8K-mile road trip to Texas and Florida!

[Road Warrior]

Hello everybody, glad to share some interesting impressions from my 18-day 8,000 mile-road trip to South Texas (Dallas/FW, El Paso, San Antonio, Laredo, Brownsville, Houston, Galveston), then New Orleans and all Florida, Panama City Beach, Tampa, Clearwater, Naples, The Everglades, Key West, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Cape Canaveral, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Charleston, SC, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel, Delaware, Amish Country (Lancaster, PA), NY and back home to Toronto… tones of beautiful and unforgettable memories, about 15 hrs of camcorder recording and… a super thank you to my Solo S2 who has done an magnificent job… mounted right bellow the rear mirror, it has saved me for about 5-6 speeding tickets where my CB Radio was useless (roads with no trucks around), CB Radio is a super great investment but is very useful only on the open road ( highways with trucks around), so where no trucks around your RD should be your best companion…
Some reflections:
- S2 works on two batteries (in my case I use rechargeable batteries, 2 in the RD, 2 recharged while driving), everybody is talking about less range for a cordless RD (no question about it), well, my S2 alerted me for ALL moving and stationary cruisers, in 2 cases I bet the cops where over 1 mile in front of me, coming towards me from the opposite way, when my RD started beeping, so as long as your RD is capable to alert you all the time so you have time to slow down and never pulled over (and I always did 20-30 miles over the local speed limit) ain’t matter if you use a cordless or corded RD
- CB Radio is very good only with trucks on the road, and I got lots of ‘smokie’ alerts, I myself always send out ‘smokie’ alerts and ‘alligator’ pieces on the road, but outside roads with lots of trucks around, CB is pretty much silent
- The annoying thing driving with an RD in your windshield is that everybody, RIGHT AWAY, as soon as you pass the normal speed convoy you see vehicles starting following you as their own rabbit, couple of times I got pretty pissed off, slammed on my brakes and let the freaking cheaters go ahead, with no more rabbit in front of them they always stopped overspending… BUY YOUR OWN FREAKING RD AND DO NOT USE ME AS YOUR OWN FREAKING RABBIT!!!!!
- For long trips, use a multi (triple in my case) power outlet, one for the CB, another for the XM, and the third for a triple outlet 110/220 V inverter so you can recharge your RD batteries, cell phone and a camcorder all while driving
- Texas and Florida HP are all on Ka and Texas HP uses Ford F-150 p/u trucks and lots of trucks pulled over in Texas especially near the Mexican border
- Couple of falses, laser around some airports, Cincinnati, OH is one of them, and also some VG-2 alerts, I looked around and saw nothing suspicious (still I don’t know what causes a VG2 false alerts)
- Very rare to see vehicles with RDs inside, and I’m not talking about VA, I don’t understand why people don’t use one, lots of cars pulled over, speeding the main reason
- So, based on my own and unique experience, I STRONGLY recommend everybody using an RD (if you know you over-speeding all the time) AND, why not, a CB Radio for the open road, my S2 and the CB combined has saved me against at least 10 speeding tickets (but obviously after you get the first one your driving habit changes a lot, and if you get the second one you simply forget about speeding and your vacation is pretty much screwed-up… that’s why for speeders an RD is extremely important… CB Radio is more like an add-on for the open road only…
- Great road trip, beautiful places, unforgettable memories, glad to share with you all of the above

Drive safely :wink:
RW

[Slower Joe]

Thanks for the story, RW. I almost got a Solo 2 due to my power outlet being located inconveniently...but I just couldn't reconcile the loss of range when spending $300+. So I had an X50 hardwired.

I took a shorter trip over the weekend on I-75 here in FL. I picked up some Ka also. I'm pretty sure as far as radar is concerned, that is probably all FHP uses. Did you have any LIDAR enconters? I am not certain, but I am 95% sure that when I got a ticket in Nov of '04 from FHP that he was using LIDAR. He was a motorcycle patrolman, for one thing (which I had NEVER seen before) and secondly, he was off of his motorcycle when he was waving me over to the side of the road. Smacks of LIDAR to me.

[Road Warrior]

Thanks for the story, RW. I almost got a Solo 2 due to my power outlet being located inconveniently...but I just couldn't reconcile the loss of range when spending $300+. So I had an X50 hardwired.

I took a shorter trip over the weekend on I-75 here in FL. I picked up some Ka also. I'm pretty sure as far as radar is concerned, that is probably all FHP uses. Did you have any LIDAR enconters? I am not certain, but I am 95% sure that when I got a ticket in Nov of '04 from FHP that he was using LIDAR. He was a motorcycle patroman, for one thing (which I had NEVER seen before) and secondly, he was off of his motorcycle when he was waving me over to the side of the road. Smacks of LIDAR to me.

There is no difference in range as long as your RD, cordless or corded, alerts you way before the cop clocks you!!! Who cares that a corded gives you more range when the cordless one is always ahead of the cop... this is not an RD contest, if your RD does the job for you, 100% and all the time, you don't care if that's cordless or corded!!! Cordless is good cause you have no cord to hang by your windshield (or any other interior wireing) and it's very easy to take it down anytime you leave the car for a long time...
No, I did not get any laser alerts, REAL ones, in this trip, just about 2 falses around some airports, but last year, in Toronto where I live, it saved me against 2-3 REAL laser attacks... for laser, the best is to have it very low, on your dash or very low in the windshield, the laser beam is very, very narrow, 18' in diameter, for conventional radar the higher you mount it the longer range you get...
Take care now :wink:

[Road Warrior]

Thanks for the story, RW. I almost got a Solo 2 due to my power outlet being located inconveniently...but I just couldn't reconcile the loss of range when spending $300+. So I had an X50 hardwired.

I took a shorter trip over the weekend on I-75 here in FL. I picked up some Ka also. I'm pretty sure as far as radar is concerned, that is probably all FHP uses. Did you have any LIDAR enconters? I am not certain, but I am 95% sure that when I got a ticket in Nov of '04 from FHP that he was using LIDAR. He was a motorcycle patrolman, for one thing (which I had NEVER seen before) and secondly, he was off of his motorcycle when he was waving me over to the side of the road. Smacks of LIDAR to me.

Now I remember, somewhere north of Miami Beach, on the US1 that runs right by the Atlantic, driving thru all the towns and resorts towards Daytona, in one place (local town) all over sudden the K alert, slowly at the begining, looked around, nothing special (no cops), continue on driving BUT still within the speed limit, and within seconds the K alert comes off again, this time in full power, and all over sudden at the N-W corner of a very small intersection a cop in white shirt, black pants, with the gun in his right hand... his bike parked right behind him... so no laser gun but a K gun, with no RD pretty sure I would have gotten his ticket...

[jimbonzzz]

Nice review. I really like the idea of cordless detectors. I think the Solo S2 is pretty amazing for what it does. I hope they come out with a successor one of these days...

There are drawbacks to the cordless units though...

IMHO Whistler kind of has the right idea for a cordless unit that doesn't compromise detection [as much] vs the corded units: use high-output rechargables, that charge up when the detector runs normally with the cord. (Maybe, they could use a lithium-ion battery like the laptops?) Also, maybe don't design them to run the detector for so long on a single charge, maybe only a day's driving of 8-12 hours or so.

The original Solo that ran on the 9V battery was pretty cool too I think...

Jim

[Road Warrior]

There are drawbacks to the cordless units though...

Jim

Based on my experience only, my S2 has been a GREAT "companion", no complains whatsoever, alerted me 100% and saved me at least 10 times, couple of times when I was the only one on the road (and doing 25-30 mph over the speed limit when the RD went off)... so, to be honest with you, knowing NOW how GREAT this little S2 can be, no misses at all, and knowing that a regular RD gotta have a cord hooked up to the cigarette lighter or car's battery, I will take the cordless in a blink of an eye, why would I need an aditional cord in front of my eyes (or somewhere within the dashboard) when the cordless does all the job for me!!!

[Road Warrior]

Also, maybe don't design them to run the detector for so long on a single charge, maybe only a day's driving of 8-12 hours or so.

Jim

Two batteries lasted for up to 8 hrs while the other two got fully recharged in about 3 hrs while driving...

[Slower Joe]

There are drawbacks to the cordless units though...

Jim

Based on my experience only, my S2 has been a GREAT "companion", no complains whatsoever, alerted me 100% and saved me at least 10 times, couple of times when I was the only one on the road (and doing 25-30 mph over the speed limit when the RD went off)... so, to be honest with you, knowing NOW how GREAT this little S2 can be, no misses at all, and knowing that a regular RD gotta have a cord hooked up to the cigarette lighter or car's battery, I will take the cordless in a blink of an eye, why would I need an aditional cord in front of my eyes (or somewhere within the dashboard) when the cordless does all the job for me!!!

I'm glad you're happy with it. Like I said, I almost bought one myself. But when it came down to it, I just didn't feel comfortable enough.

Now I remember, somewhere north of Miami Beach, on the US1 that runs right by the Atlantic, driving thru all the towns and resorts towards Daytona, in one place (local town) all over sudden the K alert, slowly at the begining, looked around, nothing special (no cops), continue on driving BUT still within the speed limit, and within seconds the K alert comes off again, this time in full power, and all over sudden at the N-W corner of a very small intersection a cop in white shirt, black pants, with the gun in his right hand... his bike parked right behind him... so no laser gun but a K gun, with no RD pretty sure I would have gotten his ticket...

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. If I were to guess, I'd say that all FHP and most of the big city LEOs are running Ka by now. But there will still be a lot of small towns with older equipment using K. Frustrating, since there are so many sources of K-band falses now.

[edweird]

A1A (which runs right next to the beach here in FL) is a good place for seeing radar and lidar enforcement. Lots of distracted drivers, and tourist pedestrains don't mix well. They typically enforce the parts with slower speed limits in cities (35-40 MPH) pretty strictly. The locals know to drive the speed limit or use alternate routes, but the out of town folks are pulled over all the time.

Ed