pop falsing when starting up V955

[dpatel01]

hi everyone..long time lurker, first time poster here

Last spring I was looking for a new RD to replace my nearly 5 yr old whistler 1665 which had a blown speaker. Anyways after reading through the forum, I finally decided on a Bel V955. It's been about 8 months I've owned it and I have to say I am very impressed with its performance compared to the whistler and 2 crapras I owned before that. I have gotten a couple of laser saves and some 2+ mile saves on CO Ka. However, when I was going thru the programming options in December, I noticed the options for LP905 would sometimes appear even though I don't have the jammer heads in my car neither did I think the V955 was capable of being hooked up to the LP905. Now more recently, the problem has been POP (I keep it off in my town bcuz everytime pop goes off here it's usually a crapra in the car next to me) but when I go to Omaha, pop seems to be a legitimate concern as it goes off sometimes on the interstate and theres always a LEO nearby. Perhaps someone from Omaha can fill me in on if they really do use pop there? Anyways, whenever the car is started now and the RD is powered up, I get 10 or so pop falses, the next day it was around 20 in a row, then 30, then 40, and so on. The falsing is much like the laser falsing described in the Escort section for the 8500, and I have tried the 8500's solutions to fixing it but no luck so far. Checked cars electrical system, voltage holds stable.

I've always followed a few rules about taking care of the detector since I purchased it, such as power down before shutting down car, power up after starting car, and to always bring it in the house when not being used, etc. I have tried to reset it few times but the pop falsing won't go away. Of course turning off pop would solve the problem, and at most times it is off as they only use IO K, Ka, and Laser in town where the LEO stands on the side of the road hiding, then jumps out in the path of a speeding vehicle and directs it to pull over.

My question is should I return the unit to belscort, and if I were to return it, would they just fix the current unit or send me a new one with the M4 platform? Reason I ask this is because amongst friends/family we have 8500 S7, V955 S7 (mine), 8500 M4, and V955 M4. The two S7 units like to false on laser (8500) and pop (my v955) but the range is wonderful. Of the two M4 units, the 8500 is alerting to hardly anything and while the V955 is working well, the range is still not as good as my V955 S7.

Thanks in advance everyone for your help!!

-Devin

[MEM-TEK]

Have you tried using a RJ-11 crimp tool and recrimping the connector on the end of the power cord? It is possible that one if the pins is making a flaky connection with its wire. Note that if you have installed the hardwire kit then you MUST remove the inline fuse first before using the crimper.

All I can suggest is that when you send it in you include a detailed note for the repair tech fully describing the problem, and most importantly that you like the S7 platform and prefer that -- if at all possible -- that your RD be repaired rather than being replaced.

[dpatel01]

thanks for the quick reply mem-tek.

anyways i counted 67 pop falses in the middle of nowhere on my commute home last night then it went on to redeem itself as it gave over 1 mile save on a nebraska state trooper running Ka as i was going along doing 15-20 over PSL

swapped cord today for a smartcord from an 8500...so far no falsing today after startups

i'll use it for few days and if the different cord solves the problem then give belscort a call for a new cord

[junior8]

Hi dpatel01. I noticed in your first post you were mentioning that your 955 with the M4 platform did not detect as well as the S7 platform. I just got the 955 and noticed a huge difference between that and my 940 S7 on Ka. Did you notice a big difference in range or just a small difference?

[dpatel01]

not a great difference (perhaps 10% or so) between the two 955's but the two 8500's seem like night and day compared to each other.

if i were to rank them best to worst i'd say

1. tie between 955 S7 and 8500 S7
2. 955 M4
3. 8500 M4

[dpatel01]

drove around with the 8500's smartcord plugged into my V955, worked great without the annoying repeated pop falses, so i called bel customer svc today and spoke to Dave. Explained the problem, and he said they'll send a new cord as it was under warranty. I offered to pay the price difference between the standard coiled cord and the smartcord ($16 diff i think) and Dave said they'll send a smartcord for free since we've got a quite a few belscort products

It was nice to speak to an someone in customer service who knows what he's talking about and not have to be transferred to half dozen people and wait 30 minutes on the phone not getting anywhere!!

I underrated the usefulness of the mute button and on the beltronics it also does double duty as volume control.

Anyways I have to fax a copy of the paperwork and cord should be here in the next few days...