Radar Detector

[SW03ES]

I actually know people who have used both those waxes and say they can see no merits over other high grade carnuaba paste waxes like P21S, Pinnacle Souveran, or Meguiars #26.

[adam1991]

I guess I should say it again. Bel is just a suggested alternative(not a replacement) to the pricier(and needlessly said better) Valentine1. It does have adequate features and radar detection, though it may not be the best.

It all depends on the degree of service the purchaser wants to receive from the product. Different people have different needs, values, and budgets. Thus, a wide range of products is available to consumers who don't need and/or can't readily afford the best of the best. (obviously unlike adam1991)

Please don't get on my case about suggesting Bel radar detectors. I am just trying to help out the author of this thread by telling him/her what else is out there besides the Valentine1. I think its unfair to deem the Valentine1 as the one and only and everything else as not even worth your time and consideration. In the end it will be up to him/her to decide what's best, so if I can assist in helping this guy/girl to make the correct decision, then I think that I definately should.

I thought this forum was a place for collective free thought. <_<

*skippy*

This is a forum for free thought, and you know my thoughts.

Too many people buy the $10 item that calls itself Product A, just so they can say "Look--I have Product A!!" when that's just a knockoff of the real Product A. People *want* to believe that just because it says so on the package, it must be true.

You're here in a Lexus forum. I don't understand that, because Hyundai makes a PERFECTLY acceptable alternative to Lexus cars, don't you think? I mean, why would anyone spend this much money on a freaking car when you could spend 1/3 as much and get "an alternative to the pricier (and needlessly said better) Lexus. It does have adequate features and it gets you from point A to point B, though it may not be the best".

Quite frankly, I disagree that the Bel is really an alternative to the Val1, much like the Hyundai isn't really an alternative to the Lexus. While they share some features and both purport to do many of the same things, the Hyundai isn't an alternative.

[skippy]

first of all, if you're saying that valentine1 is to radar detectors as what lexus is to cars...i would have to disagree.

alternative - n. - something which can be chosen instead (Merriam-Webster)

so. here we have a choice, as consumers. we can either choose to buy the valentine1 for its various benefits OR we can choose to buy something else other than the valentine1. ITS A CHOICE. surely there are consequences to our choices(ex. performance, style, cost), but it's up to the consumer to choose which alternative is best suited for their individual situation.

i think some of us have incorrect definitions of alternative; along the lines of something synonymous to equal to or same as.

also...i very much doubt that hyundai owners say they own equivalents to lexus.

also...it appears some of us need to learn how to use quotation marks jk

[steviej]

actually I think most of us made the choice to stop submitting to this thread.

guys, settle down on the back and forths. It appears tempers are starting to flair up a tad. If it continues the thread will be closed if not removed.

now lets all play nice together. :chairshot:

steviej

[SW03ES]

also...i very much doubt that hyundai owners say they own equivalents to lexus.

I wouldn't be so sure about that lol ;)

[skippy]

[rich21]

im looking up on buying this radar/laser detector and jammer. they claim to be the best and they offer a 1 year ticket rebate. so if you get a ticket within a year of having it they will pay for it. thats how confident they are. its called super stealth 9000 and it goes for 299.95. website is best-radar-jammers.com

[steviej]

I find their claims hard to swallow right now. How can they jam a radar source if they don't send a signal?

Maybe this little box cloaks the car. Beam me up Scottie!

They don't pay for the ticket either, read the fine print:

Conditions of the Ticket Rebate Program

Registration form must be returned within 30 days of purchase.

Registered owner of the Super Stealth 9000 does not exceed 15 miles per hour or 30% over the posted speed limit, whichever is less.

The ticket must clearly state "RADAR" or "LASER" and "SPEEDING".

Rebate only valid in the USA.

Registered owner must be driver of the vehicle when ticket is issued.

Registered owner is qualified for this program for one full year from date of purchase.

Only the person who is the registered owner of the Super Stealth 9000 is eligible for the rebate.

DOES NOT APPLY where DWI or DUI is involved, Construction Zones, School Zones, in California or in any state that prohibits the use of radar detector and or jammer equipment.

NOTE: The manufacturer and seller of the Super Stealth 9000 do not advocate speeding. Police can and will stop you if they think you are exceeding the speed limit. If used properly, the Super Stealth 9000 can provide you, the driver, with the additional time needed to adjust your speed to help prevent tickets.

Meet the above conditions, and you may receive up to $100 rebate if you get a speeding ticket within 1 year of purchase.

time and consumer test reports will tell.

steviej

[rich21]

its says that the super stealth is a reciever not a transmitter. whatever that means. but thats what they say on how they jam the radar or laser. does anybody know? oh yeah, and it says that it could detect of up to 3 miles.

[steviej]

I'm not buyin' it.

sj

[zeta]

if it's a jammer it's supposed to send out a mixed signal back to the radar... unless it just completely takes in the signal and eats it up... but i don't understand how that would work lol. gotta agree with stevie. i ain't buyin their story... rather spend $300 on an Escort 8500S :)

kev

[dave420]

Hey guys, I'm new here, wouldn't have come here if I wasn't looking for ETs of a few Lexus's but radar detectors are very important to me and so is correct information. I sell Bel and Escort(same company) at Sharper Image and did many hours of reading EVERYONES point of view before I made my decision.

Theres a few websites that are very helpful. www.radartest.com and www.carreview.com

A man named Mr Peterson is an expert on radar/laser detectors and he supports the 8500 100%. Heres what I've found in MY hunt for the truth.

Valentine 1; $399.99 selling price, the unit is over 10 years old(I think 12 to be exact) since it was introduced by Mike Valentine, who believe it or not, was fired from Escort for being such a pain in the !Removed! who everyone hated to work with... They've made several improvments since it first came out, but is so close to KA band(65% of police radar guns are NOW KA, the newest band out) to the Escort 8500, is 100 bucks really worth it? Valentine 1 owners also swear by the arrows that "say" they show where the cops are. I've heard more reports of the arrows !Removed! up than actually helping find police radar. The upside of the arrows is this, you'll find Burger Kings quicker than ever before once the BK employees put on the microwaves...(sarcasm) More downfalls than upside IMO from experience and other reports as well. When its sunny outside, direct sunlight sets off the "LASER" feature. No automute, unless you want to wait until its @ 4 of 6 lights which is pretty much TOO LATE TO STOP anyways. V1 also doesn't allow you to turn off old bands such as, X. X band now are gates, garages, microwaves, and sliding doors at your local supermarket... Overall, more people are dissapointed from the V1 than any other radar. I read someone say "all the real professional magazines approve the V1"... BS! Car and Driver is the ONLY mag that says Valentine is worth it, guess why? The senior editor of the mag is on Mike Valentines payroll, don't believe me? Check out Mr. Petersons article below.

__________________________________

That Valentine Thing

by Craig Peterson

9/17/2003

I don't make it a practice to make personal attacks on those with whom I disagree, although the anonymity and safety of Internet-launched attacks has certainly elevated this into an art form. Fortunately, my stature in the industry is such that I've never received hate mail from owners of detectors sold by BEL, Cobra, Escort, Uniden or Whistler. This in spite of the fact that while my tests over the past decade in Automobile and a dozen other magazines both here and abroad have declared as winners a model or two from every one of these outfits, so have we declared others in their model lineups as losers.

On the other hand, we constantly get hate mail from fans of the Valentine One. And we almost daily run across excerpts--sometimes the entire pages-long diatribe--from Mike Valentine's personal attack on me, prominently carried for years on his company Website. This kind of personal attack is rather rare in the corporate world (when is the last time you've witnessed something similar?) and we've ignored these rantings since they began in 1993--Mr. Valentine is nothing if not relentless--but frankly we are weary of responding to e-mails mentioning them.

So just this once, we'll examine some of the more contentious charges on Mike's Website--http://www.valentine1.com/lab/V1Hater.asp. Then you'll have a balanced look at the facts. Here are some of the high points of the Valentine attack.

Valentine:

" 'Craig Peterson's December [1995] radar detector comparison test generated more angry letters--and on-line discussion--than anything since the Davis Ferrari/raccoon incident.' -- Automobile, March, 1996"

My response: There's been some editing done to this quote. Actually, it read: "...generated more angry letters--most of them from Valentine owners-- than anything..." Nobody else has complained about any of my tests during the entire decade I ran them for the magazine and in the years since for Radartest.com, Mr.Valentine excepted, but when I fail to pay homage to the V1, many of those who purchase this heavily-hyped, and hyper-expensive detector instantly go into attack mode.

We get exactly the same reaction from purchasers of Rocky Mountain Radar's bogus radar/laser jammers. They've just spent megabucks for what's reputed to be a world-beating product and here we have the temerity to question the supremacy of the product.

Valentine:

"He gets measurements wrong

But instead of debating philosophy, let's look at his record on simple facts. Peterson opens his website review of V1 by saying it is "by far the largest and heaviest unit tested..."

On our scale, Passport is heaviest at 8.9 ounces followed by V1 at 8.6 and the BEL at 8.0. Only V1 has a metal case (magnesium), the others are plastic.

Passport is also the longest by a huge margin at 5.29 inches, followed by the BEL at 4.72 inches. V1 is shortest at 4.46 inches, more than a quarter inch shorter than the BEL and nearly an inch shorter than Passport.

In thickness, all are within 0.1 of an inch (V1 is thickest). Only in width is V1 significantly larger than the others, but the difference between them is less than the difference in length."

My response: We weigh the unit complete with power cord and the V1 with its substantial plug did tip the scales a bit more than the Escort and BEL at the time of that 2001 test. And face it: width in a detector is of far greater significance than length. A wide detector blocks more of the driver's view of the road ahead, an item of some importance to most of us. Length, on the other hand, is of little consequence.

Despite his denial, it's worth noting that recently Valentine abandoned the fat housing we mentioned in the Automobile test and returned to the original 1991 case that's slightly slimmer and lighter although just as wide.

Valentine:

"His range tests raise questions about his methods

In the Automobile straightaway/hill test, notice how his results mostly fall into four narrow clusters at 23, 27, 31, and 40. In fact, only three bars are not in those clusters. Look closely. Four of five detectors have the same K-band range. Seven different X-band tests have the same distance of 31; two detectors get exactly the same results for both City and Highway modes (why have both modes if they perform the same?)."

My response: As we mention in the story, those "narrow clusters" correspond to slight hillcrests which naturally tend to group together detectors with similar sensitivity. As they reach a crest, they come more directly into the radar beam and bingo, they alert.

That phenomenon didn't occur until, after years of complaining by Mike, we lengthened this nearly-flat 4.1-mile straightaway test site because we were accused of truncating the site to unfairly limit the true maximum range potential of the V1. Once it became evident that several other models had equal or better maximum range, particularly on Ka band, our selection of test sites came under attack.

And apparently Mike doesn't often look at other detectors or he'd know that some manufacturers don't alter sensitivity in X-band City mode, they merely raise the threshold at which an alert is sounded. So naturally their detection range in both modes is nearly identical.

In our tests we rigidly group the contestants according to price, mindful that higher price usually means better performance. So it's not unusual for these comparably priced units to exhibit similar performance, at least on X and K band. Ka-band performance costs money and most of the manufacturers have slacked off in this area and usually only one or two show stellar performance on Ka.

In contrast, Mike's tireless champions at Car & Driver routinely test the $400 V1 against models street-priced as low as $99, the ethical equivalent to asking a 911 Turbo to square off against a 1.8T VW Golf. The test results are hardly a surprise--but they do make for great quotes in magazine ads.

Valentine:

"The man behind the byline

Rather than trying to explain Peterson's mysterious results, let me just remind you that his credibility has long been in question. In response to his December, 1995, test, Automobile admitted a flood of "angry letters" which "criticized our selection of the BEL 745Sti Plus as our first-place winner over the Valentine One, which tied for third place. Amidst all the allegations of invalid test methodology and unfairness were suggestions that Peterson showed undue favoritism to the BEL unit because he has consulted for the company."

In the March, 1996, issue, Peterson replied, "Having consulted to every major detector manufacturer, suggestions that BEL received preferential treatment are nonsense."

He's wrong on that point too. He's never been a consultant to Valentine Research, although he's approached us more than once. We declined his advances each time."

My response: I volunteered the information that I'd consulted to the industry since I felt it only fair to my readers to know. But nobody had asked and frankly, no manufacturer but Valentine has ever expressed a concern over my consulting, either before or since that 1996 statement. The test results were repeatable and when Automobile sent editor Kevin Clemens along to monitor future tests, nothing much changed.

In fact, such is my stature in the industry that in the early Nineties I consulted to all three of the biggest manufacturers simultaneously. Their faith in my integrity was so complete that even with intimate knowledge of their plans and future products--information potentially worth millions to another company--none showed the slightest hesitation in retaining my services, even knowing that I was providing similar expertise to their fiercest competitors.

It's also worth noting that at the time of the 1995 Automobile flap, unbeknownst to me, the CEOs of all three of these companies wrote personal letters in defense of me to Automobile publisher David E. Davis, suggesting that he do a bit more than simply repeat the rantings of the Valentine lobby.

Here's what really triggered Mike's outrage about the consulting bit: my statement in Automobile read: " Having consulted to every major detector manufacturer..." And I'd never met or spoken to Mike Valentine, much less asked him for a consulting gig. (Nor have I met, written to or spoken to him since.)

Frankly it never occurred to me. Valentine Research, little more than a storefront boutique outfit, is so tiny that the industry trade association doesn't even bother to track its sales. Best estimates are that Valentine accounts for 0.9 percent of total industry sales. My thought back then was: Why bother? I'm already maxed-out with existing clients. And with Valentine's well-known abrasive personality, why seek work with an ego-centric jerk? That's one of the luxuries of being self-employed.

Those who know Mike--and in the two decades I've been associated with the industry I've met plenty of folks who do--are unanimous in their opinion that he has, shall we say, some unresolved personal issues. "Mike's ego walks into the room 20 minutes before he gets there," a detector company CEO who'd previously worked with Valentine for years once remarked. And that's why he was forced out of Escort long before most of their landmark products were developed; nobody could get along with the guy. If I ever were to meet him, I suspect I'd fall into that group as well.

One last item: Mike neglects to mention a rather noteworthy point about that hated 2000 Automobile magazine test he's so upset about. He won. I declared the Valentine One the winner of that test.

--Craig Peterson

http://www.radartest.com/article.asp?articleid=9070

________________________________________

If you took the time to read that, you'll see Mike Valentine made his radar/laser detector for 1 reason, to screw Escort. Guess what, Valentine runs his business out of an area no bigger than a garage. Guess it isn't working.

Next;

Escort 8500; selling price $299.99 This radar detector came out around 2001, and ever since, has been rated #1 in the market by 14 different magazines every year. Check out www.escorttrader.com for proof. Its range on K, KA are roughly 3 miles which is plenty of time considering SPEEDING you'll have a few minutes notice. What I like is the options. The 8500 allows you to select ExpertMode, allowing 8 cops to shoot you at the same time and you'll know which is more of a threat, pretty cool when you drive through a speed trap. Automute starts a few seconds after the threat is noticed, and stays on a LOW beep until you pass the officer. The 8500 also allows you to turn off bands such as X in areas that don't use X... EVERYWHERE BUT NEW JERSEY. I don't know much more to say about it besides its the worlds most trusted radar/laser detector. Only Valentine 1 owners dispute that, if I ended up losing $400 bucks on a unit like V1 I'd be *BLEEP*ed too.

Bel 980/5; selling price $299.99. Don't know much more about this besides its almost equal to the 8500, hell... Escort made this radar too, just don't promote it as much.

Rocky Moutain Radar(ANY OF THE UNITS) Selling price; from $100 to $500. I hope no one here ever bought a unit from that company. Not only is the owner of the company a scumbag but not 1 radar detector he CLAIMS works, work. Heres an article from Mr. Peterson when RMR claimed to blow Escorts 8500 radar away.

_____________________________

Face-Off: Rocky Mountain Radar Versus Escort.

1/1/2003

Lately we've been receiving inquiries about a number of products from Rocky Mountain Radar. A typical inquiry, this one e-mailed from John Cassell, asked: "I was wondering if you've tested the new RMR-C212 Rocky Mountain Radar. Apparently, it's a scrambler of laser and radar. Do you know if it's better than the Passport 8500?"

Another, from Paul Schultz: "I ran across an item on eBay for a radar detector called the Mini-D (RMR-D312) which they say blows away the Escort 8500. They claim that the 'Mini' was not included in your test but had a total score of '100?' Any comments to this claim? Thanks for your help."

Naturally we were curious how a unit that wasn't tested could claim top honors in one of our shootouts. And since the appearance of new products from Rocky Mountain Radar always merits a look, we decided to delve a bit deeper into the issue.

Our history with RMR dates from late 1992 when we began receiving inquiries both from consumers and law enforcement officials regarding RMR's first products, the Spirit and the Eclipse. These little boxes, according to the company, could jam every type of police radar on the planet. Ed Klump, a captain with the Topeka, Kansas Police Department and a radar instructor of some renown, even stopped by our offices with some sales literature on the jammers, urging us to investigate.

$190 RMR Eclipse (left) was all-plastic, weighed 2.5 ounces, jammed nothing. Stealth VRCD weighed 2.5 pounds, cost $600 and jammed only analog X- and K-band radar. Newer DSP radar and Ka band both stymied it.

At first glance the claims looked tantalizing. Ads in auto-enthusiast and trucker magazines and Denver-area shopping want-ad periodicals read: "Radar Jammer, 'No More Tickets.' New technology makes cars invisible to radar, yet 100 percent legal."

Invisibility to police radar may sound terrific but historically, effective jammers have been nigh impossible to find. There are good reasons for this. For one, they're blatantly illegal in all fifty states, since jamming police radar requires broadcasting a powerful, modulated signal. And precious few engineers are sharp enough to outwit the sophisticated digital signal processing (DSP) universally employed by modern radar. Not to mention, jammers are fiendishly expensive to construct.

In those pre-Internet days, making contact with RMR proved difficult since the ads were from a distributor, with no phone number listed for RMR itself. But in a stroke of fate, one night a local television station ran a feature on a fellow named Mike Churchman, proprietor of RMR and inventor of these radar jammers. According to the story, the Spirit and Eclipse were so effective in thwarting radar guns that it could only be a matter of time before authorities banned the devices. And two days later the Denver Post's auto columnist weighed in with a similarly breathless report that, fortuitously, included a phone number. We called Churchman and arranged a visit.

We arrived at a split-level home in Highlands Ranch, southwest of Denver. A woman greeted us at the door and ushered us past a baby stroller and into a basement workshop, then the corporate headquarters of Rocky Mountain Radar. There we met the inventor, mid-forties at the time, of moderate height and sporting a badly fitting, curly blonde toupee. Mike Churchman quickly listed his resume highlights: former electronic warfare design engineer for Texas Instruments, former radar detector designer, radar jammer inventor and holder of a master's degree in microwave/optics, an academic combination not offered by any university in the world, so far that we're aware of. Churchman hinted that he had even more impressive credentials in electronic warfare but bound by an oath of secrecy, he couldn't disclose any details.

Churchman showed us his Spirit jammer, roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes, only slightly fatter. Its plastic case had but a single red LED on the front. No knobs, switches, no signal strength meter, nothing else. Not much heft either: it weighed a feathery 2.5 ounces sans power cord. This seemed curious. Unlike most, at the time we owned a serious radar jammer. It weighed four pounds and had a control module the size of a Tom Clancy first-edition hardcover novel. Its antenna was so large it wouldn't fit on the dash of an average passenger car. And it worked only against X- and K-band radar. Adding Ka band would have required adding another antenna and even more bulk. In comparison, we could drop the Spirit into a shirt pocket with room to spare.

"This is a passive jammer," Churchman explained, "and it works against X-, K- and Ka-band radars. It doesn't transmit. An active jammer transmits a signal back at the police radar. That's illegal. What the Spirit does is take the incoming radar signal, mix some 'white noise' with it, and reflect it back to the radar." And the radar, confused, will simply remain blank, he assured us.

This statement is somewhat at odds with the entire body of scientific literature, not to mention our own experience. A one-square-inch antenna, no matter how efficient, is simply incapable of reflecting enough signal back to a powerful police radar to jam it. For that matter, we've tested $5,000 active jammers that pumped out 500 milliwatts of microwave energy--50 times the power transmitted by a modern radar--that failed entirely to jam anything. Yet here Churchman was offering legal, effective jamming for a lousy $90 to $195, depending upon the model.

Intrigued, we asked to peek inside a Spirit. Churchman handed us a unit without its cover and we found ourselves looking at a crude, hand-soldered circuit board with one integrated circuit, a couple of diodes, and a half-inch-by-two-inch strip of sheet metal at the front of the case, angled back 45 degrees from the vertical. "That's the antenna," Churchman said. "See, it reflects the signal right back at the radar."

How did he test his jammers? we inquired. "Well, I just shoot a Doppler source into the Spirit and then to the spectrum analyzer. Here, you can listen to the white noise yourself," he said, and he switched on the analyzer while powering-up a Spirit, then pointed them at each other. A faint screech was heard.

"I use tuning forks, too," he added. "And a lot of customers tell me that they drive right by police radar and nothing happens. Sometimes they even see the cop pounding on his radar, real mad because he didn't get their speed." Churchman also offered testimonials. Sort of. All appeared to have been written by the same hand and there were no last names, just initials. They all loved his jammers.

Surprisingly, later in the conversation Churchman volunteered a most amazing analysis of the consumer's ability to tell a working radar jammer from a bogus box. "You could ship an empty box with a weight in the bottom and only get 22 to 24 percent back," he confided to us.

When we later conducted an extensive test of RMR's first jammers--the Spirit and Eclipse--they jammed absolutely nothing. None of the half-dozen radars was fazed in the slightest. We couldn't help but remember Churchman's observation about shipping empty boxes.

Soon after we broke the story on Rocky Mountain Radar in the national press [Automobile Magazine, "The Little Radar Jammer That Didn't", June 1993] we received a threatening letter from Churchman's attorneys. Lay off, it said, or we'll sue. Our attorneys responded: Be prepared to demonstrate the effectiveness of your products in open court--or get lost. And that was the last we heard from Churchman and company.

Over the years we've tested and reported on other RMR jammers and found a common denominator: none of them works. Meanwhile, Churchman has become wealthy from his ever-expanding line of magic boxes. And ten years on, here he is with a completely new product line. Not only do some of these promise to jam both radar and lasers, they're also touted as being high-performance detectors of both types of enforcement technology.

Curious to see if newer RMR products work better than those of old, we decided to run the latest models through a full test. And since Churchman's distributors, such as 007radardetectors.com, claim that even their least expensive model, the D-312, is superior to the winner of our last high-end detector shootout, the Escort Passport 8500, we tested that unit again for comparison purposes. Here's what we found.[Click here for the complete test results]

RMR Eclipse ($179.95 suggested retail)

Apparently positioned as the company's entry-level model, the Eclipse is a very small package. A trio of top-mounted buttons operates the three-step dim/dark function, manual mute and city/highway controls, respectively.

Signal strength is indicated audibly by beep frequency, visually by three green LEDs. There are separate tones for band identification but like other RMR products, this artless collection of tweets, chirps and whistles is unintelligible even to dedicated bird fanciers. That's why it's especially unfortunate that there's only one LED for both K- and Ka-band ID. We'd prefer knowing which of the two we're encountering; X-band alerts today are almost universally caused by door openers and intrusion alarms and can safely be dismissed but Ka band is definitely bad news and K band generally so. Both demand instant attention but here, there's no way to prioritize the threat and deliver a measured response.

The Eclipse has settings memory and dim/dark but no auto mute, voice alerts, text display or other features generally to be found on models in this price range. And although the box claims it has an X-band delete function, there's no mention of it in the manual and in the days we spent evaluating the Eclipse, no one could find it.

The manual mute function is simply an on/off switch for the audio and once turned off, you'll have to remember to reactivate it. Once having silenced an alert, forgetful types can expect to run headlong into the next radar trap in complete silence, making it a seriously dumb mute design and a striking shortcoming in a modern radar detector.

The Eclipse weighed in with decent X-band range and mediocre K- and Ka-band range. The last was so weak that in the difficult Curve Test site, the radar had already locked-in a speed before an alert was sounded.

As a laser detector the Eclipse was a non-starter. It was unable to spot the lasers at all, regardless of range. Considering the performance and features offered by the competition at this price level, we're unable to think of a single compelling reason to purchase this detector--although bird-call aficionados might find favor in the audio alerts.

RMR-C212 ($399.95 suggested retail)

As one of the pricier detectors (we purchased ours from 007radardetectors.com for $269.95 plus shipping) this unit, aka Phantom III, promises to justify its high tariff by promising, according to the packaging blurb, to "scramble ALL radar bands (X, K Ka Superwide)" and "scramble ALL laser radar." We'll have to assume that whoever wrote the ad copy is clueless to the fact that there is no similarity at all between radar and laser. The former uses radio waves and Doppler shift to determine speed, the latter employs amplified light and time-of-flight calculations to achieve the same goal. But no matter.

The RMR-C212 has four buttons atop the case to control all functions. From the far left are the self-test, dim, manual mute and city/highway switches. On the left side of the case near the front is the power/volume thumbwheel switch.

The C212's case is of translucent plastic, allowing a blurry glimpse inside at its circuit board and waveguide antenna. Unfortunately, the status and alert LEDs concealed behind the front plastic simply disappear in sunlight, forcing total reliance on the audio alerts to identify threats. And that will be tough, given that its audio volume, an average of 74 decibels, ties that of the weakest model we’ve tested--another RMR product--making it easy for the alerts to go unnoticed in a vehicle with a cranked-up stereo or other audible distractions. Worse, the audio band ID tones, an artless collection of bird whistles, chirps and tweets, are so indecipherable that we can guarantee that unless you can tune a piano by ear, there's no hope you'll be able to learn what this detector is trying to vocalize.

A number of features are conspicuously absent: there's no dark mode (one-step dim only), no auto mute or visual band ID for laser, no tutorial mode or text display. Also MIA are items usually to be found on detectors this costly, among them voice alerts, user-programmable options, external speaker jack and others.

We might be inclined to overlook some of the RMR-C212's shortcomings if it were a standout performer. Unfortunately, it's critically deficient in several areas. At the easy Straightaway/hills Test site it delivered adequate X- and K-band detection range but failed to notice the Ka-band radar until some 400 feet after the radar had locked-in our speed. At the much more difficult Curve Test site, with the radar beam angled away from the detectors, it was good on X-band, so-so on K-band and awful on Ka band, again failing to detect the radar until well after it had clocked the target vehicle.

We also tested the RMR-C212's jamming ability, running it against six different laser models and five types of radar on all three radar bands. We tested it by having the target vehicle start toward the radar from 5,500 feet away, noting whether it either reduced target range or prevented the radar from obtaining a target speed. We performed a similar test against lasers, this time starting each run from 1,500 feet away, the maximum practical laser target range.

The final score was radar and lasers: 11, Rocky Mountain Radar: 0. In no case did the unit have the slightest effect on any of the radar or lasers. Its performance mirrored that of another RMR product we tested, the Black Widow, a $239 (retail price) laser jammer. (For a look at what real laser jammers can do, go to to the laser jammer test.)

In jamming effectiveness the RMR-C212 ranks up there with the original Spirit jammer, about which we said in one magazine story: "You stand a better chance of jamming radar with a box of Kleenex on the dash."

RMR-C302 ($399.95 suggested retail)

Somewhat more conventional in appearance than its sibling, the RMR-C212, the C302 has a slate-colored plastic housing that sports a trio of buttons across the top for dim, mute and city/highway. A thumbwheel switch on the left side of the case controls power and volume.

Radar and laser band ID are denoted by differently colored LEDs--there is faint lettering etched on each--X, K and Ka--that can be read when they're lit, although you'll need to hold it up to your eyes to decipher them, and there are three more for signal strength. Like the RMR-C212, this model offers a hopelessly confusing medley of audio alerts which, coupled with its unreadable band ID and lack of tutorial mode, makes it a challenge to interpret what information the detector is trying to convey. And with maximum volume a paltry 74 decibels, an industry-worst performance, there's every likelihood that the audio alerts will go unnoticed.

Same as the RMR-C212, this model has fewer features than the typical $79 K-Mart Special. Don't bother looking for auto mute, a text display, voice alerts, programmable options, external speaker jack or alternate sets of audio tones or visual displays. What you get is manual muting, city mode and settings memory, nothing else.

We found the C302 to be similar in performance to the C212--it had decent X-band Highway mode and K band range--but there were holes in its performance envelope large enough to drive a Caterpillar D8 dozer through. For example, on X-band City it was completely dead, unable to detect the radar even from a few feet away. It had slightly better Ka-band range at the no-brainer Straightaway/hills Test site--a down-the-throat confrontation on a perfectly flat, straight road--but at the curve site it showed no inclination to detect Ka-band radar until some 150 after the radar had already locked-in our speed. If you're looking for advance warning of radar traps you'd do better to invest in a pair of prescription eyeglasses.

Like the RMR-C212, this model promises to jam all radar and lasers. And like its stable mate, it does neither. No, it's not a case where perhaps we got a couple of bad units. And it's not a case where erstwhile engineers, after toiling endlessly in the lab, have unwittingly produced a product that somehow failed to perform. (To see what a real laser jammer looks like, go to "Tested: Six Laser Jammers".) Barring a major rewrite of some of the basic laws of physics, there's no way these devices will ever jam radar or lasers. Priced at $19 we might consider buying one if it were the only detector available; as a $319 detector/jammer it's an industry joke.

RMR-D312 ($199.95 suggested retail)

Dubbed the Mini-D, no doubt because of its diminutive size, this bite-sized model has three buttons atop the case to control all functions. From the far left are the dim, manual mute and city/highway switches. On the left side of the case near the front is the power/volume thumbwheel switch.

Its list of standard features is brief: city mode, dim/dark mode, manual mute and settings memory. Although the box claims it has "7-User Selectable Features" [sic] and "15 Band Detection", we counted only two selectable features: VG-2 on/off and an alternate set of audio tones. As for 15-band detection, well, let's just mention that there are three radar and one laser bands used in this country, two more if the remainder of the world is included.

Features absent are auto mute, tutorial mode, text display, voice alerts, digital compass, external speaker jack, user-programmable options and other items usually found on detectors in this price range. (We purchased ours from 007radardetectors.com for $169.95 plus shipping.)

At an average of 81 decibels its audio volume is sub-par and although it does offer two sets of audio tones for audio band ID, they're much too similar to be easily interpreted. Like other RMR models there's no tutorial to help learn them.

Unlike most other RMR products, the RMR-D312 doesn't claim to jam radar and laser, just detect them. And according to some of the retailers selling it, the Mini-D is the equal of the renowned Escort Passport 8500 in sensitivity. So we concentrated on examining that claim.

What we found was predictable, given the tiny packaging and commensurately tiny antenna. In the Straightaway/hills Test it delivered 7,002 feet of range in X-band Highway mode (Escort: 26,916 feet), 221 feet in X-band City mode (Escort: 5,750 feet) and 5,647 feet on K band (Escort: 40,013 feet). By the time it belatedly issued an alert at 3,358 feet on Ka-band (Escort: 40,020 feet) the target vehicle was already well within radar range. And while it was able to sniff out lasers at 3,385 feet (Escort: 5,284 feet), at our standard test-measurement range of 1,000 feet its field of view averaged a paltry 6 inches (Escort: 83 inches). In the real world, the Mini-D's near-blindness to lasers means only a direct hit will set it off, making it essentially useless as a detection device.

The disappointing test results demonstrate the risk in unfairly comparing one's mediocre product to an industry-leading model: experts may actually run a side-by-side comparison test. And to Radartest.com readers and Mini-D dealers poised to bombard us with e-mails doubting the veracity of this test we'd say fine: Bring your own test samples, drop by for four days and we'll be happy run it again. Just be sure to bring along some cash; we ran this test on our nickel but when the heavily-hyped Mini-D turns in similar test scores next time, we'll be asking you to pick up the five-grand tab for the test.

http://www.radartest.com/article.asp?articleID=8501

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RMR is the company who claimed to pay your ticket with a few exceptions, the speed you were going can't exceed like 15 over and the area you speed in, think about this... if you bought a radar for 300 bucks and it cost them 10 dollars to make, you get a ticket for $125 and they pay it, theyre still up a few hundred dollars... My advice, STAY AWAY FROM ANY RMR product. Whats really funny is, I called them and actually spoke to a "programmer" they had who said that Escort lies and there product is the best on the market, and dared me to find the phone number for Escort and/or email... I did less than 20 seconds later with 5 phone numbers, sales/CS/fax ect ect and he hung up on me. What a wonderful company...

I also used a Cobra XR1010 which I really enjoyed. If you don't have a few hundred dollars, go with a Cobra, theyre really good for the price.

Sorry to make this post so long but I hope it helps.

[SW03ES]

Thanks for sharing that expertise with us!

[zeta]

now THAT is dead on info. lol.

i really haven't heard anythin about direct sunlight setting off the LASER alert.

i have quite a few friends with V1's, and i guess they've been working pretty well. personally i would get it since i've seen the arrows work pretty well here in the dallas, tx region. they've been dead on accurate many times. but i still see it as quite expensive... if i had $100 extra laying around i'd opt for it i guess... but best deal for your money... i'd still have to say 8500S hands down.

that was a looooonnggggg read. but totally helpful :)

btw. welcome to LOC. :D

kev

[gtricebitc]

how about pull the seats all the way back so your feet will have hard time catching the throttle... or brake...

[ebridges]

WOW, lots of good info and opinions in this thread.

I've gotten more tickets and stops driving my LS than any other car my previous 40 yrs of driving. Main reason seems to be that I'm going much faster without noticing it.

So many senarios - lots of revenue hungary cops (mostly in the urban areas), legit state patrolmen, speed traps, etc etc...

My recommendation is to buy the best you can afford - but don't bet your life or license on it. Any good detector will improve your odds, but is definitely NOT "save" you 100% of the time. If you consistantly "speed", eventually you'll get caught. Naturally, the more you drive, the higher the risk.

Like life itself, know the rules etc, and make your decisions. Sometimes life is "unfair". Sometimes you may just be the innocent victim.

I personally "upgraded" to the Passport 8500 after getting busted head on on a lonesome hilly country road by a state patrolman while I was depending on my $85 detector which was 3 yrs old. Speed limit was 55, 2 lane straight and unpopulated road for past 20 miles and had seen two cars in past 15 minutes. The Escort has "saved" me several times this past year. Very few false alarms (I have turned off the X mode in my area). I like the early detection it affords, but it only works if the police are "active", ie radar on, or laser being used on someone else (or a long distance away). Keep in mind that anyone using a laser is definitely out to get you - ie setting the trap. Same with "instant on" radar, usually parked and waiting.

Flying solo or attempting to get to a front solo position - is definitely the highest risk.

Once you're stopped - Be very polite ie humble. Again, some cops will be forgiving and others will need the "bust". Some will have had a bad day or night. ( double D's might help :-)

I still have the "need for speed", but if I'm NOT paying attention, I often find myself "well" over the changing speed limit.

Please be careful around highly populated areas, esp. schools and residential districts. There are too many "unpredictables" and the risk to others is way too high to not obey the speed limit.

eb

[zeta]

how about pull the seats all the way back so your feet will have hard time catching the throttle... or brake...

lol. nice idea... but then ya know... if you can't gas... that's not too big of a deal... but if you can't brake... you're TOTALLY screwed... so how 'bout everyone just watch their speed and drive safely... always watching out for black n white... well in recent cases, just ford crown vic's with really dark tint or light racks. lol. stupid undercover cop cars.

wish i could afford a radar detector, but then again... i'm only 17 lol. which would prove to be quite a problem since uhh... well i need a job desperately. anyone wanna hire me? :)

kevin

[BRAKATK]

I've had a Solo model for years. Time for a new one-I prefer the cordless version of the Passport.

[bdpaull]

order a k40 or passport radar/laser defuser it will make the cops mad but they cant do *BLEEP*....

[easylabor]

That radar jammer is hogwash.

The founder of Rocky Mountain Radar, the company who makes the majority of the "jammers" on the market, has been quoted as saying (I'm paraphrasing): You could sell a black box with lights on it and only get a 25% return rate.

From the best OBJECTIVE (i.e. not trying to sell you anything) radar detector review site, radartest.com:

"Credit Rocky Mountain Radar with creating the market for radar and laser jammers, never mind the fact that we have yet to see one of their products jam a police radar or laser gun."

Active jammers work, but are illegal. Also, some laser jammers are effective.

The $330 Bel RX65 beat out the Valentine One as best overall detector. These guys do very extensive, professional tests of dozens of detectors in every price range.

Check out http://radartest.com/ for lots of information on speed traps, photo traps, cops, radar and laser detector and jammers, etc. You can thank me later.

im looking up on buying this radar/laser detector and jammer. they claim to be the best and they offer a 1 year ticket rebate. so if you get a ticket within a year of having it they will pay for it. thats how confident they are. its called super stealth 9000 and it goes for 299.95. website is best-radar-jammers.com

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[Lexusfreak]

Hello everyone, I am looking for a good radar detector, guess the LAPD is short on budget lately, there seems to be a cop at every other corner catching people who are going just a few miles over the limit. I know nothing about radar detectors, what is a good brand and model? is more expensive the better? are used ones ok to buy?..etc. Any advice is appreciated, thanks.

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Considering the prices of gas these days, why not just save your money & just do the speed limit which is also excellent for fuel economy. :whistles: ;)