9500i Marked Locations & rear detection

[Regis]

Just received a 9500i after using an STi for about 2 years, and have spent a fair bt of time with it over the last few days. It's a 2907, and will be sent in for an upgrade shortly, so my apologies if any of this is fixed with a code update, but the two big things I've noticed are..

1) The marked location alert is way, way too far in advance. I live within 1.5 km a 2 camers and 1 speed trap, I can't even leave my place without the detector alerting to them. Needeless to say I've unmarked these locations. As well, even if I am not going through a marked location, anytime I'm on a road anywhere close to it it starts alerting about it. Instead of 1.5km, I think about 600km would be far more useful. There are several places, where if I have marked ALL cameras and speedtraps, there would be several alerting at once due to the large alert distance.

2) Anyone else think the marked location alert should STOP the moment it realizes you are moving away from a location instead of towards it? It alerts 1.5km before, AND 1.5 km after the location. This is silly.

3) It would be nice if direction played a role in marked location alerts. IE, traffic cameras at intersections here are usually only capturing one direction of traffic (same with speedtraps on most roads with medians in the middle and the spedtraps only in one direction on one side). The GPS should be able to determine your direction and alert accordingly.

4) I was fortunate enough to find a checkstop with 34.7 Ka radar constant on lighting up the entire area like a Xmas tree. Both detectors picked up it from well over 2km away. I did many passes, and experienced the 9500i ramp up issue quite readily. But I also observed that the STI was far more sensitive when the radar was behind me than the 9500i; the 9500i would often lose the alert completely when the STI was at about a 4 or 5. Moving towards the radar source, they were about equal. I am curious as to why the difference, I wonder if the GPS gear in the detector blocks some radar signal coming from the rear from hitting the sensor or horn? Odd. Another odd thing, is that the 9500i reported the Ka @ 34.714 and the STI @ 34.728. I guess one or both is a little out of calibration, not that it really matters though I guess with such a small variance.

[CJR238]

I agree, if you want to use the Mark Location a lot, and on your frequently driven roads the radius should be a lot smaller. The 1/2mi at less than 50mph is ok but 1mi at over 50mph is a bit much.
Mark Location seems to be designed to be used on less traveled roads/trips, or in places like Kansas with miles between destinations. I only use mine on my vacation trips where I drive less frequently and am more likely to forget about a speed trap or camera.
According to Escorts patent when and if the software for the USB is available you will be able to adjust the distances at which Mark Location alerts.

Mark Location would be much better alerting one direction toward the trap/light. But that might be a bit much for the 9500I to do.

Speck display is not right on the money you will get slightly different readings time to time but all within the 30MHz block range. Also falses frequency’s can fluctuate quite a bit.

Rear detection on my 9500I seems to be more than ample, maybe it was your placement or the RD's interfering with each other.

Mark Location Feature is for speed traps & cameras. Good for those traps set up on your "not so frequently" driven rides where LEO's use I/O. the verbal notification of the mark out circumference is 1/2mi under 50mph and 1mi over 50mph, So if you drive on road parallel it will still alert you. It will also count down in feet to the mark location and away from it.


A good place I use mine for is a speed change from 55 to 25mph on my trip to my place in Vermont.

[MetalFlame]

Huh! So 9500i cannot sense the direction you're driving?
If that's true you can forget using your 9500i GPS,to alert you to R/L or speed cameras like Navalert or Cheetah GPS Mirror does.
I don't know if GPS in 9500i has hardware and software already built-in and it only needs to be activated(by Escort),but if that's not the case then you will have to send 9500i back for hw/sw upgrade,if you want to use USB port to download R/L,speed-camera(photo-radar) and speed trap database.

[MEM-TEK]

...I was fortunate enough to find a checkstop with 34.7 Ka radar constant on lighting up the entire area like a Xmas tree. Both detectors picked up it from well over 2km away. I did many passes, and experienced the 9500i ramp up issue quite readily. But I also observed that the STI was far more sensitive when the radar was behind me than the 9500i; the 9500i would often lose the alert completely when the STI was at about a 4 or 5. Moving towards the radar source, they were about equal. I am curious as to why the difference, I wonder if the GPS gear in the detector blocks some radar signal coming from the rear from hitting the sensor or horn? Odd. Another odd thing, is that the 9500i reported the Ka @ 34.714 and the STI @ 34.728. I guess one or both is a little out of calibration, not that it really matters though I guess with such a small variance.

Hi Regis,

You brought up several interesting questions and observations. I agree that the radius of the mark location feature is way too big. I love your idea about direction playing a role in marked location alerts. I have thought of this myself. But more importantly, some answers for your number 4 observations:

Escort worked hard to get the actual signal strength of alerts to match what the horn was actually receiving. Yet, due to a firmware issue, there were problems with the ramp-up. The STi produces a very smooth visual ramp-up for alerts, but that ramp-up is averaged over a short period of time in order to produce a smooth ramp-up curve. The STi also incorporates an algorithm which ramps down the alert smoothly after you have passed the radar source. This is referred to as a "lag time" where the alert smoothly ramps down even though the STi may actually be detecting little if any radar after passing the radar source. Thus your 9500i was truly showing that it couldn't detect the Ka radar after passing the source, yet the STi was ramping down its alert even though it too wasn't detecting radar after passing the source.

The 9500i, however, was designed to have a near zero lag time since Escort's goal was to have the display and audio accurately show the actual signal strength of radar being received nearly every fraction of a second. But errors in implementing the mathematical algorithms in the 9500i's firmware code resulted in the sudden jumps from a weak alert to a strong one as the received signal strength started to rise rapidly. Interestingly, the 9500i's ramp-up bug has twice saved me from getting nailed in around-the-curve encounters since my 9500i started to alert overly strongly before I was even close to rounding the curve and being in full view of the radar gun.

--Michael

[thestaton]

yeah the mark location is very much broke and needs to be fixed. the first time I ever marked a location it started alerting to me of it's presence when I was parallel to it going away. after that I gave up and never used it again.

the best product for cameras has got to be the speed cheetah mirror. that thing is amazing.

[KaPro]

I belive escort will fix the marked location "radius" of alert. A mile is over the top IMHO. I do like the true lock option. Just use it sensibly as CJR has suggested in his informational post. I have been driving around for a couple of days with my exchanged 9500. Build date is 4707. The Ka ramp up is the same as the prior version. Seems as though there is no 3/4 ramp up. I can live with it though as you definitely "get the hint" when it alerts to Ka.
Overall, I like the unit. Does it take getting used after life with a few V1's? Absolutely!! I would like to see escort change the smart cord so you can adjust the volume with the mute button. I would also like them to use the same scanning dot set up as the X50.

[MetalFlame]

I would like to see escort change the smart cord so you can adjust the volume with the mute button.

I tought that Beltronics and Escort Smart Cords are the same?
I can adjust the volume on RX-65 with Mute button on Smart cord.
I didn't know you cannot set the volume with Smart cord Mute button on Escort RDs.
That's wierd.

[Regis]

Mem, wow, you know your alerting algorithms! That makes sense, thank you for the explanation. Now that I understand the difference, I can keep my trust in the 9500i (which I wasn't sure about) and just learn how to react to it's alerts after years of practive with the STI. Next time you're in town, a beer's on me. BTW, I recommend July.

Sounds like there is enough support here that Escort may pay attention on the marked location alert ranges. Hopefully they will, or make it user definable if they ever release their PC based utility for it.

[MEM-TEK]

Mem, wow, you know your alerting algorithms! That makes sense, thank you for the explanation. Now that I understand the difference, I can keep my trust in the 9500i (which I wasn't sure about) and just learn how to react to it's alerts after years of practive with the STI. Next time you're in town, a beer's on me. BTW, I recommend July.

Sounds like there is enough support here that Escort may pay attention on the marked location alert ranges. Hopefully they will, or make it user definable if they ever release their PC based utility for it.

A cold one sounds good man! Anyway, whenever I talk with the Belscort CS reps I generally mention RD.net. Most didn't know it existed yet found it really interesting once they checked out the forum. It turns out that most of their CS reps are radar detector fanatics. Too bad that Escort won't let them join the forum and talk, or at least authorize one of their engineers to join and talk here. But they do watch what we, as end users, have to say about their products. Thank God that at least we have Michael Batten of Whistler and of course The Professor (jimbonzzz) here to enlighten us about the internal workings of radar detectors!