A couple of interesting "J" alerts

First off, mine is a 3.825.
I was travelling down a 35 mph industrial road that runs straight for about 2-3 miles. The nearest car was about 1/4 of a mile behind me. I was getting KA alerts to the rear that fluctuated from weak to medium. I could not make out the car behind me. The alerting continued for about 2 miles, until I rolled up to a traffic light. The car behind me finally rolled up next to me. It ended up being a pickup truck with an unknown brand or radar detector. The instant I spotted the radar detector, my V1 "J" out. The only thing I could make out on the other guys detector was that it appeared to have a flashing orange L that occasionally changed to a flashing H. So I experienced about 3-4 minutes of needless KA alerts that did not "j" out until the guy pulled up right next to me.

Later that evening, in a different part of town, I passed a car repair shop and got a week KA alert. I looked in the lot and there were 3 police cars in need of repair, atleast 1 was broadcasting KA 24/7. So no problem, I got an alert to a weak signal in a good amount of time. However on my way back (about 10minutes later, now on the far side of the street), I got a real short alert to KA with very little lead time, and an instant later it is "J" out. So it "j" out a real signal.

I just found the whole thing interesting, I don't think firmware will ever solve this, if the unit is "filtering" it will eventually "filter" a real signal.
What the V1 really needs is the ability to turn all filtering off and/or select the level of filtering desired. May be the new setting should be A, l, L, j, J

If you have been keeping up with the reading--which is hard at times..LOL

Send it in and get the newest software upgrade 3.826 that has fixed the J-ing out of real KA and also a slight increase in detection as I have been told by the V-1 Tech! Everyone that has had the older 3.825 and upgreaded to 3.826 has loved it from what Ive read.

if it is "filtering" there is always a risk of "filtering" a cop. If it was foolproof then all the radar gun manufacturers would have to do is mimic a "false" signal. Thats why there needs to be a way to turn the "j" feature off.

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Originally Posted by tktm

if it is "filtering" there is always a risk of "filtering" a cop. If it was foolproof then all the radar gun manufacturers would have to do is mimic a "false" signal. Thats why there needs to be a way to turn the "j" feature off.

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Technically, there is.
You turn of the Ka false alert guard, which turns off all filtering on Ka band using harmonics, and you won't get the "J" alert because it uses this filtering. But, you will get tons of Ka falses from cheap detectors.

How is it the X50 and the RX65 filter false KA bands better than the V1 when it comes to cheap detectors causing it to false?

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Originally Posted by RensoreK

How is it the X50 and the RX65 filter false KA bands better than the V1 when it comes to cheap detectors causing it to false?

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Here's the rundown based on what I know (or think I know):

The X50, by most accounts, falses on POP like mad. It either falses on POP due to weak real signals or due to false cheap-detector signals. What's strange about that is that in GOL testing it actually came out at the bottom for detecting the real thing. (It caught 6/10 bursts, if I remember correctly.)

The RX65 seems to be much better. Not only is it much beter at detecting the real thing (8/10 or 9/10 according to GOL?) but it seems to false a whole lot less than the X50. My bet is that there is something about the hardware that allows it to process the short signals more thoroughly than the X50. Either way, it's good.

The V1 is as good or marginally better than the RX65 (9/10 or 10/10 according to GOL, right?). This I can explain. The V1's algorithm is fundamentally different than the RX65 or X50 in that it not only filters before it sees the signal, but after as well. Most of the false detectors are filtered out by the V1 before it even alerts because it can already see the other harmonics from the leaky detector. (I believe that probably what the Belscort devices do, too.) But sometimes it doesn't see that harmonic and alerts to Ka. But rather than just letting it go as a real alert, the V1 keeps on looking for that harmonic. If it sees it you get a "J" and the alert is cancelled.

So at least for the RX65 and V1 it's about tradeoffs. You trade a few extra falses for the virtual guarantee that you will pick up the real thing. The difference between those two is pretty small, though.

Another consideration is the way the V1 alerts vs. the Belscorts. The Belscorts give you an emphatic "POP!!!!!!" alert. This is good because, in theory, you know that it's really POP that you have encountered. It's bad because the falses get annoying since they are so loud and busy. The V1 does not have a specific alert, but just alerts as if it were a normal instant signal on K or Ka band. It's good because it's less annoying if it's a weak signal, but bad because you never know when you are dealing with POP and when it's really just instant-on. Again, tradeoffs.