Oooh boy, nice and sleek in the nice silver boxes, the smell of brandnew electronics and that styrofoam material. it was great.

my box included the concealed display and the v1 in seperate boxes. soo cool.

The pictures ive seen look soo big and clumsy, i got a nice sleek small one is that right? maybe its a new one i dunno. its passport 8500, got this one first to see if i could save some money and nice design. NOPE. got my money back and spent it on springs.

Now my familia got me this v1, I am happy, but i have to wait till xmas to hardwire this baby

I know some of you also got v1's for xmas or their wives. Post up

Nick

 

I've had mine..and love it.

 

They redesigned the case about a year ago.
The “thickness” was reduced about a quarter inch.

Enjoy your new toy.

Shawn S

 

sweet, i do love this new design, they should update their website.

um what i am gonna be really pissed about is that they come out with a new update like jan 1 or something. Ill be furious. Would they allow me to exchange for the new one? it wouldnt have been 30 days by then

Nick

 

Side by side

Old <- New->

 

Well, that picture is just a bit deceiving. It looks MUCH smaller the way they took that.
The only difference is the thickness and the fact that they moved the rear laser “eye” up a bit.

Shawn S

 

V1 rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I honestly feel the V1 is due for a complete redesign.

The Escort 8500 almost there in the overall performance.
The only true advantage the V1 still has is the bogey counter and directional arrows.

I predict a new smaller box and improved electronics by the end of 2003.
They HAVE TO if they want to stay on top.
The competition is getting too close.

Not looking to start a V1-8500 war. That’s just my opinion.

Shawn S

 

that was a fair post Shawn.

 

i doubt they will give it a redesign, they are constantly imporving the basic desing(according to the v1 site)



i was trying to decide between the 8500 or v1 and i think i'm going with the v1 after reading that they offer upgrades to all previous customers. meaning, the guy who bought his v1 in 1995 can have all the lastest radar technology without having to buy a whole new detector. where the escort has a much shorter life span - depending on how fast local police upgrade equipment.

 

 

I have the old bigie one... like a week after I bought the CLS....

 

Ill tell ya what I like about the V1:

Bogey counter for multiple "bogey's" ...

 

My wife's xmas present, a V1, came in yesterday. Can't wait to see her face especially since she doesn't think I'm at all interested in getting it for her!

 

I knew ya did enjoy as i will with mine

 

y wait???

hardwire it now...u'll b glad u did

 

cuz it is a present from the familia, they wrapped it now and its under the xmas tree

 

Couple of caveats to the so-called upgrades:

1.They are expensive.
2.They are not offered to all customers, not really cause...
3.They basically take your detector and give you another one.
4.Did I say the upgrade was expensive.
5.Upgrade not always worth it or required.
6.Some features are hardware related and cannot be accomplished with "software" upgrade.
7.Escort is upgradeable, too.

The police has never been able to outpace my detector...not in nearly 20 years. Well I take that back...twice. When there was a new band (like Laser or Ka), it took awhile for me to purchase a compatible detector and second...the Stalker was a problem for awhile. A radar detector's life span is still minimum 5 years easily. If the police get authorised on a new frequency, all of us will need a new radar detector.

 

Just FYI to Canadians with a V1 .. it is *NOT* invisible to the VG2 detector detector. I found out the hard way. Zipping down the 401 between TO and Ottawa got pulled over after going by a "stealth" Impala parked on the side. (totally blacked out windows, no external antennas)

As soon as he tagged me, I took the V1 off the dash and gave to my g/f and told her to stick it in her pants. Pulled me over and demanded the detector. Of course I played innocent/dumb - what detector? He points at the power cord .. "what's that for?" Its an external power cord. "That's not for a cell phone" No, its for my laptop. "I don't see a laptop?" No, its not in the car with me now.

So he poked thru the car and of course didn't find anything then takes me back to the cruiser. HOLY FUCK! Like the inside of a fuckin E3 or AWACS!! As he's writing me a ticket for speeding (125 in a 100 - cocksucker) the detector detector is going off constantly! And its pretty much all cars with U.S. plates so they most likely *do* have a detector. He says to me, "Thats what happened when you drove by, too." SO he gives me a ticket for posession of a radar detector - without ANY HARD EVIDENCE!!!!

(in Canada cops can't search your person unless charging you with an indictable offence - and offences against the Highway Traffic Act don't qualify)

I'll let you know how court goes.

Canadians BEWARE!!

 

That's crazy. I've even heard of several people getting caught around Northern Virginia with V1's.

 

They have a new detector-detector that looks on a different freq. and they all leak where it looks so no one runs stealth now.
I'm sure in the next round they'll block this and anything else that leaks. It's all part of the game (and a way to make more money).

 

The only state I have to worry about is VA, when I drive to NYC. But I turn it off when driving through anyway.

 

how can the detector detector still be blaring when the detector is off and inside your gf pants ?? i guess it doesnt have to be on all the time? or does the alarm keep going until the cop clears it?

weird...makes me wonder about my v1 i am getting for xmas....

 

Well I got my second "Failure to Obey traffic control devices" ticket today ( 2nd in a week)--$103.50 x 2= $207

1st - 72 in a 55
2nd today - 79 in a 65

Good thing is that it is NOT speeding so NO points!!!

But I could of used that money for a V1 , towards sways, or something else! Damn, no one to blame but myself ( and that State police of PA)

Oh well--Make that $207 because of the lack of V1

 

IF it's off, it's off. I'm pretty sure the reference was to other vehicles setting the "detectors" off.

BTW, with the right gear, it's possible to see rather minute RF signals. Spy vs spy...


MORE INFO LINK: http://radar.757.org/VG2.htm (See the notes on "Stalcar" vs. V1, etc)

 

Here is an "excerpt" from the V1 site on Spectre/Stalcar.


Does Valentine One have "stealth?"

Is this the same as being VG2 proof?
- H.C., Idaho


Yes and yes. The real question is, Can the detector be detected by an instrument called VG2, which is a detector of radar detectors. Good radar detectors, like good AM/FM radios, are super-heterodyne receivers, and they all share a common trait. They receive, but they also transmit a signal; it's called "local oscillator emissions." This transmitted signal can be found by another radio if it's tuned to the right frequency. And VG2 is a merely a radio tuned to the right frequency range for most detectors.

A little history: Escort was the first X-K super-heterodyne detector. Jim Jaeger and I invented it, working out of his basement in the mid-seventies. Since then, other detector makers have taken the easy way and copied Escort's frequency scheme, which means they have the same L-O frequency. So VG2 knows right where to look.

The one detector that's apart from the pack is V1. I didn't copy myself. So VG2 misses Valentine One. But even if it were tuned to the right spot, we'd still be hard to find because we use sophisticated filtering. In our tests, Valentine One is better than all others for VG2-proofing. Our best competitors are pretty good, maybe good enough. Our worst competitors are clueless; Car and Driver, in its last test, detected one of them 3/4 of a mile away.

That said, we've recently been hearing of an Australian device called Stalcar RDD, which is bragged up as a "super VG2." It could be imported into North America, probably under another name because Stalcar is too easily confused with the "Stalker" radar gun. Obtaining one for testing is a top priority. Until then, I won't speculate about its ability to find V1.

The Stalcar site claims that it will only respond and/or sell the unit to "law enforcement" folks...


<hr></hr>

A posting on the Audi forum:

V1 owners please read. (long) V1 is now detectable in Canada.
User account number (aid): 3941
Posted by oops on 2002-08-08 09:01:31
A friend of mine emailed V1 support and got the following response. Big thanks to Manity for posting earlier. I have added his original post as a URL link.

My friends original email:-------------------
I bought a V1 from you about 5 years ago. I am
extremely happy with it so far but I had a few
questions about it's detectability.

I've heard a couple stories lately that the FCC has
passed a law which forces radar detectors to operate
on a slightly different wave length. The new wave
length is easily detectible by radar detector
detectors. I was planning to send in my unit to have
it updated but I certainly don't want to lose my
invisibility to radar detector detectors. Have you
heard of this ruling, and if so what are you planning
to do to work around it?

The main reason I was planning to send it in is
because when ever I am behind a new GMC envoy or
trailblazer at a stop light and they have their brake
lights on, it seems to set off my V1's laser warning.
I was hoping any updates you've made in the past few
years would eliminate this from happening. It's not
such a common occurrance that I find myself behind one
of these SUV's at a stop light so it's not that big of
a deal, hence I've been on the fence about sending it
in.

Lastly I have another questions regarding radar
detector detectors. I heard there is a new one called
the "Septre" and it's used in Ontario, Canada. I've
heard that it's able to even find the V1. Please let
me know if you've heard of this new detector detector
and if I should stop using my V1 in Ontario. The last
thing I want is to have my $400 V1 taken away.


The response from the V1 folks:------------------------------

I think you are jumping to conclusions concerning the effects of the FCC
rule-making on the V1. It already complies, and has for years and years.

We don't use the same internal frequencies as the other detectors that cause
the FCC objections. The other detector companies mostly use a frequency
arrangement that is a modified copy from the original Escort I designed in
1976. Your V1, and newer ones, too, use a completely different arrangement
which has been copied only by the BEL 980, 990, 985, etc., and the Passport
8500 (made in the BEL factory in Canada).

All the others have the problem to one degree or another because the
modification of the original Escort scheme was to avoid being detected by
the VG-2. It was only modified a little bit and the modification, combined
with superwide Ka-band reception, causes the interference with satellite
systems the FCC rule is aimed at eliminating. Yours and newer V1's avoid
detection by the VG-2 by virtue of the completely different internal
frequency arrangement.

However, the VG-2 is not the only game in town anymore. An Australian
company has begun selling a detector finder (called Spectre in North
America, but Stalcar down under) that can cover the frequency arrangement
used by the V1 and the Belscort twins, as well as all the older arrangement
styles. I would be very careful driving in Ontario from now on if I were
you. There also appears to be an American competing source of this new
style detector finder (MR5?) to be sold by the Stalker radar people. I
would consider ALL detectors findable from now on.

The laser issue with the Envoy and Trailblazer Center High-Mounted Stop
Lamps (CHMSL's) is something for which there is no present cure. Those
CHMSL's employ a neon light source that has plasma ignition characteristics
very similar to a know laser gun. Creating a software or hardware filter to
trap out those sources is complicated and risky as far as still doing a good
job on finding laser is concerned. We will, of course, be working towards a
cure in the future. No time table is possible to predict.

 

Good stuff. Thx Eric.

 

When I drove to Florida (through Virginia) last year I took along an old Radar detector to be a “sacrificial lamb” of sorts.
I figured if I got pulled over by a detector-detector trap I would hide the V1 and toss the 10-year old Uniden on the dash for them to find.

Luckily I didn’t need it and I had smooth sailing all the way down and back.

Shawn S

 

When I drive in DC/VA, I shut off my radar detector and don't speed. Because in America, they can search your car for just about anything (that they want to make up) and I always think that cops are too smart to believe a nice new Acura is running a dusty, third-world radar detector. Which will lead to a search and confiscation of my V1....not good.

 

EricL is correct. My detector was off and snuggled away someplace warm and cozy! ;-)

It was the other traffic going by that was setting off his unit. I was trying to get a good look at the stuff without being *too* obvious but didn't know about that Sceptre unit at the time or I'd have tried to spot the name.

Thanx Eric for the other info .. gonna have to be more cautious from now on knowing I'm not invisible.

BTW: my insurance guy (a personal friend) tells me to "do whatever it takes" to beat the detector posession charge. He says that post 9/11 if you get tagged with posession of a detector + speeding in Ontario your insurance company will just dump you!! Just too much risk for them ... swell.

 

Yeah Ken, they have the right to search your car on a traffic stop (which he did) but not your person - only if he actually arrests you for something. Which is why the g/f got to keep it for me - no way the passenger could get in trouble on a traffic stop.

He *knew* I had one, I'm sure thats why he gave me the speeding ticket. 'Cuz the 401 is like a good interstate - normal flow of traffic is 120-130 kph even though its posted 100. So bagging me for 125 was just him being a spoil-sport.

 

An article about radar detector detection (13-page PDF file):

Determining Radar Detector Density Using
Advanced Surveillance Technology




The picture of the roadside setup with the parabolic dish gets kind of "Big Brother-ish"...

Note: for shoppers of other non-V1 brands... The tests done in June of 2002 are now "outdated." The "Spectre" has flash programming and is believed to detect "most" if not "all" "commercial" US radar detectors...

underdog:

There is "some" mention of a false alarm scenario, and the setup in the .pdf file is pretty elaborate (video, spectrum analyzer, etc, etc) -- this allows for verification and "signature identification" which could be used to NAIL down a conviction. You might want to see if you can get any and all information regarding your "bust" disclosed to see if you were identified by proximity; by frequency (LO in radar detector); direction; and so on.

YMMV

 

Thanks Eric .. good article.

Be interesting to see just what evidence they have.

 

Definetly going to get it now. I was waiting to get the 8500 but since the new smaller design is available I'll definetly get the V1!!!

Just have to save up $440 (the extra part)

 

That extra part is the killer

 

Welcome to the club, best $$ i never spent, it was a Fathers day gift

 

you old man you!

 

ill let u have the supercharger first, seniors first, then me