Two basic questions: pop and mounting

Hi,

I have two basic questions:

First:

I've done a lot of reading in these forums, and it seems the consensus is that Pop off will give a slight increase in sensitivity to some detectors. I have an xtr-330 (which I like a lot), and I have the option to turn pop on or off. I've also read that the xtr-330 is based on the pro-58/73.. and in those detectors pop off means extra sensitivity...

I just don't understand how though - it seems to me that to detect POP the detector needs to be MORE sensitive, not less, since the burst of radar is so fast.

How then is it possible that turning POP off will increase sensitivity on K and KA?

Also, a related question, is I've read both that having pop on will mean more false alerts, but having pop off will also mean more false alerts because of the increased sensitivity!

Second: I don't see why higher mounting gives the RD a better "view of the road". So long as the detector is above wipers and any other objects, how is it that it can "see" farther away? The only advantage I see is if going up a hill with a leo clocking at the top of the hill.

BUT on a perfectly straight road, a detector say mounted in the middle of the windshield, will "see" in a perfect line of sight just as far as one that is mounted higher. At least it seems to me that way..

Confused... thanks to anyone who'd like to explain this to a radar detector newbie.

betty

Welcome to the forum,

POP on the detector has to scrutinize the frequency for the milli second weak burst that is suppose to represent POP. Thus this takes away from scanning in general. Not to mention to apply additional computations to determin if such a brief weak signal is POP.

In the end the difference is negligable, people disable POP more so to prevent additional falsing.

Running with POP mode OFF, lowers falses.

As far as mounting, the detector is an antenna, now again the difference between low or high is not a huge difference however, the detector is an antenna, the higher it is the farther it can "see". And the 12" or so additional hight may be just enough to detect a IO far ahead versus not getting the alert and walking into the trap. That is why we fight for sensitivity. Its the difference between getting an alert or NOT getting the alert.

POP OFF increases sensitivity because when the Whistler engineers were tuning POP to reduce false alerts, they found that lowering the sensitivity of the detector helped quiet some of those stray radar signals that would otherwise generate an alert.

Detecting POP has less to do with sensitivity than "sampling frequency".

Overall, on this class of detectors you should turn off POP to greatly reduce falsing.

Thanks!