn castings used in the 9500ci, STi-R and STi are identical. Also note that the laser detection circuitry is not populated on the 9500ci's antenna board whereas this circuitry is present on the STi-R antenna board. You can see that the STi features a predominantly downward flared horn. The 9500ci and STi-R horn assemblies are oriented identically to a STi horn assembly when the serial number sticker on the 9500ci or STi-R case is on top.

Not shown below are any photos of the 9500ci internal LO board. The 9500ci Lo board is up to rev F compared to the rev C LO board in my STi which was manufactured in mid March of 2007. I carefully examined both LO boards. The electronics and all traces on the boards are identical. The only changes I saw were the green silkscreen overlays which tell the pick-and-place machines where to place the components. My guess is that Bel/Escort has been coming up with every tweak they can think of which might speed up production.


Below is a view of the 9500ci antenna (left) and my STi antenna (right):




The 9500ci antenna and board assembly stacked atop my STi antenna and electronics:




A close-up view of the X band antenna. If you look carefully, you can see that the center antenna ridge is coupled to a microstrip landing on the LO board:




The K-Ka band horn. Note that the K-Ka band horn features a slightly shallower downward flare angle compared to the X band horn. The difference is only maybe 1 or 2 degrees. The X band horn, above, is optimized for receiving X band signals. Likewise, the K-Ka band horn is optimized for receiving the higher frequency K and Ka band radar signals, rather than just being an exact duplicate of the X band horn: