SML Day One

[steagall1000]

Just finished day one of our radar detector and laser jammer testing here in El Paso with SML...

For a review of Mem-Tek and my observations visit: Radar Detector Testing Day One - SML

Roy,

You said you tested the Blinder, escort and Laser Interceptor at the SML test against the Truspeed. How is that possible when there was only two Laser jammer company's at the test. Blinder and escort? There was no Laser Interceptor. Why did you say there was??

Radar Detector Testing Day One - SML

[Google Adsense]

[TSi+WRX]

^ Roy cited, previously:

My tests were not the official SML tests and they are not including the LI in their review.

As far as the LI I shot yesterday, I cannot account for its "history" as it was not from my arsnal.

And yet again, later:

As I mentioned in an earlier thread there was a LI that had some real problems, but do not know the history of that jammer.

[steagall1000]

Roy,

Here's another question i'm curious about. Why did SML test the Escort ZR4 on a ford focus instead of on a white chevy impala like Blinder was tested on. If you don't put both jammers on the same exact car then its not considered a true test!! GOL use the same vehicle everytime at their test. All they do is take one off and put another jammer on in the same place. So if the eacorts results were better, it cannot be right. You must use the same vehicle. Thats like me going out and putting a Blinder M25 on a mercedes, and then putting a ZR4 on a 350z. The results would not be accurate. Sounds alittle fishy to me. Please let me understand your testing strategy behind using a smaller car for the escort and a bigger car for the Blinder....

[focalcivic]

Roy,

Here's another question i'm curious about. Why did SML test the Escort ZR4 on a ford focus instead of on a white chevy impala like Blinder was tested on. If you don't put both jammers on the same exact car then its not considered a true test!! GOL use the same vehicle everytime at their test. All they do is take one off and put another jammer on in the same place. So if the eacorts results were better, it cannot be right. You must use the same vehicle. Thats like me going out and putting a Blinder M25 on a mercedes, and then putting a ZR4 on a 350z. The results would not be accurate. Sounds alittle fishy to me. Please let me understand your testing strategy behind using a smaller car for the escort and a bigger car for the Blinder....

We might be reading too much into Roy's tests, I don't think they were meant to be a real test, but just an idea of how these jammers performed against a new threat, more of a side test that Roy did.

I would think he had the LI there for comparision reasons since the LI overall is a great performer.

[MEM-TEK]

So do tell us regarding the STi's audio ramp up!

Well, it appeared that the STi seemed to (finally) feature an audio ramp-up which consisted of more than just the simple slow or fast audio alert rates found in my STi and in other forum members's STis. Roy had to head back home first thing on Sunday morning which was the final day of the SML testing. Thus at the end of the Sunday tests I had to rush to pack up the Bel and Escort RDs and had to ship them to me since I didn't have Roy's or Escort's shipping addresses with me. After shipping the RDs to myself, I quickly traveled to the airport and got on my flight home with only 5 minutes to spare. Anyway, I am due to receive the UPS shipment of all of the tested Bel and Escort RDs tomorrow. I, like you and a lot of others, am dying to see if the STi now has its audio ramp-up issues resolved. I will thoroughly test the STi when I receive it to either confirm or deny whether it now has more than a two-stage audio ramp-up, and how many additional stages, if any, have been added.

Apologies if I've overlooked something obvious, but what detectors were tested / were any spiffy over-the-hill / other such courses used?

Any idea when the results will be up?

I don't have a clue when the results will be up.

Here is the list of what RDs were shipped to Roy and which I then opened up out of their shrink-wrapped boxes and then used for the SML testing. I was like a kid in a candy store when I opened up, unpacked, and installed each of these RDs in the rental car:

Bel blue RX-65
Bel red STi
Escort red 9500i
Escort blue 9500ci
Escort ZR4

Seeing as SML detectors are provided by the company I wouldn't rush out to get them based on just hearing that the BEL STi tested had better audio ramp up....

What version V1 was tested?

V1 version -- I don't know.

Escort shipped to Roy two of each product for testing in case one of them had any issues or problems. Carl had me radio to him each RD's serial number and date code at the beginning of the tests. If any issues were found and if the manufacturer had to switch to a backup RD, then this info had to be disclosed to Carl and the subsequent RD serial number had to be recorded. As it turned out, nobody had to swap out products during testing.

To further answer your statement, the Bel and Escort products were shrink wrapped and, since Escort sent two of each product, I can only assume that the tested products were straight "off-the-shelf" latest inventory products, and that, obviously, Escort sent to Roy two of each product to assure that a properly working product would be available for the tests.

The ZR4 system was tested by simply plugging in the front and rear laser shifters from the 9500ci model into the ZR4 interface since the shifters in the 9500ci are identical to the shifters provided with the ZR4. I also plugged in the RX-65 to the ZR4 to show how the ZR4 both links and powers any current Bel/Escort RD model with the ZR4.

I am still dead tired after returning from SML since I got only two hours of sleep before flying out to SML and only managed to get roughly four hours of sleep each night while at SML since Roy's huge RV gets baking hot in the sun during the day. I mostly managed to fall asleep at 3am in the morning each day. Later today I will download my photos from my camera and show you all the test setups for all of the Bel/Escort RDs which were tested and post these photos.

I also made sure that Carl was fully aware that the jammer heads of the 9500ci were also used when testing the ZR4 since the jammer heads are identical between the two systems. Hopefully for the jammer tests he will be sure to label the results as "9500ci/ZR4" in his review.

If anybody here has any questions about SML and the test setups, please be sure to not only post on the forum, but to also please send me a PM with a link to your post so that I won't miss anything. Yes, I am still so tired that I might miss some forum posts which I should reply to. I will post all responses here on the forum for all to read.

Please bear with me -- I am still dog tired after returning home from SML. SML was a boatload of fun, yet it was very grueling every day. I wish there was a "worn out" Smiley!

[steagall1000]

We might be reading too much into Roy's tests, I don't think they were meant to be a real test, but just an idea of how these jammers performed against a new threat, more of a side test that Roy did.

I would think he had the LI there for comparision reasons since the LI overall is a great performer.

focalcivic,


Your probably right, it could have been side testing. Roy should have stated that. You see Roy is a escort guy. He sells Blinder and escort. But his bread and butter comes from escort. Thats why he stated the escort faired better against this new gun. He may say this is not true, and thats fine. I have met roy and spoke with him over at SEMA before. He favors escort over V1 also. Why?????? the answer comes in the shape of>> $$$$$$$$$$$.

[thestaton]

focalcivic,


Your probably right, it could have been side testing. Roy should have stated that. You see Roy is a escort guy. He sells Blinder and escort. But his bread and butter comes from escort. Thats why he stated the escort faired better against this new gun. He may say this is not true, and thats fine. I have met roy and spoke with him over at SEMS before. He favors escort over V1 also. Why?????? the answer comes in the shape of>> $$$$$$$$$$$.

Sounds like a good personal examination of yourself.

[thestaton]

The V1 used at SML is around 2 / 3 years old and has never been sent in for a tune up. I call it a wake and bake. Let it set in the hot texas sun for a year, and magically it doesn't work any more.

[MEM-TEK]

Roy,

Here's another question i'm curious about. Why did SML test the Escort ZR4 on a ford focus instead of on a white chevy impala like Blinder was tested on. If you don't put both jammers on the same exact car then its not considered a true test!! GOL use the same vehicle everytime at their test. All they do is take one off and put another jammer on in the same place. So if the eacorts results were better, it cannot be right. You must use the same vehicle. Thats like me going out and putting a Blinder M25 on a mercedes, and then putting a ZR4 on a 350z. The results would not be accurate. Sounds alittle fishy to me. Please let me understand your testing strategy behind using a smaller car for the escort and a bigger car for the Blinder....

Hi stegall1000,

My name suddenly came up prior to SML since the Escort rep couldn't attend for whatever reason. I was simply told that I must rent a white mid sized rental car or otherwise Carl would send me back to either get another white mid sized rental car. No mention was made to me that I should specifically rent a white Chevy Impala. Yet the white Ford Focus which I rented featured a significant amount of front chromed grill area. I didn't consider this to be a horrible issue since most of the chromed grille area was vertically sloped.

Leon of Blinder, using his rented Impala, had basically no choice but to mount his front sensors in somewhat less than ideal locations. I was able to quickly mount the 9500i/ZR4 shifters in fairly ideal locations although my rental car had a lot of chrome up front. I did not have to take apart the chrome grille on the Ford Focus, contrary to what Leon previously said here on the forum. All I had to do was to remove one of the side clips from each shifter, stick the clip through a slit in the chromed grille and attach it, and then attach the sensor/shifter head to the clip. This was very straightforward to do. Yet my setup had to deal with quite a bit of chromed plastic around the sensor/shifter positions.

So, even though my 9500ci sensors were somewhat ideally mounted (spacing wise relative to the front license plate and the centers of the front headlights), Leon wasn't left with much of a mounting option regarding his test setup on the Impala rental car other than to attach his sensor/jammers to the front bumper area on his rental car. His setup was good yet not ideal. He had to use temporary aluminum mounting brackets for his sensor/jammer heads in order to get a reasonable test setup. Yet his test car didn't feature the large amounts of chrome like the Ford Focus did.

I will put it another way. Considering the vehicles and mounting contraints which we both had to contend with, the SML test results for both products wasn't bad at all. So, Leon's setup wasn't quite ideal yet his test vehicle had virtually zero chrome, yet my test setup was ideal yet featured a test vehicle with a considerable amount of angled chrome. So, when the SML test reports regarding jamming tests come out between the ZR4 and Blinder, these results should be taken, whichever way, with a bit of a grain of salt.

I always endeavor to be completely honest and call it as I see it since integrity is everything to me. Yet from my observations at SML, Escort and Blinder products seemed to be the best performing LED jammers available. None of us were told of the actual specific results or what stuff we were being targeted with. That stuff remains in the hands of Carl and the police officers who assisted in the tests.

Stegall2000, you know me, I shoot straight from the hip and tell it like it is whenever I put my integrity on the line.


Best Regards,

--Michael

[Retaliation]

Roy,

Here's another question i'm curious about. Why did SML test the Escort ZR4 on a ford focus instead of on a white chevy impala like Blinder was tested on. If you don't put both jammers on the same exact car then its not considered a true test!! GOL use the same vehicle everytime at their test. All they do is take one off and put another jammer on in the same place. So if the eacorts results were better, it cannot be right. You must use the same vehicle. Thats like me going out and putting a Blinder M25 on a mercedes, and then putting a ZR4 on a 350z. The results would not be accurate. Sounds alittle fishy to me. Please let me understand your testing strategy behind using a smaller car for the escort and a bigger car for the Blinder....

Funny how you're picking apart someone else's testing methods when your own testing leaves something to be desired.