Hello From Tampa FL

[Rin]

Hi everyone, been reading this forum for quite a while and finally made an account. I got a a V1 for my birthday a few days ago ( Randomly out of nowhere ) and since then ive been reading up on it. I always wanted the Escort 9500ix and was saving for that. So i might just sell the valentine and get the escort. I live in Tampa FL and there is quite a lot of alerts from my v1 as i thought there would be. Im trying to familiarize myself in reading the v1 and understanding it but so far im just getting annoyed with it. Anyway hello everyone! Its always good to meet fellow speeders

[BlinderGuy]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I am a neighbor from Lakeland!

[Rin]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I am a neighbor from Lakeland!

Hello there neighbor! Any tips on the type of bands cops use around here? Im originally from Miami and just go to school here.

[BlinderGuy]

Don't really know about Tampa but Polk mainly uses K band for City and County cars. Moto Cops use Ka band 34.7....FHP uses mainly 35.5 and 34.7 Ka band

[Rin]

Don't really know about Tampa but Polk mainly uses K band for City and County cars. Moto Cops use Ka band 34.7....FHP uses mainly 35.5 and 34.7 Ka band

Yeh, I heard its mostly KA band in Tampa, Virtually no Xband. My valentine 1 picks up so many false KBands that I wouldn't be able to tell a cop from the real thing...

[BlinderGuy]

I think there are only 2 towns in the Florida that still even have X band.

[Rin]

I think there are only 2 towns in the Florida that still even have X band.

Poor x band is dieing out. We have alot of cameras on top of lights that flash as you go by. I dunno if they are redlight or speed cameras but they use Xband. Ive already seen two of them.

[BassMaster]

I've run into two cruisers running X band in the past month. One of those was going down US1 about 15 minutes ago. (St. Augustine)

[QuickTrigger]

THe valentine one is a top dog performer indeed. if i was in your place i would keep the V1 and get the cheetah gps mirror kit or the C50 if you do not want to connect it to the V1. i would take a few days to get used to the valentine one. At first everything might seem to confuse you but after a while its easier for you to seperate the falses from the real by listening to the RD. Make sure you hardwire or have the detector high up on the windshield.

[Batman]

welcome fellow Floridian.

On the V1 I had exactly the same experience, and then got a 9500ci which I find to be vastly more usable in an urban environment. The V1 though is certainly better for long country roads.

Here's a perspective on the two I wrote up previously

V1 - Better at QT; better with IO, better round bends than ix but not ci

Passport 9500ix - Better at red light and fixed speed cameras like redflex, more noticeable alert when cop is hiding with K band in an area with a known K band false (if on slightly different frequency), generally conditions heightened response to alerts given fewer false positives, 9500ci also has better range sensitivity.

Neither is a perfect product, V1 is clearly the most responsive product and if you are good at interpreting lots of alerts coming in and knowing when to slow down and when to ignore it, then V1 is great. If you aren't then you may find the V1 = drive slowly all the time because you have no idea if the alert is real or false.

Of course using the 9500 to do some of the filtering for you has its own risks - well documented in this forum. From my point of view, I really like the GPS filtering capability, and the red light features. I think I am far less likely to get a red light ticket with my 9500ci. The red light ticket was one of the reasons I gave up on the V1. I have never recieved a QT ticket in my life, so that for me is a lesser concern. The GPS filtering also heightens my response to alerts, and because it blocks out only slices and not the entire band, it works quite well (not delusional here - I know there is a risk of false negatives but I haven't had a real alert blocked out yet).

Plus with all these things, you have to be super vigilant. The best detector is your eyes, and knowing my 9500ci has a gap against QT makes me vigilant. With the V1 my problem was that in an urban environment, it was so noisy, my initial reaction to an alert would be to ignore it unless I see something which kind of defeats the point of a radar detector.