Results 1 to 10 of 10
  1. #1

    Default Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    OK, so you don't scan all Ka Band Freqs. It's a little faster at picking up a LEO radar? HOW MUCH?

    Then I read old LEO Radar Guns Drift.... drift up or down, regardless it outside the normal range to be detected in the bands you have on.

    You have turned off all but 2, 5 and 8... yet the adjacent channels (where it LEO RG could drift) are unprotected.

    SO WHY SEGMENT? Just put it on Wide? Well I guess you get more false alarms? OK. How many leaky Cobra Radar Detectors are there?

    OK another way of asking, If Ka Band 2, 5 and 8 are HIGH RISK.... what are the medium risks.....

    The internet wisdom is??
    Last edited by gmcjetpilot; 09-17-2015 at 10:00 PM.

  2. #2
    Experienced
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Georgia
    Posts
    316

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Segmentation does enable the RD to concentrate on the most common Ka bands since it is superwide and takes time to scan the complete band. This allows a quick trigger or POP to likely be received as it gets detected earlier. Yes, guns drift when they are not maintained and yes this can be a problem. Segmentation will eventually be a thing of the past when radar makers market a gun that randomly picks a frequency anywhere along the Ka band every time the trigger is pulled or unit cycled. That ability exists just cost prohibitive at the moment but as laser handhelds get expensive they will become competitive and we will be back to scanning the entire band. Can you speed up the scan, sure, multiple LO's that segments the band into pieces, but for a RD that is way to cost prohibitive.

  3. #3
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Somewhere in the back of Your Mind
    Posts
    335

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Quote Originally Posted by gmcjetpilot View Post
    OK, so you don't san all Ka Band Freqs. It's a little faster at picking up a LEO radar? HOW MUCH?

    Then I read old LEO Radar Guns Drift.... drift up or down, regardless it outside the normal range to be detected in the bands you have on.

    You have turned off all but 2, 5 and 8... yet the adjacent channels (where it LEO RG could drift) are unprotected.

    SO WHY SEGMENT? Just put it on Wide? Well I guess you get more false alarms? OK. How many leaky Cobra Radar Detectors are there?

    OK another way of asking, If Ka Band 2, 5 and 8 are HIGH RISK.... what are the medium risks.....

    The internet wisdom is??

    You've asked the the same question on other forums and the answer is the same: too much ado about out of tune guns & it does help eliminate falses from other RD users on Ka band. It also increases performance of the detector due to less sweep time. Answer is and shall remain the same: sweeps work!

  4. #4

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Quote Originally Posted by PointerCone View Post
    You've asked the the same question on other forums and the answer is the same:
    Dear Internet Stalker, it is irrelevant where I post and what questions I ask. If it is OK with you. And you are reading two forums? Why?

    Quote Originally Posted by PointerCone View Post
    too much ado about out of tune guns & it does help eliminate falses from other RD users on Ka band. It also increases performance of the detector due to less sweep time. Answer is and shall remain the same: sweeps work!
    OK great. I agree it might react faster and catch a signal that is transient or IO, out of tune/odd ball LEO radar guns negligible risk (in your opinion) . Got it. You don't have to be condescending and scoll me for posting on two forums. WHY ARE YOU ON TWO FORUMS? Hummm. I know how these detectors work at an Engineers level. I'm just asking a question, don't need the attitude. Thanks for your input all the same.
    Last edited by gmcjetpilot; 09-17-2015 at 10:00 PM.

  5. #5
    Advanced Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Heart of Dixie
    Posts
    1,963

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    LOL! A stalker, that is funny. PC is to the point. Seg is worth it because it gets the alarm to you faster to lessen the Leo's tracking record during an instant hit (but you have to be fast, good and lucky). Got to do everything to have control over an event for better odds. Learn your odd ball freqs to know if they are real and who they are which can take time in your area for the goal is no tickets period (learn your Leos). A very rare tiny out-of-tune gun should not be a problem with your RD, for it will catch it unlike some other RD reported, remember the freq. for next time. If you don't like an extra false alarm which some can't stand one extra false, filter it to the max and slow down. Increase risk for little benefit? Invalid statement...

  6. #6

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Quote Originally Posted by North Alabama View Post
    LOL! A stalker, that is funny. PC is to the point. Seg is worth it because it gets the alarm to you faster to lessen the Leo's tracking record during an instant hit (but you have to be fast, good and lucky).
    So you admit it is marginal benefit and you have to quote: "be good and lucky". That means you need to react to any alarm without hesitation or thinking. Great. You do that.

    Got to do everything to have control over an event for better odds. Learn your odd ball freqs to know if they are real and who they are which can take time in your area for the goal is no tickets period (learn your Leos).
    That is nonsensical and not even English. Is that you Sarah Palin? You using the words "ODDS" means nothing, and I doubt you understand statistics or what standard deviation means. I do. There are risks, yet to be quantified by your "odds".

    If you run in SPEC mode great, but get alert, you better slow down to be as you said: "fast, good and lucky". Regardless of segmentation or not, you are subject to IO. No time to look at Freq and think about it. If you don't react to all alerts and delay braking, you negate the advantage we agree segmentation gives you, faster reaction time (by fractions of a second). You can only hope a rabbit in front of you gives you an alert, so you have more time. Segmentation or not, IO can get you. You still have not answered my question; you debate arguments I or no one is making, obfuscating a meaningful conversation. Yes it speeds responses up, but how much? I know and I am not that impressed. I do like segmentation reduces false signals. That is a benefit, but like it or not it comes with some risk... That is what we call a FACT.

    A very rare tiny out-of-tune gun should not be a problem with your RD, for it will catch it unlike some other RD reported, remember the freq. for next time.
    Again you have English issues. I never argued that out of tune guns are rare or not. That is your straw man argument. Focus you all. Also if out-of-tune guns are rare, then one could argue (with no facts as you have no facts) that IO scenarios are rare or segmentation will not likely help. Looking at Spec mode, some of my local LEO have guns at edge of bands 2, 5 and 8... Just saying, who knows how rare or not, just like how rare will your IO scenario save you because you had segmentation. There is no free lunch.

    If you don't like an extra false alarm which some can't stand one extra false, filter it to the max and slow down. Increase risk for little benefit? Invalid statement...
    What? Again your are not making any sense with invalid statements. I asked a simple question. Logic and facts please... how faster will the RL react segmented? I got the answer on another forum (and why I post in more than one place). Cheers
    Last edited by gmcjetpilot; 09-17-2015 at 10:37 PM.

  7. #7
    Advanced Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Heart of Dixie
    Posts
    1,963

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    LOL! One has to understand that my radar detector is RD, that is the name I gave him. He is a mixed-up mule here on the farm. He is just like a dog (thinks he's one), loves to ride in the back of the pick-up'm truck. I trained him to hee-haw for X band, stomp for K band, and fart when he sees Ka (that is a bad response alarm for Ka, it speeds up the truck when we should be slowing). With laser, no alarm (he thinks a sniper is about shoot him, just hides in the bed of the truck). To segment him, I place those five-and-dime X-rays glasses on him, but that has one side effect every time we pass a cow (I guess the lens get fogged up and all he sees are four long sexy legs). So, I went out and asked the ole mule (political correctness does not allow me to refer him as a jack-ass now days, just a mule, civil rights got involved) the Op's questions, and I'll be dog (mule) gone, RD got all of the answers correct. The questions that were invalid, he turned his head sideways, then rolled over and hee-hawed and hee-hawed..........
    Last edited by North Alabama; 09-18-2015 at 10:08 PM. Reason: Clean up the post to make Judge Roberts happy....

  8. #8

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Quote Originally Posted by North Alabama View Post
    LOL! One has to understand that my radar detector is RD, that is the name I gave him. He is a mixed-up mule here on the farm. He is just like a dog (thinks he's one), loves to ride in the back of the pick-up'm truck. I trained him to hee-haw for X band, stomp for K band, and fart when he sees Ka (that is a bad response alarm for Ka, it speeds up the truck when we should be slowing). With laser, no alarm (he thinks a sniper is about shoot him, just hides in the bed of the truck). To segment him, I place those five-and-dime X-rays glasses on him, but that has one side effect every time we pass a cow (I guess the lens get fogged up and all he sees are four long sexy legs). So, I went out and asked the ole mule (political correctness does not allow me to refer him as a jack-ass now days, just a mule, civil rights got involved) the Op's questions, and I'll be dog (mule) gone, RD got all of the answers correct. The questions that were invalid, he turned his head sideways, then rolled over and hee-hawed and hee-hawed..........
    WHAT? LOL! Ha ha. Oh my gosh. I must resist mocking you. Please, tell me you're drunk? No one sober can come up with nonsensical blah blah this good framed in non-standard English. No offense, I'm sure you're a nice person, but you also have English and logic issues. EIGHT, count them 8 farm & animal analogies, written in nonstandard English making no sense, an intentional joke or drunk posting, you decide. Dear North Alabama, rule in English, keep analogies down to one, and make a point. What is your point? Let's deconstruct your post:

    • "understand that my radar detector is RD, that is the name I gave him" What? I work with RF, radar everyday, my job. You?

    • "mixed-up mule here on the farm" What? Analogy #1

    • "He is just like a dog (thinks he's one), loves to ride in the back of the pick-up'm truck" Who is he and what does this mean? Pointless analogy #2.

    • "(that is a bad response alarm for Ka, it speeds up the truck when we should be slowing" Again pointless. No one said that, analogy #3

    • "To segment him, I place those five-and-dime X-rays glasses on him, but that has one side effect every time we pass a cow (I guess the lens get fogged up and all he sees are four long sexy legs)" WHAT THE ....? I am sure that is funny only to you, irrelevant analogies #4 and #5.

    • "So, I went out and asked the ole mule (political correctness does not allow me to refer him as a jack-ass now days, just a mule, civil rights got involved) the Op's questions" WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Civil Rights? Ha ha! Again another idiotic analogy #6 stuffed into as many sentences. Bravo Sir....

    • ", and I'll be dog (mule) gone, RD got all of the answers correct. The questions that were invalid, he turned his head sideways, then rolled over and hee-hawed and hee-hawed......" OK ding-ding-ding.... we have the winner! Number #7 & #8 really dumb analogies in one unreadable post; this is the most irrelevant unreadable post on the Internet I've ever had the pleasure to laugh at. Honorable mention to the other two posters in this thread. Thanks for making my day.

    Gents, for some reason you all have some prejudice against me. You all just made personal attacks, ad hominem, criticizing me for daring to ask this question. Sorry, I don't like your fact-less comments. I'm talking over your heads, and you're frustrated you don't get it. I asked for a technical discussion, but I got farm animal analogies and scolded for posting. Shame on all your donkeys and dogs or whatever animal analogies you understand. :-) For gosh sakes trolls I got it, segmentation has value. I agree. Your answer in a nutshell: HELL YEA SEGMENTATION... ALL THE WAY BUBBA... OK. Great.

    My comment, is segmentation has risks, small as they may be, and segmentation is NOT going to save you for all IO speed traps.... The individual RD operator needs to weight those risks and benefits. Yes before segmentation you should run WIDE KA with SPEC mode and note all KA Freqs in the area you drive first (as "experts" suggest). It's a great suggestion. Once you do that, segment away. IO is always a threat, and the fraction of second or second advantage segmentation might give you, might help. That is a big maybe and requires you to slow NOW. As far as out of tune and non-standard 2/5/8 band LEO guns, it is a factor on open highway road trips, places you never have gone. Personally when I segment I select a few more bands ON, than just 2/5/8.

    Clearly I'm asking the wrong people for sophisticated well thoughtout answers, no offense. Sorry I expected more. Bygones. I'm not worried about segmentation or not, the technique the LEO uses in the town I go often is ON ALL THE TIME, easy to detect segmented or not. I'm not a habitual gross speed demon. To me the benefit of segmentation are less false alarms. Happy with my research elsewhere, taking pride in the power of my education and logic over ignorance. You all were useless, bygones. Cheers Gents, slow down and drive safe.
    Last edited by gmcjetpilot; 09-20-2015 at 10:27 AM.

  9. #9
    Advanced Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Upstate New York where the Stalker Dual is King
    Posts
    1,533

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Clearly I'm asking the wrong people for sophisticated well thoughtout answers, no offense.
    Actually you got some good answers....just without all the fluff. Engineers or not, you will find few who understand these detectors better. But if you want the nitty gritty details here you go.

    Segmentation is about more than just speeding up the sweep and improving response time, it's about matching the speed of today's digital radars AND increasing detection range to weak Ka signals. Better yet, by properly segmenting the detector we can disable the RDR (Radar Detector Rejection) filtering algos which reduce the overall Ka performance of these detectors by quite a bit.

    First let's talk about the problems that sweeping the entire Ka spectrum create for the detector. A full Ka sweep is covering 2.6 GHZ of bandwidth which is quite alot and practically pointless when you consider that all mobile Ka units in the US are designed to operate in less than 25% of the bandwidth you are sweeping. That's alot of time wasted searching empty bandwidth. Even worse, we are scanning bandwidth where the only Ka signals to be had are from cheap leaky detectors (3rd harmonic from Cobras 11.2ghz LO) which necessitates the RDR rejection filtering (a major performance killer) in order to reduce Ka falsing.

    This RDR filtering effectively DOUBLES the bandwidth being swept in order to latch a Ka alert because it requires a signal to be present on TWO consecutive sweeps before setting an alert......so unsegmented, with RDR enabled, we are now having to sweep 5.2 ghz of bandwidth in order to get a Ka detect! RDR weeds out Cobra falses (33.6xx-33.7xx) by using this two sweep rule, since the LO in the Cobra is swept the frequency read on the 1st sweep will not match the frequency of the 2nd sweep and thus the alert can be blocked. So in order to sweep this much bandwidth takes considerable time meaning it can take the detector up to 1 full second to recognize a legitimate threat. This is a big problem when you consider that most digital radars today can come out of hold, read a target and go back into hold mode in less than .5 seconds.



    Aside from the response time issue is another major problem with sweeping the entire Ka bandwidth and the two sweep detection rule mandated by RDR filtering....reduced detection range. Weak signals are easily buried in the noise floor and may only peek through for a brief instant and only a fast sweeper with no overhead filtering will alert to them. In tests that I have performed we saw a 60% improvement in detection range between running unsegmented with RDR on vs. a 2/5/8 sweep with RDR off. That is a huge difference, like the difference between a ticket or no ticket.

    Here is a good example of the alert range difference between swept and unswept detectors (RedLine and V1).

    The Title Bout: RedLine vs V1 - Escort Radar Forum

    And here is the practical benefit in a real encounter......without segmentation and rdr disabled I would have missed the 1st shot, maybe the 2nd and been toasted on the 3rd.



    So the benefits of BS/RDR are easily understood.....better IO detection and increased detection range.

    So what are the detractors?

    1. More Ka falsing. If you run with segment #2 enabled you will see a few Cobras slip through on the bottom part of this segment but not nearly as many as you would with segment #1 enabled. Since I have no MPH units anywhere near me I run with segment #2 off as well. The only Ka falses I see now are very rare up in segment #8 at 35.4xx......likely from a nearby Whistler.

    2. Missing an "out of tune" Ka gun. During the years I was forced to run the full bandwidth I may have seen this one or twice.....or just as likely the detector reported the wrong frequency in spec mode (these are not 100% accurate in that department).....and I put this last on my list of concerns. I have yet to hear of anyone being busted with an out of tune Ka gun and for decades we faced the same issue with out of tune X or K-Band guns but nobody seems concerned that we are only sweeping the standard 50MHZ and 200MHZ channels on that older hardware and not suffering the consequences. So if we are worried about being busted by an out of tune gun I would be more concerned by an old analog KR10 K-Band unit rather than a Stalker 34.7 with it's crystal controlled tuner.
    Last edited by nine_c1; 09-20-2015 at 09:47 AM.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

  10. #10

    Default Re: Is Ka Band Segmentation Worth It? Increase Risk for Little Benefit?

    Quote Originally Posted by nine_c1 View Post
    Clearly I'm asking the wrong people for sophisticated well thoughtout answers, no offense.
    Actually you got some good answers....just without all the fluff. Engineers or not, you will find few who understand these detectors better.
    ZIPPY and your posts are great, appreciate it. Of course other folks know more than I do, about consumer radar detectors, but don't include "pointcone" and "north alabama" in this league. ZIPPY and yourself are great. Thanks. That is why I asked the questions. I don't like being scolded or attacked with irrelevant negative or ludicrous comments by Internet bullies and trolls. We will have to agree to disagree on the quality of the answers I heretofore received. I have a YouTube account and subscribe to these channels and others, good stuff.

    My "operational environment", not a habitual speeder or grossly exceed speed limits. I moved to a town with lots of LEO running low speed radar traps 7 days a week on main roads and back neighborhood streets, where speed limits change frequently from high to low. RD reminds me to check my speed. Handy on road trips as well for the same reason, situational awareness. The good news, LEO's in the town use ON ALL THE TIME, easy to detect with or without segmentation. I don't speed in this town, even 1mph, know the limits now. However great fun, playing where is Waldo, looking to see where they are hiding. They are pretty creative. Out of town drivers get caught all the time... Turning off band 10, is great. It was a source of false alarms for me. BTW I run everything off but K, Laser with segmentation 2/5/6/8. Thanks for the videos....Cheers.

    This is a good video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQjo-k9vI7E
    I timed it and yes it gets a hit way early with segmentation, a mile or more, but transient due to terrain. When the RD went off with a constant alert there was a few car lengths difference...
    Last edited by gmcjetpilot; 09-20-2015 at 11:10 AM.

 

 

Similar Threads

  1. Band Segmentation
    By mpatel1080 in forum Escort
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 04-25-2013, 09:30 PM
  2. Sti-R Plus Ka Band Segmentation
    By wolfpacal in forum Beltronics
    Replies: 18
    Last Post: 03-11-2011, 06:51 PM
  3. STi-r band segmentation
    By fire65 in forum Beltronics
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 06-22-2010, 06:42 PM
  4. K band segmentation.
    By barryswanson in forum Radar Detectors - General
    Replies: 18
    Last Post: 05-07-2010, 08:20 AM
  5. Worth the risk in CA to have illegal jammer?
    By 904nm in forum Local & Regional Info
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 06-08-2009, 07:59 AM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •