well i know valentine is the heavy favorite around this forum... ive been looking into the V1 or the rx75 by bel.. and i just recently saw this one.. is this new or has it been around? on ebay its going for 600 and some change so i would assume its their highest model... comments?

im mainly looking for one that doesnt have the windshield mount...one that mounts outside of car like the rx75, but besides that are there any other recomendations?

 

The SR7 is not new technology. It is not as up to date as the newer windshield mounted detectors.

The Bel RX65 has the most coverage which includes the Ku band (mostly used in Europe but as of December '05 has been voted to come to the U.S.).

The Bel STI (soon to be released) is immune to detector detection but does not include the Ku band for some reason.

No use buying a unit that will not detect a band that will possibly be used.

 

what about bel rx75?

 

Still no Ku band.

I don't know why they wouldn't update thier most expensive model.

The Escort is still behind too.

And the V1 unless they recently added it.

 

Skol Viks!

 

We may or may not see Ku band over here, that's why you're not seeing it on many new detectors.

Ku is 13.45 GHz +- 25MHz. That means that it has 50MHz of bandwidth at a 13.45GHz center frequency. What this is is a revitilization of X band radar. The reason X band is so unpopular is because it's innaccurate due to all of the bleed over from other devices such as automatic doors and motion detectors. X band has the exact same bandwidth as Ku, it's just on 10.525 GHz.

Because X band is lower frequency than K and KA and now KU, it has a much longer range than any of them. KU is the next closest in frequency to X. They go in this order X < Ku < K < Ka.

I haven't seen a cop using X band radar in about 8 years. The last time I did was when I drove to texas from IL. In a few small towns in Missouri that we drove through, cops were still using X. X is all but dead now so Ku would give highway officers a great tool for long distance radar with accuracy. Even so, it's all going to be line of sight. The lower the frequency, the easier it is to detect as well.

As far as detectors go, I'm willing to bet the V1 will have an update that will just display Ku as X.

 

V1 already has the update for KU

 

No upgrade required! You can just reprogram your V1 by hand to turn it on.. and hey, i can use this to turn off X band (since it's a nuisance).

http://www.valentine1.com/lab/MikesLabRpt3.asp

EDIT: That is assuming you have a SOMEWHAT current version.. I need to update my V1 anyway to get POP protection. I think I'll send it in while I'm in chicago, since I wont need it.