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V1 Performance
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What's the range of Valentine One?
How does it compare to Bel and Escort?
- L.M., Missouri
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How much range, as a general question, is unanswerable,
because it depends entirely on the circumstances. In our
lab, we work on receiver sensitivity--how weak of a signal
can we find?--and in our tests we outperform all others.
Car and Driver tests range, and we outperform in
their tests too, which confirms our good sensitivity.
Radar is a line-of-sight beam, like a light, that's easily
reflected and refracted. Imagine a flashlight beam on a
foggy night; you can see the beam a short distance away,
even if you aren't lined up with it, because it reflects
off moisture in the air. But your best chance of seeing
it a long way off comes when it points straight at you.
Radar range is the same. In outer space, with the beam
pointed directly at V1, I'm sure we could find radar
100 miles away. But on earth you never get a straight
shot like that. You might get 5 miles in the flats of
Texas or Kansas. In the mountains around Asheville,
N.C., you might not get a half mile.
Range tends to confuse people because they don't know
all the variables. For example, when you see a radar
patrol car, is the beam pointed toward you or away.
When it's pointed away, you have only scattered
reflections to look for, so maximum range is likely
to be 1/20th of what it would be when toward you, and
this assumes no obstructions between the reflector
and your antenna.
Range over hills is confusing too. The only signal your
detector has to work with is what's left of the original
when it clears the last obstacle. For example, let's say
that V1 has a 3 to 1 range advantage over another detector;
that 3 to 1 applies only to what's left after the hill. If
the radar beam has already traveled a great distance, the
signal power remaining after the hill may be so weak that
3 to 1 gives you only 100 yards of additional warning. But
that 100 yards can be really precious. It can make all the
difference. Getting extra seconds of warning in the tight
spots is worth more that a mile or two of bragging distance
on the easy ones.
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Does Valentine One warn of photo radar?
- L.B., Oregon
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Yes, absolutely, but you don't get nearly as much warning.
All the photo radars in the US operate on either K or Ka
bands, though they could operate on any band assigned to
traffic radar by the FCC. The good news is that the radar
beam is on all the time, not playing hide and seek like
instant on, so we have lots of time to find it. The bad
news is that it uses a narrow beam aimed diagonally across
the road. And it's usually very low power, because photo
radar doesn't engage the target until it's within a few
hundred feet. So you really need detector sensitivity to
pick up weak reflections. Today's V1s, and older ones
equipped with our latest radar upgrade, offer reliable
protection against photo radar, but you have to pay
attention.
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Instead of your expensive magnesium case, why don't
you go plastic like every other detector and give us a
better deal on price?
- N.G., New Jersey
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Our metal case serves as a vault to keep out various
electrical interferences from other devices. These
interferences are particularly insidious, worse than
false alarms, because they can be in there desensitizing
your receiving circuits, thereby hurting your warning
range, but you have no way of knowing. The magnesium
is really durable too, yet it's light weight. You'll
notice the really slick laptop computers these days
have magnesium instead of plastic cases.
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I travel a lot in Europe. Will V1 work over there?
- R.K., New York
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Yes, with a few caveats. K and Ka bands there are the same as in the
US, so all V1s (after a few very-early models) will work as good
there as here. Ku band is found in Netherlands, Belgium and
sometimes the UK (but not in the US). We've recently added Ku
coverage with serial numbers ending 0600 or higher. Earlier V1s do
not cover Ku.
What the Europeans call X band is sometimes different from the X
band used in the US. So even the latest V1 could have this one blind
spot.
Back to Ku for a moment, current-production V1s have coverage on
that band installed but not "activated" as they leave
the factory. For do-it-yourself instructions on activation, see
www.valentine1.com/lab/mikeslabrpt3.asp
elsewhere in this site. |
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