Decisions Decisions

[gobby]

I`m having a difficult time trying to decide between the sti magnum and the pro 500 with gps to purchase.

I go out of town frequently on the highway and I also drive allot in the city with their being allot of the mobile radar units fixed to the vehicles that change locations daily here in Canada and radar units are illegal here.

I had an older vector 985 that I would use but it was very noisy in the city and it did a great job picking up radar on the highway and when it did go off I would just unplug it with the threat being miles down the highway without any problems.

Any advice here fellas?

Thanks in advance

[Carbon Sky]

I'm also in Canada, and I used to run an Escort Redline. Ran it for a few years until it crapped out on me, but I think it was my fault for leaving it on the dash, with a piece of black plastic foam matting above it to help disguise it. All that sun/heat I think did it in. I got it because it was undetectable like the STI detectors, and because it was apparently more sensitive to long range highway stuff. My experiences were very positive for the most part. Seemed to be amazing with Ka, and even pretty good with laser. But ramp up was terrible. It would always go from dead, to full blast. You'd rarely see it creep up and down. It was either full on or almost full on, or off.

As a result, this time around I went with an STI Magnum. I have not had it very long. I've only had 2 confirmed detections of five-o, from CO cruising around. The other 3 have been falses from automatic door openers in parking lots. But from these 5 detections, it's already quite obvious the ramp up is WAY better than the Redline. I actually get signal strengths around 1/3 of full, and not only full blast, or one or two bars under full. OH MY GOD! <end sarcasm>. It's not the greatest pic, but it's the only one I have of it installed:




I basically built a pod to the top of the center stack in my car:




I usually run the detector on auto brightness during the day, and blacked out at night.

I hacked up my old smart cord and mounted it at the top of my a-pillar. I have since cut off the green LED, so it stays totally blacked out, until alert when the red LED comes on, and I have the mute button right beside it, and a main power switch right in front of the shifter (the switch for it goes in one of the round holes you see in the trim panel.

[gobby]

wow great idea and nice mods you have there.

Hopefully I can get a few more recommendations

[srhawkins]

I have a STI Magnum and like it a lot. Moved from a V1.

If radar detectors are illegal there. Isn't the Magnum or Redline really your only choice unless you risk a ticket for having a detector?

I`m having a difficult time trying to decide between the sti magnum and the pro 500 with gps to purchase.

I go out of town frequently on the highway and I also drive allot in the city with their being allot of the mobile radar units fixed to the vehicles that change locations daily here in Canada and radar units are illegal here.

I had an older vector 985 that I would use but it was very noisy in the city and it did a great job picking up radar on the highway and when it did go off I would just unplug it with the threat being miles down the highway without any problems.

Any advice here fellas?

Thanks in advance

[NormSky]

Love the Sky.

[Carbon Sky]

Love the Sky.

In that case, you'll like this


Love your work with the rear diffusers with the center outlet on the sky. Can't wait to see a trapezoidal exhaust tip that traces the opening in the diffuser instead of the dual oval.

[sanctityfouled]

Hey guys. I'm facing a similar dilemma. How noisy is the Magnum in the city? Are the false alerts unbearable like on the V1 in heavily populated areas?

[Carbon Sky]

Hey guys. I'm facing a similar dilemma. How noisy is the Magnum in the city? Are the false alerts unbearable like on the V1 in heavily populated areas?

In my area, there is no use of X band so I have that turned off, but I do leave POP on, even though I have yet to encounter POP in my area. I usually leave my Magnum on city, and only put it on highway when I do road trips. It still will pick up K band from auto doors from banks and grocery stores, but never falses Ka or Laser. Just like my Redline. The Magnum's ramp up is SOOOOO much better than the Redline's. But if you don't want something to false K band whenever you drive by auto-doors, you'll need something with GPS to learn that location as being a known false.

I find auto-mute helps take away some of the annoyance. I don't get much falsing so it doesn't bother me much in my area at least. If falseing really bothers you, sell the Magnum and get something with GPS known false learning.

[sanctityfouled]

Hey guys. I'm facing a similar dilemma. How noisy is the Magnum in the city? Are the false alerts unbearable like on the V1 in heavily populated areas?

In my area, there is no use of X band so I have that turned off, but I do leave POP on, even though I have yet to encounter POP in my area. I usually leave my Magnum on city, and only put it on highway when I do road trips. It still will pick up K band from auto doors from banks and grocery stores, but never falses Ka or Laser. Just like my Redline. The Magnum's ramp up is SOOOOO much better than the Redline's. But if you don't want something to false K band whenever you drive by auto-doors, you'll need something with GPS to learn that location as being a known false.

I find auto-mute helps take away some of the annoyance. I don't get much falsing so it doesn't bother me much in my area at least. If falseing really bothers you, sell the Magnum and get something with GPS known false learning.

Thanks for your feedback! I drive in the city most of the time. I'm thinking perhaps picking up the Magnum, and if the falses are too much to handle, I can always return it within 30 days and get the Pro 500 instead. What do you think?

[Carbon Sky]

Hey guys. I'm facing a similar dilemma. How noisy is the Magnum in the city? Are the false alerts unbearable like on the V1 in heavily populated areas?

In my area, there is no use of X band so I have that turned off, but I do leave POP on, even though I have yet to encounter POP in my area. I usually leave my Magnum on city, and only put it on highway when I do road trips. It still will pick up K band from auto doors from banks and grocery stores, but never falses Ka or Laser. Just like my Redline. The Magnum's ramp up is SOOOOO much better than the Redline's. But if you don't want something to false K band whenever you drive by auto-doors, you'll need something with GPS to learn that location as being a known false.

I find auto-mute helps take away some of the annoyance. I don't get much falsing so it doesn't bother me much in my area at least. If falseing really bothers you, sell the Magnum and get something with GPS known false learning.

Thanks for your feedback! I drive in the city most of the time. I'm thinking perhaps picking up the Magnum, and if the falses are too much to handle, I can always return it within 30 days and get the Pro 500 instead. What do you think?

From my limited experience with detectors, 30 days may not be enough depending on your area. I've gone more than 30 days without a real detection over the years over using detectors. But perhaps if you have regular contact with speed traps it would be able to give you a better idea of whether it's for you.

Like I said, the falses don't seem to bother me much mostly because I know it's about to false before it falses usually. So it goes off, I have mine already on auto-mute, and if you really care to, just press the mute button. This pic shows how I have now cut off the green power LED, and had to jump the contacts as it seems the red threat detected LED is in series with the green power one. So now in "stealth mode" nothing lights up except the red LED. Makes it a lot harder for a cop to visually detect your detector. Got stopped the other day at a road side RIDE type stop, cop asked a few questions like, have you had anything to drink today? type questions, and never noticed anything as I pulled up to him. A few weeks ago, I detected Ka from an unmarked on 404 northbound, and at one point, he was riding my ass seeing if I would speed I guess (wasn't in the passing lane), and then just pulled off the highway around Major Mac I think.



My mute button is pretty easy to access. It's right beside the red LED, beside my Bluetooth mic for my Alpine INE-S920HD. So you can always mute it immediately if it bothers you. On my daily commute, I really only hit one known false regularly, and it's at my destination, so when I'm pulling up, I just power off the detector with the power switch right in front of the shifter (in the pic I posted earlier with the blue LED). I just put the switch back to on when I shut off the car, so that when I start up the car, the detector comes back on.

That's just how I preferred to set it up. I ran my Escort redline another way for like 2+ years before I did some analysis and decided to go the route I did.

Sounds like you were OK with the falsing of your old Vector, so I don't see why the Magnum would be different. The GPS lock out feature is nice, but honestly, I don't get enough falses, and/or they don't bother me enough to care. With the issues I've seen of GPS locking out real threats, personally, I'd rather err on the side of caution, then less "chattiness" on the detector. Just my preference.