New member: Questions and 9500ix save experience

[dannyz]

Hi guys, new here...

Questions:

1. The Escort ZR4 has the advantage of linking with my 9500ix, but doesn't seem to be a top performing laser jammer. Am I better off buying a Laser Interceptor? I live near the Kansas hometown of Kustom, and there are Kustom ProLasers in operation around here.

2. Is there any advantage to letting the 9500ix Auto-block falses (like passing grocery stores) or is it just as good for me to block them when I know for sure its a false?

3. Is Veil any good without a jammer, or is it a waste of money? (I have no front license plate, just headlights to worry about). I'm currently vulnerable to laser.

4. Has anyone thought to utilize all the USER DATA that is collected when updating the 9500ix to update the Trinity database -- to also update for known local speed traps, known falses, etc? Of course there would need to be some form of confirmation of the data's reliability (like several different user's data agreeing on a given location) but this would seem like very powerful nationwide information that would make the 9500ix rarely false no matter where you traveled. With this information collected from users, then distributed back to the users through updates, it seems to me that the 9500ix would become unbeatably smart.

5. What is a "hard reset," what does it accomplish, and how do you do it in the 9500ix?

My 9500ix experience so far:

I've had this detector for about three weeks now. I had my first save last week on a hilly four-lane residential-area road. I picked up a Ka alert, thought it might be a false from an adjacent building, but slowed down. About 1.5 miles later I encountered the black unmarked rolling traffic LEO in a Dodge Charger in the oncoming lane. Nice to experience how my local enforcement works. We also have one Red light camera operating near us.

My experience with updating the firmware and the Red Light Camera data was easy and flawless. It would be great if there were a way for us to share the data that our detectors collect for a given locality.

This is the quietest detector I've owned, and I've owned many.

Thanks! Danny

[Obsidian]

Hi guys, new here...

Questions:

1. The Escort ZR4 has the advantage of linking with my 9500ix, but doesn't seem to be a top performing laser jammer. Am I better off buying a Laser Interceptor? I live near the Kansas hometown of Kustom, and there are Kustom ProLasers in operation around here.

If you have the money, by all means get the LI.

2. Is there any advantage to letting the 9500ix Auto-block falses (like passing grocery stores) or is it just as good for me to block them when I know for sure its a false?

If you don't mind locking them manually, then that is probably better. I'm too lazy to lock them manually though.

4. Has anyone thought to utilize all the USER DATA that is collected when updating the 9500ix to update the Trinity database -- to also update for known local speed traps, known falses, etc? Of course there would need to be some form of confirmation of the data's reliability (like several different user's data agreeing on a given location) but this would seem like very powerful nationwide information that would make the 9500ix rarely false no matter where you traveled. With this information collected from users, then distributed back to the users through updates, it seems to me that the 9500ix would become unbeatably smart.

It's been thought about ... I am not going to trust someone else's data though. Too risky. Maybe if there is ever a way to read the data by GPS coordinates ...

5. What is a "hard reset," what does it accomplish, and how do you do it in the 9500ix?

Hard reset is when you hold down the "Sen" and "Brt" buttons while turning on the power. It resets the settings to factory defaults.

My 9500ix experience so far:

I've had this detector for about three weeks now. I had my first save last week on a hilly four-lane residential-area road. I picked up a Ka alert, thought it might be a false from an adjacent building, but slowed down. About 1.5 miles later I encountered the black unmarked rolling traffic LEO in a Dodge Charger in the oncoming lane. Nice to experience how my local enforcement works. We also have one Red light camera operating near us.

My experience with updating the firmware and the Red Light Camera data was easy and flawless. It would be great if there were a way for us to share the data that our detectors collect for a given locality.

This is the quietest detector I've owned, and I've owned many.

Thanks! Danny

Nice save ... don't ever sleep on Ka though. Ka falses are extremely rare.

[djrams80]

Hi guys, new here...

Questions:

1. The Escort ZR4 has the advantage of linking with my 9500ix, but doesn't seem to be a top performing laser jammer. Am I better off buying a Laser Interceptor? I live near the Kansas hometown of Kustom, and there are Kustom ProLasers in operation around here.

Yes, the LI is the best jammer out there. It doesn't have the advantage of linking to your 9500ix, but the performance difference is worth this inconvenience.

2. Is there any advantage to letting the 9500ix Auto-block falses (like passing grocery stores) or is it just as good for me to block them when I know for sure its a false?

Yes, there are advantages. The first one that comes to mind is that if there was a LEO running radar in the same area as you manually locked out a false alert, you would also lockout the LEOs radar signal, since manual lockout locks out every signal it sees. The automatic lockout would only lockout a signal it had seen in that spot 3 times, so it would lockout the store, but not lockout the LEOs radar signal.

3. Is Veil any good without a jammer, or is it a waste of money? (I have no front license plate, just headlights to worry about). I'm currently vulnerable to laser.

No. I can easily get instantaneous readings on my heavily Veiled car, if both sets of jammers are disabled.

4. Has anyone thought to utilize all the USER DATA that is collected when updating the 9500ix to update the Trinity database -- to also update for known local speed traps, known falses, etc? Of course there would need to be some form of confirmation of the data's reliability (like several different user's data agreeing on a given location) but this would seem like very powerful nationwide information that would make the 9500ix rarely false no matter where you traveled. With this information collected from users, then distributed back to the users through updates, it seems to me that the 9500ix would become unbeatably smart.

There is not currently a way to send the data backwards to the Trinity database.

5. What is a "hard reset," what does it accomplish, and how do you do it in the 9500ix?

I've never hard reset my 9500ix, but I would assume it's done the same way as the 9500i.

My 9500ix experience so far:

I've had this detector for about three weeks now. I had my first save last week on a hilly four-lane residential-area road. I picked up a Ka alert, thought it might be a false from an adjacent building, but slowed down. About 1.5 miles later I encountered the black unmarked rolling traffic LEO in a Dodge Charger in the oncoming lane. Nice to experience how my local enforcement works. We also have one Red light camera operating near us.

My experience with updating the firmware and the Red Light Camera data was easy and flawless. It would be great if there were a way for us to share the data that our detectors collect for a given locality.

This is the quietest detector I've owned, and I've owned many.

Thanks! Danny

Never ignore Ka alerts, no matter how short. Ka band false alerts are pretty rare.

[dannyz]

Thanks Obsidian and Djrams80,

I just looked up the price on the LI, and no wonder it works so flamin' good! I'll be saving for a while for that one!

As far as sharing trap data: I understand that there would need to be care taken in using anyone else's data, but it seems to me that if the data were confirmed carefully, it could be very useful. It seems crazy not to utilize the data being collected all around the country by Escort users. A couple of ideas on this:

1. If there was the ability (in addition to red-light cameras) for local fixed speedtrap data to be shared (through the on-line update), using it would almost always be better than not having this data at all.

2. Even false alert information, if it has been strongly corroborated by several independent 9500ix/ci users (who then upload to Trinity) at a particular GPS location with particular characteristics (X or K band detected at low speeds) could be useful in eliminating falses. The use of this "outside" information could be turned on or off by the user.

3. I've seen most cell phones (RIM and Windows mobile) hacked to the extreme. Is anyone working on hacking the data on the 9500 series? Isn't there a way for me to share my collected data with someone in my area? It doesn't make sense to me that we all have to figure this information out on our own?

Anyway, just some thoughts to ponder...

Thanks, Dan

[Obsidian]

Thanks Obsidian and Djrams80,

I just looked up the price on the LI, and no wonder it works so flamin' good! I'll be saving for a while for that one!

As far as sharing trap data: I understand that there would need to be care taken in using anyone else's data, but it seems to me that if the data were confirmed carefully, it could be very useful. It seems crazy not to utilize the data being collected all around the country by Escort users. A couple of ideas on this:

1. If there was the ability (in addition to red-light cameras) for local fixed speedtrap data to be shared (through the on-line update), using it would almost always be better than not having this data at all.

2. Even false alert information, if it has been strongly corroborated by several independent 9500ix/ci users (who then upload to Trinity) at a particular GPS location with particular characteristics (X or K band detected at low speeds) could be useful in eliminating falses. The use of this "outside" information could be turned on or off by the user.

3. I've seen most cell phones (RIM and Windows mobile) hacked to the extreme. Is anyone working on hacking the data on the 9500 series? Isn't there a way for me to share my collected data with someone in my area? It doesn't make sense to me that we all have to figure this information out on our own?

Anyway, just some thoughts to ponder...

Thanks, Dan

Sounds like you are talking about something similar to Trapster ... it's an intriguing idea, but again, trusting anyone else's data is scary. Trapster, for example, lists many Speed Cameras in California, when in fact there are none.

Hacking is a taboo topic here ... however, there is software from Jimbonzzz for the 9500i, but not the 9500ix.

[dannyz]

Thanks, to clarify, I mean to look at the user data and figure out a way to share it. The data collected by the users is the users.

If a careful process was in place to collect and confirm the data uploaded by thousands of users, the information would then become a formidable intelligence. It would tell you what is going on in every locality. You could not only eliminate many falses (if they were strongly corroborated by several users over time), but you could provide warnings for known traps (this function could be switched on or off) in addition to existing red-light cameras. This information could even provide users with a warning of current main types of speed detection used in many areas - what an advantage!

I can't believe that Escort wouldn't want to use this user data collected by thousands of traveling users to make its product unbelievably intellegent. Technical capability is all well and good, but information rules.

Escort has to be on this...