First week X50 impressions

[emory]

Just picked up a new X50 last Thursday and have been using it for about a week. I travel about an hour each day in an average PSL of 55-65. State police presence can be extremely heavy at times considering the rural nature of the highways. We've had a lot of snow over the past few weeks so I havn't gotten a full weeks worth of LEO activity but here are my run in's.

Maine - Encountered a SUV LEO, C/O Ka a decent way up a large hill before he was in sight.

Maine - Same road, return trip around a curve, I/O NO WARNING.

NH - State Police, large long curve on highway, lots of other cars around, I/O very little warning.

So far, 1 out 3 times it would have saved me if I were speeding. Thankfully I'm treating this as a trial period with the device, but so far not super impressed. Are my expectations to high? I hear lots of people talking about the great range of this device.

-emory

[jdong]

Yeah, I think that your expectations might be a bit high -- with IO often times it's not all that easy to decide whether or not the detector is held accountable. On one hand, a detector can't be blamed for failing to detect a signal that was never transmitted... on the other hand how does one really know if a signal wasn't transmitted 0.75mi away and the detector's filtering algorithm or other factor caused it to ignore the alert?

Well, give it some more time, but IO is deadly to every detector out there. The X50 is a very nice detector and represents some of the best performance the industry has to offer... I'd be really really shocked if you can be owned by something another detector would've went off to, other than perhaps V1's bionic laser abilities (which are still not to bank on)

[kensteele]

emory said "Maine - Same road, return trip around a curve, I/O NO WARNING"

sorry what does the mean: a) you got warned only you had zero time or b) you got no alert at all but you believe your detector should have warned you something?

[MEM-TEK]

Hi kensteele,

You obviously are encountering officers who are very experienced at using their radar guns and are setting up around curves on winding roads. I've heard that the Maine officers are pretty good. They probably are triggering their radar guns no more frequently than once every couple of minutes as well. This, combined with the winding terrain, will limit or prevent any radar detector from giving you an advance warning of the radar trap.

Radar detectors are far more effective at giving you advance warning when you are driving through flatter and more open terrain such as large state highways and interstates. Under these conditions, you will get a weak and fairly brief alert to the radar a mile or more ahead of you which was momentarily triggered to measure the speed of a passing motorist up ahead. The weak and fairly brief alert is your warning to slow down or otherwise you could find yourself the target of the instant-on radar gun up ahead.

Learn the terrain along your driving route and note where LEOs like to set up stationary speed traps. Also learn where any false alerts are along your normal driving route, what bands (X or K) the false alerts are on, and try to remember how strong those false alerts are since some officers will deliberately operate their radar guns around known false alert locations. An unusually strong alert at a known false alert location, or maybe a K band alert near an X band false location, is your warning that police radar is operating in the same area.

Ka band radar is nearly always police radar. Compared to X and K bands, Ka band radar is much lower power and transmits a much narrower radar beam as well. Always slow down immediately when picking up even a very weak Ka band radar alert. Most of the time the Ka band alert will be real, while sometimes it may be caused by microwave leakage from a Cobra or import brand radar detector. With Ka radar, it is better to immediately slow down and play it safe rather than later being sorry that you didn't pay attention to the initial alert.

Finally, learn to always "check your six" (rear view mirror) roughly every 30 seconds to every minute. Sometimes patrol cars like to sneak up behind you and pace you without using their radar guns. A single vehicle approaching behind you while the other vehicles behind you have mysteriously fallen back is a good indication of a patrol car which is pacing you.

I guess thats it! Others might offer their tips and tricks.

Best Regards,

--Michael