V1 yearly service

[wegrowhair]

What is the reason these units need to be tuned up once a year?
Is this normal for all detectors?

[RadarKid]

What is the reason these units need to be tuned up once a year?
Is this normal for all detectors?

they DON'T need to be tuned up once a year.

[RadarGhost]

What is the reason these units need to be tuned up once a year?
Is this normal for all detectors?

They don't need to be tuned every year but the idea isn't a bad one mind you. Mike V, for a nominal charge could do this and make him and the owners very happy IMO.

[category4]

Who said they needed to be "tuned" every year. I've had 2 of mine for 7 years now and I only sent them back to have the 1.8 pop upgrade added.

[RadarGhost]

Your apparently pretty lucky. I read many MANY postings by owners complain their V-1 are out of tune. I would hold onto your excellent unit if I were you.

IMO a nominal yearly v-1 tune-up would solve this problem pretty well.

[wegrowhair]

Who said they needed to be "tuned" every year. I've had 2 of mine for 7 years now and I only sent them back to have the 1.8 pop upgrade added.

Read on here somewhere that they need attention now and then. I believe the words that were used were "falling out of tune".

[V1 Dave]

IMHO category4 and RadarGhost are both right, in almost 14 years now my 1.7 has never gone out of tune, got it back from the major retrofit with a weak K band once, laser has gone bad at least 2 times.

I have heard of some units on this forum falling out in a year or two, others nothing, just constant hot detection.

I think newer or POP units are less reliable because of the way electronic parts are changed or discontinued.
There is some theory that V1 firmware's change so much because their parts suppliers have changes.
It's manufacture variance or the luck of the draw.

[jdong]

IMO the "yearly service" is a myth kept alive by a few users here who strongly hold on to the belief, either from keeping pre-digital-compensation units or a bad personal experience or two.

I've had my V1 for about two years now and see NO appreciable degradation in performance at all. There's no reason to regularly send in your V1 for service unless you strongly suspect that it has failed.


The term "falling out of tune" is also quite a misnomer -- with radar detector technology nowadays, any loss of performance, complete or partial, is due to a catastrophic failure of an internal component which requires replacement. It's not like there's a screw inside that gets bumped loose and needs to be "tuned".

V1's revison 3.853 and beyond, and current Belscort detectors all have self-diagnostic/compensation technologies that continuously maintain peak performance and warn the user if something does fall out of range resulting in incomplete protection.

[RadarGhost]

IMHO category4 and RadarGhost are both right, in almost 14 years now my 1.7 has never gone out of tune, got it back from the major retrofit with a weak K band once, laser has gone bad at least 2 times.

I have heard of some units on this forum falling out in a year or two, others nothing, just constant hot detection.

I think newer or POP units are less reliable because of the way electronic parts are changed or discontinued.
There is some theory that V1 firmware's change so much because their parts suppliers have changes.
It's manufacture variance or the luck of the draw.

I believe you explanation is a pretty valid one dave. I have watched this forum for a while before coming a member and have seen many v1 users complaining if this phenomena. Others have not a bit of trouble with their units. The standard answer to this problem has been "get it tuned" It would be real nice IMO for out of warranty V1 owners to have this option for a small fee.

[bobbyd]

dont the new units mark an "e" when they have fallen out of tuned?