excellent off axis reception

[Mandingo]

only thing I regret is I didn't get another of these when they went on sale dirt cheap at radio shack.

[TerragonSix]

See, it would be a nice experiment to rip open one of those Cobras and see if there if there is some way, any way to supe them up to make them perform better.

Probably not, because of the cheap tech, but its worth an experiment.

[Mandingo]

See, it would be a nice experiment to rip open one of those Cobras and see if there if there is some way, any way to supe them up to make them perform better.

Probably not, because of the cheap tech, but its worth an experiment.

It is funny you mentioned this because I had the same idea. You wouldn't need to tear it apart.

I believe a add on longer horn would do it.

easy to try out as all you need is a DIY cardboard horn lined with aluminum foil.

that or a plastic microwave lens added on in place of the original like whistler uses on all their detectors

I have been thinking of going to the hobby store and getting a plastic casting kit to try this on a few under performing detectors.

Escort uses plastic microwave lens also.

[Mandingo]

Yeah they actually aren't bad detectors, the "high end" ones, at least. The issue with Cobra (and to some degree, with Whistler) is they still market cheap, useless detectors to grab the bottom end of the market. That and the silly advertising angle with exaggerated or pointless claims. It obscures the fact that they do have some decent offerings on the upper end.

Actually, that works in our favor. The police will still stereotype all Radar Detectors as 'useless' based on the $60 Cobra you can buy at Wal-Mart.


...Fine with me.

I had a fairly cheap Cobra that I paid about $90 for. It worked rather well. I bought in Tennessee and coming home in Virginia, I had it on the dash and it picked-up VSP from behind at about 2-3 miles back and still kept chirping for several minutes after they past me...That's not bad for a cheap RD.

Not bad at all for 90 bucks. Especially that kind of reception from behind.

[Mandingo]

Cobra bashers will first say they don't detect radar till you on top of it which is a total basher lie.

Then they will say they don't pick up I/O which mine does better then any detector I have had previously. Then they will say it only picks it up from short distances which is totally falsehood too.

Then they will say it doesn't pick up very brief q/T's but I have never seen this. That's a kind of funny remark because a lot of very expensive high quality detectors don't do this very well either.

One being the MAGNUM !

can't wait for the new Vendetta line

[djrams80]

Cobra bashers will first say they don't detect radar till you on top of it which is a total basher lie.

Then they will say they don't pick up I/O which mine does better then any detector I have had previously. Then they will say it only picks it up from short distances which is totally falsehood too.

Then they will say it doesn't pick up very brief q/T's but I have never seen this. That's a kind of funny remark because a lot of very expensive high quality detectors don't do this very well either.

One being the MAGNUM !

I bought a Cobra XRS-9745 for the last GoL, which cost me like $200 from Best Buy. I'm pretty sure it uses the same platform as today's top-of-the-line Cobras. It performed poorly against GoL's Q/T testing. Of course, as you mentioned, lots of detectors performed poorly against our Q/T testing, but the good news is that Belscort is working on a solution to this problem as we speak. I highly doubt that Cobra is doing the same, but we'll see.

The Cobra performed anywhere from middle of the pack, to near the bottom on every constant-on test we ran. I ran around with it for a couple of days and it didn't perform very well on the few encounters I had. One thing it definitely did do a lot was misidentify bands. I've been driving past one spot in particular for years that has an X band source, that the Cobra consistently called Ka band. No detector can be considered "good" in my book, if it can't get the band right. That's basic stuff.

Freebird and I also ran this over the hill test:

http://www.radardetector.net/forums/...t-results.html

[Mandingo]

well I can tell you one thing right now that isn't in your tests.

I regularly come across police running C/O over the hill and it's a substantial hill and the Cobra of mine has done as well or dare I say BETTER the the more expensive Bell's and whistlers I own.

and that is a fact.

which please me a lot.

BTW that unit you tested is a bit OLD version in this line.

No doubt some tweaks were performed in the newer units I would bet

1/20 mile in 34.7 garbage.

I got solid I/O indications from over a mile the other day on a road that had a large curve at the end.

funny thing your tests shows it constantly beats the whistlers in 34,7 and equals them

and this statement you make is more then a bit misleading.

" The Cobra performed anywhere from middle of the pack, to near the bottom on every constant-on test we ran. "

when you look at your own 34.7 data closely

[Mandingo]

As far as rd's misinterpreting signals haven't seen it with this unit.

The champ of all time is MY 78SE LOL!

It regularly reports x band as K

so much so I can't lock x band out on the unit !

[djrams80]

well I can tell you one thing right now that isn't in your tests.

I regularly come across police running C/O over the hill and it's a substantial hill and the Cobra of mine has done as well or dare I say BETTER the the more expensive Bell's and whistlers I own.

and that is a fact.

which please me a lot.

BTW that unit you tested is a bit OLD version in this line.

No doubt some tweaks were performed in the newer units I would bet

But, you're guessing. You don't know if there are any improvements between the top-of-the-line Cobra I tested and the unit you currently run. The only way to know for sure is to test.

1/10 mile in 34.7 garbage.

So is 2/10 of a mile for a 9500ci. The results are relative.

I got solid I/O indications from over a mile the other day on a road that had a large curb at the end.

Every encounter is different. I've had 1/2 mile detections that I thought were great under the circumstances and 1/2 mile detections that I thought were terrible. Saying "I got this distance" means nothing unless there is some way to know what other detectors would have done in the same scenario.

If you think your Cobra is truly an excellent detector, send it to me and I'll run it against my daily gauntlet and post the videos. The videos don't lie. If you are right and Cobra is truly making detectors worthy of praise, the videos will back up your testimony.

[Mandingo]

well I don't have time to make a lengthy reply now unfortunately.

Sorry about this.

Later I will try to but I know one thing for certain.

There were some software changes in later models because my Cobra tells narrower in bad freqs. like the whistlers does unlike the unit you tested.