The never ending radar detector mounting situation

I've seen a lot of people posting about Cobra detectors being mounted improperly so I started looking around. I went to Olive Garden for dinner with my wife the other day, it was kind of busy so I parked a ways away. While walking in I noticed quite a few cars with detectors so I observed the mounts. Most of them were pretty bad. One mounted too low, where the wiper blades would interfere with it. One was angled down too sharply. One was mounted very far front and center on the dash, so as that it was angled down, but while not obstructed it would have done much better to be mounted further back, where it would have been higher up and had a cleaner road view.

There were a couple of others, but only one, mounted in the center of the windshield midway up would have been acceptable. Obviously manufacturers should be clear about this in the manual (I mean even RMR had the proper mounting instructions in the RMR C475 manual, perhaps people aren't reading them, I'd guess if I mounted that RMR according to instructions then put my V1 facing down on the dash towards the wiper blades they'd have performed about the same).

Since I'm curious to see how much this impacts preformance, I'm going to do a few tests with my V1 on some known radar signs tomorrow. I'll mount it up high, down low, and angle it too much and see just what this does for range. Most of the radar signs are along the Thruway where they usually use laser, I have Blinders and am not at much risk (I'll refrain from going too fast regardless). If it hurts my V1, it will certainly hurt less sensitive detectors even more.

Okay, let us know.

Even when I just bought my cobra I had a feeling that it had to be mounted nice and level but the dam coiled power cord prevented me from mounting it high. I had to hardwire it to get it up high.

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Originally Posted by TRun

Even when I just bought my cobra I had a feeling that it had to be mounted nice and level but the dam coiled power cord prevented me from mounting it high. I had to hardwire it to get it up high.

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Interesting to know, I've used coiled cords before with other detetors but not many of them had that much tension that it was problematic.

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Originally Posted by man114

I've seen a lot of people posting about Cobra detectors being mounted improperly so I started looking around. I went to Olive Garden for dinner with my wife the other day, it was kind of busy so I parked a ways away. While walking in I noticed quite a few cars with detectors so I observed the mounts. Most of them were pretty bad. One mounted too low, where the wiper blades would interfere with it. One was angled down too sharply. One was mounted very far front and center on the dash, so as that it was angled down, but while not obstructed it would have done much better to be mounted further back, where it would have been higher up and had a cleaner road view.

There were a couple of others, but only one, mounted in the center of the windshield midway up would have been acceptable. Obviously manufacturers should be clear about this in the manual (I mean even RMR had the proper mounting instructions in the RMR C475 manual, perhaps people aren't reading them, I'd guess if I mounted that RMR according to instructions then put my V1 facing down on the dash towards the wiper blades they'd have performed about the same).

Since I'm curious to see how much this impacts preformance, I'm going to do a few tests with my V1 on some known radar signs tomorrow. I'll mount it up high, down low, and angle it too much and see just what this does for range. Most of the radar signs are along the Thruway where they usually use laser, I have Blinders and am not at much risk (I'll refrain from going too fast regardless). If it hurts my V1, it will certainly hurt less sensitive detectors even more.

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Why are you testing something that already been proven?

There are ways to mount the V1 concealed and high. It will involve other accessories but will be worth your time.

I know we know it doesn't help, I'm more curious as to how much it hurts (whether a very good detector could be made very bad by a bad mount, one done within the normal realms of possibility). I normally mount my V1 up next to the rear view mirror on the right. If I mounted it higher it wouldn't see backwards that well.

Anyway today I played around with a downward facing dash mount. It shaves quite a bit of distance on the K band signs. Several hundred feet or more at times. It still falsed at the EZ Pass lanes so I'm guessing it has enough up down laser sensitivity that the laser would still be fairly decent and would likely catch reflections off the hood or elsewhere.

The biggest problem is that I am too OCD to not have it mounted perfectly level and pointed straight ahead... :o

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Originally Posted by Arvetus

The biggest problem is that I am too OCD to not have it mounted perfectly level and pointed straight ahead... :o

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I'm the same way with all my electronics:p:)