V1 the toll detector

[Spinner55]

Hey Sti....

Isnt the BCT8 a analog trucking scanner? Most of the Illinois LEO's are going to the new starcom21 digital system. Even our county is going to it now. Think by Jan 2010 they should be all switched over to it. Only the fire departments staying on VHF analog systems.

Still better to have a rabbit or two in front of you.

Take care,

Spin

[STiMULi]

Hey Sti....

Isnt the BCT8 a analog trucking scanner? Most of the Illinois LEO's are going to the new starcom21 digital system. Even our county is going to it now. Think by Jan 2010 they should be all switched over to it. Only the fire departments staying on VHF analog systems.

Still better to have a rabbit or two in front of you.

Take care,

Spin

I don't pay attention to the changes in other areas but if your area is going digital and it is not encrypted the you can go with the BCD996XT and with a bit more work you get the same functionality.

[zerbey]

My Beltronics GX65 with GPS location/frequency filtering works great for situations like this. Many stop lights around here without redlight cameras send a K-band signal during the yellow lights and it gets very annoying.

The GX65 filters out laser at set locations also? That's either incredibly useful or very dangerous, I can't decide!

I use my local toll booths for testing my laser detection every once in a while, since I've had a total of one genuine laser hit. FHP loves their I/O

[The Chariot]

The GX65 filters out laser at set locations also? That's either incredibly useful or very dangerous, I can't decide!

Yes, but it does it by frequency. If you lock out an X band hit in a location another X hit at the same location of a different frequency will still alert. Same with K and Ka band. Very useful if you have many Walgreens stores in the area!

[Leadfut]

If u live in New Jersey and travel the parkway from central to northern. The V1 will detect every Easy Pass Toll. It goes crazy at each toll and knowing how many tolls there are on the parkway it becomes very annoying. I pass 4 State troopers and the V1 never detecteed any of them. As a matter of fact I travel to the lower part of New York and I park next to a State trooper baracks like ten feet away with about twenty trooper cars and my V1 does nothing. They should call the V1 a toll detector instead of a radar detector. I wonder if I can get my money back. It looks like a laser jammer would be better. Would it be better with another radar detector like escort???

Is it alerting to laser or radar? EZPass has infrared sensors that set off the laser detector.

[ersin]

Hey Sti....

Isnt the BCT8 a analog trucking scanner? Most of the Illinois LEO's are going to the new starcom21 digital system. Even our county is going to it now. Think by Jan 2010 they should be all switched over to it. Only the fire departments staying on VHF analog systems.

Still better to have a rabbit or two in front of you.

Take care,

Spin

The BCT8 has a system called "Beartracker". This listens to the cop car's repeater frequency (so that he can use his handheld effectively when out of the car). If a cop is out of his car, or has just left the repeater on through laziness or don't care attitude while in the car, then every transmission on the system will be repeated through the cars repeater. When the BCT8 detects this it emits a beep-beep-beep (5 beeps?). The repeater signal generally is not very powerful and can be picked for maybe a couple of miles. Note that the mobile repeater must be turned on. It's a crap shoot as to whether they've left it on or not.

So, when the BCT8 beartracker alerts then there is likely a cop car within a mile or two of your location. I have a BCT7, the BCT8's predecessor - analog and no trunking. Even though most (all?) systems in my area have gone to digital trunking the BCT7 still alerts as much as it did years before. Generally, I'd estimate that half the time I get the alert I will come upon a cop within a couple of minutes about half the time. I figure the other half of the time the cop is on another street over or he happens to be hiding very well.

I really don't know if mobile repeaters are going digital or are still analog or if the BCT7 (or -8 or -15 for that matter) can detect a digital mobile repeater. All I know is that it still seems to be working for me. Perhaps some day it won't work at all, then I'll need to upgrade. Since I have rarely actually listened to the police in the car (I commute 50 miles one way and its too hard to keep track of multiple police departments) the BCT7 is still functional. And besides, I can listen to CB with it as long as I have a good antenna rigged up.

If you don't have, or don't intend to get a CB, then the BCT-8/15 is, IMO, a good alternative that I believe will still work in a digital and/or trunked environment. However, YMMV. I could be proven to be totally wrong about mobile repeaters and Beartracker.

[Leadfut]

Hey Sti....

Isnt the BCT8 a analog trucking scanner? Most of the Illinois LEO's are going to the new starcom21 digital system. Even our county is going to it now. Think by Jan 2010 they should be all switched over to it. Only the fire departments staying on VHF analog systems.

Still better to have a rabbit or two in front of you.

Take care,

Spin

The BCT8 has a system called "Beartracker". This listens to the cop car's repeater frequency (so that he can use his handheld effectively when out of the car). If a cop is out of his car, or has just left the repeater on through laziness or don't care attitude while in the car, then every transmission on the system will be repeated through the cars repeater. When the BCT8 detects this it emits a beep-beep-beep (5 beeps?). The repeater signal generally is not very powerful and can be picked for maybe a couple of miles. Note that the mobile repeater must be turned on. It's a crap shoot as to whether they've left it on or not.

So, when the BCT8 beartracker alerts then there is likely a cop car within a mile or two of your location. I have a BCT7, the BCT8's predecessor - analog and no trunking. Even though most (all?) systems in my area have gone to digital trunking the BCT7 still alerts as much as it did years before. Generally, I'd estimate that half the time I get the alert I will come upon a cop within a couple of minutes about half the time. I figure the other half of the time the cop is on another street over or he happens to be hiding very well.

I really don't know if mobile repeaters are going digital or are still analog or if the BCT7 (or -8 or -15 for that matter) can detect a digital mobile repeater. All I know is that it still seems to be working for me. Perhaps some day it won't work at all, then I'll need to upgrade. Since I have rarely actually listened to the police in the car (I commute 50 miles one way and its too hard to keep track of multiple police departments) the BCT7 is still functional. And besides, I can listen to CB with it as long as I have a good antenna rigged up.

If you don't have, or don't intend to get a CB, then the BCT-8/15 is, IMO, a good alternative that I believe will still work in a digital and/or trunked environment. However, YMMV. I could be proven to be totally wrong about mobile repeaters and Beartracker.

Has anyone had good luck with the Beartracker feature in NY? I have tried it in many different counties and never found it to alert. Maybe they don't use mobile extenders in NY?

[protias]

I haven't been in NY, but I have used it several times here in WI.

[orangekid13]

My V1 goes off in western washington and the south bay area for stupid radar traffic flow sensors... not even as useful as tolls, just get a good blast of K band every mile. Startles me when I first get on the freeway sometimes because I forget and it's intermittant so I think I'm getting legit I/O.

[STiMULi]

If you don't have, or don't intend to get a CB, then the BCT-8/15 is, IMO, a good alternative that I believe will still work in a digital and/or trunked environment. However, YMMV. I could be proven to be totally wrong about mobile repeaters and Beartracker.

Very good write up. I am not sure about the number of beeps but I do know it is a great too when used in the right environment.

Here are a couple of vids to help out (you may have seen the already)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of6OJd5e_Mc]YouTube - Uniden BCT8 as a countermeasure against tickets[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svetIktxVmk]YouTube - Waiting for the blind rabbits[/ame]


About the BCT15 (and the 8 for that matter) they will both do Trucking although the 15 is more qualified but neither will do digital. You must go with the BCD996T/XT in the Uniden line