Roaming cell phones, random rear X band, and 3.861

Hi - First post, but at least I did try searching :)

It's been a long time since I owned a radar detector but was big into the whole scene in the late 80s (anyone else remember how you could pick up CHP units within a mile with a mobile scanner set to certain frequencies because most of them forgot to turn off their mobile repeaters when they got back in their car?) and had a remote mounted front/rear RD back then that I really liked. Unfortunately, that investment went bye bye when I rolled the car about a year after I bought it, but the direction of signal is one reason I went with the V1.

Bought a 3.861 new at the end of March, so still on my trial period. Took a brief road trip out of the Bay Area down to Pinnacles National Monument for some rock climbing late last week in little l mode, pretty uneventful, just a laser alert by the big glowing sign on 101 and a couple YSI X hits along with a bunch of X and K falses. I may yet end up disabling X entirely but I do bounce around on back roads enough so I'm going to have to see a bit more first if I want to kill it.

Here's where it gets interesting though. West entrance of Pinnacles brings you into pretty much the middle of nowhere - the road dead ends in the park, and is a 1 lane track for about the last 7 or so miles and on the way out there's no traffic except people leaving the park. I'm the last car in the parking lot, even the ranger has left. And all of a sudden I start getting 2 weak rear X band alerts every couple minutes for the drive back when there was clearly nothing but a bunch of rocks behind me for multiple miles.

Based on this thread - http://www.radardetector.net/viewtopic.php?t=15206 - I honestly wonder if I was getting the same thing others did on that...the whole searching for Verizon's 1900 MHz network. I was using a Sprint Treo and a Sprint Katana (Sanyo) that had no digital service and kept looking for it. Only caveat is that a. the Katana actually had an analog signal from some provider (why I bought it and brought it along on this trip, for rural regions) and b. I was getting 2 signals, so perhaps both were looking at the same time.

Anyone else have this issue?

Thanks.

Yep . . my phone gives x band regardless if it is in digital service or not.

I'm not even sure why. I turned x band off for thsi reason.

Unfortunately I can't provide you with much help on this but I think you've actually helped me! :D

When I drove to Louisiana for Easter I drove on a stretch of road where there was no other car behind me but I kept getting random X-band falses. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what that was from but I'm wondering if this was being caused by my cell...

I have a Sprint Treo 700p and I usually lose signal intermittently on that stretch of road. I guess I'll have to test this theory the next time I travel that way...

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V1 1.8: 3.858

Disable X band.... It isn't used in Cali :wink:

Yeah, I probably will go into the menu and just kill off X band, if for no other reason to see if that whole thread on X band getting through is accurate given mine was purchased at the time those other units were.

How much of a signal does it need to get through advanced logic, though? My thought was to try the roadtrip to Fresno this weekend with that mode and see if I like it. I'd ask if this is CDMA/TDMA specific but since I'm in month three of the two year contract with Sprint I'm SOL anyway. Wish we could hear something from Valentine on why this happens.

At least I passed the idiot test to figure out how to finally get my windshield mount off. :) Now for the nifty Audi remote monitor. I hadn't realized that the old trick with CHP remotes got commercialized and still works!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by old64mb

How much of a signal does it need to get through advanced logic, though? My thought was to try the roadtrip to Fresno this weekend with that mode and see if I like it.

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Where are you coming from?

My recommended settings for the V1 in Cali are: X off, POP off, Logic Mode (little l), and 30 second K band muting.

Advanced logic will not let you see or hear (at muted volume) the weak K band signals.

Also, when you disable X band - see if you still get occasional random X band alerts. That seems to be a bug with some 3.861 versions.

Just from the Bay Area, probably 101 to Gilroy over the pass to 5.

I'll try your settings for the hell of it at least for part of the trip - should be interesting to see if I get the bug.

If your not sure about x band, then just use advanced-logic mode. BTW, parts of Oregon and Washington state still use x band if your ever up that way.

Thanks, actually that was the second road trip I have coming up.

Is there a reference FAQ for recommended settings for state, or do we just go by the Radar Bands by Town FAQ and go from there? First road trip after I close on my A6 versus the rental I have now will be to AZ and NM, and it looks like this setting will work there as well.

If you check your manual, it tells you the solution for it in page 28 regarding this problem.

...which is one reason I posted here originally, since "change your service provider" seemed a bit extreme even if I could, and since Valentine doesn't provide an answer figured a smart group of users might be able to narrow it down to CDMA/TDMA versus GSM and perhaps even come up with a list of models if people were upgrading.

Then again, with Cheetah about to release what looks to be an utterly nifty GPS based camera/photo radar solution for Windows Mobile 5 PDAs, I'd take the Palm 700wx anyway. :)

Settings changed, about to head out. I'll report back if I get any X falses with the band off.

Have you tried solution # 1 and 2 in the manual on page 28?