It must be Christmas - Another new V1 owner
Well this is not going to be near as exciting as NoseBleed’s one-trip V1 power demo, but here goes. First a little background. I had pretty much given up on radar detectors back in the late 80s when my last RD (a Cobra) continued to give virtually no warning, yet falsed all the time. Mostly it was annoying, but it was useful in helping me learn the local hiding spots. Other than that, all it really did was convince me that I was completely vulnerable. I stopped using it fell back to just driving smart.
A month ago I got an 06 WRX STI and started thinking about RDs again for a couple reasons. The STI has an ungainly large wing from the factory that attracts a lot of attention and I’m feeling a little more like a target than in my old VW. The other reason is, well it’s an STI with 300 bhp. I’m not a habitual speeder or some young nut. However the STi accelerates so quickly and smoothly, it’s hard not to go over just a bit, from time to time unless you constantly monitor the speedo.
Thanks to this forum I narrowed my choice down to the V1 for the following reasons:
1) Concealed display (had been looking at the RX75, which was more than my budget and didn’t have arrows)
2) Arrows
3) Upgrade path
4) VR Customer Service
Even the newest Beltronics STi Driver will not offer these things. Yes, just for a second I thought the Beltronics “STi” would a nice addition to Subaru “STi” . In the end, I’m just not that shallow.
The V1 arrived tonight in its nicely well equipped package. Fortunately a “your speed” sign was installed about a mile from my house this week, just in time for a V1 test run. After a quick install with the suckers, it was off to speed sign. But first, a quick firmware version check, yes its 3.826 just as expected. At about .4 miles from the sign, I got my first K alert. I continued on past the sign for fun with the arrows. Next, I circled around from a side street to check off axis detection, which was pretty good and the arrows kept pace with orientation of the sign. Also did the “drive to the edge of detection and back” test to check the sensitivity of the front vs back, which was virtually identical. I didn’t get a J or more than 1 bogey and I suspect that this sign is running pretty low power since its running on solar power and was repeatedly detectable at only .4 miles. So this was not a good ghost test. I’ll keep looking.
Next it was off to a small business park, which passes through some common speed traps. Sadly none were in use today. The V1 did manage to find an automatic door I didn’t know existed on a building I pass all the time. At a distance it was reported as a X. I used the arrows to track it down and drove right up to it (yes it’s a locator alright). At 15ft. it alternated between X and K, 1 and 2 bogeys. There were double doors so it was probably the interior door sensor that kicked off the second bogey. Next to a strip mall, where the local Staples managed to get to 5 K bogeys. I only counted 3 door openers, so not sure if I missed a couple, or it was a ghost. Also I had one LASER false on a nearby road with nothing around, never did locate the source. I had printed out the programming instructions so I disabled X band and tried a trip through the same area, this time much quieter but still some K activity.
I took it out later and encountered, 1 accident (3 police cars), one pulled over driver (unmarked state car), a stalled car (one local traffic cop), and an unmarked car cruising the freeway. Unfortunately none of them had their radar on, either that or they’ve all switched to X band (which I disabled), ha ha ha!
Sorry for being so long winded. It took while and many hours reading this forum (thanks!) to finally spend the big money with confidence.
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Originally Posted by Gregor
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