February 24, 1999
By: Richard Carlson

A police officer had a perfect hiding place for watching for speeders and used it quite often. But one day the officer found traffic surprisingly tame. After a long while, the officer found the reason: a 10 year old boy was standing on the side of the road with a huge hand painted sign which said "RADAR TRAP AHEAD!"

A little more investigative work led the officer to the boy's accomplice, another boy about 100 yards beyond the radar trap with a sign reading "TIPS" and a bucket at his feet, full of change.

I've been using a BEL 605 for about 5 years now and another BEL product for about 7 years. Both detectors have kept me out of trouble and both offer a good number of bells and whistles. I was, therefore, unhappy when my 605 stopped working. Since it was 5 years old and my original price was only $40, I figured I got my money's worth out of it. Time to buy a new detector.

My criteria was pretty simple: I wanted to pay as little as possible for as much protection as I could get. I wanted to get the best deal. I did my homework and consulted Car & Driver's detector comparisons. Of course, the leader is a V1 from Valentine Research. No big surprise. Everyone knows V1's are the best. They are also the most expensive ($400). Looking at the figures, you can get about 3/4 the protection of the V1 for about 1/4 of the price. I therefore decided to check out the latest from BEL. I rejected the higher priced units, looking for something in the $100 to $150 range (heck, if I was going to spend real money, I'd buy a V1 and be done with it!). After some review (and finding a number of good prices combined with a $30 rebate) I chose a 846i.

The 846i has a lot of neat features - immune to VG2, good field of view for Laser (about the same as Valentine, and good sensitivity on K and Ka band. The best feature, however, is the display. It lights up and tells you what type of RADAR you're dealing with. No need to squint at little LEDs. It has a digital voice, but you can disable it and just use tones. The 846i also includes Safety Warning System (SWS) detection - . This feature alerts you to the messages broadcast in K-Band by certain road signs (the system has not received wide acceptance or use, but is used on the Mass Turnpike).

The rest of the controls (mute/dark/city) all behave like my 605. The final cost (with a $30 rebate - only good till the end of December 98) was about $110. The unit worked well when I first tried it. The range, however, seemed somewhat shorter than I remembered compared to my 605. I soon encountered another, perhaps more serious problem: it's not loud enough for top-down driving. If you look on the right of the unit, you can see a small speaker. This speaker actually points away from the driver when mounted in the center of the windshield (at least here in the US). When I dropped the top (on a chilly 32 degree day!) I found that even turning the volume all the way up, I had trouble hearing the warning. I totally gave up on the voice (which is kinda dorky anyway) and was just using the tone alerts. The major problem here is that they have used the most noticeable sounds for X band with K being the least distinctive. Since most highway RADAR is K, this left me somewhat exposed.

I was getting pretty discouraged at that point when I ran across another article which indicated that "except for the V1, all other detectors seem to have lost range over the venerable ESCORT and PASSPORT in the K and X range when wideband KA was added". Suspicions confirmed - the unit did not perform as well as some older detectors. Darn!

OK. It's been a good year. I had a big bonus coming and when you weigh the cost of increased insurance against the cost of a ticket (not to mention the ticket itself) you can easily start to talk yourself up to justifying the $400 cost of a V1 (OUCH! it still hurts even saying $400!). The clincher was an unexpected Christmas present (it was from my Mom...) of $100 (because she totally gave up trying to shop for me decades ago!). I picked up the phone and plunked down my four bills. A week later, a flimsy cardboard box arrives and I've joined the V1 set. Retrofitting the power took about 30 minutes. The V1 cord is a large, flat cord with RJ11 (telephone) jacks on either end. I elected to simply mount the unit where the BEL had been - secured to the top of the dash with velcro.

Initial Impressions:

Let's just say that Mike Valentine clearly spent most of his R+D on the inside, rather than the packaging of this unit. It looks a little unfinished and really reminds me of my original FUZZBUSTER - big black box with a big knob and a big red light. It's actually about half the size of the FUZZBUSTER and the technology involved is clearly as different as Voyager is from Capt. Kirk's Enterprise . It just doesn't look that way from the outside. The V1 kinda looks like it was designed by Dilbert.

Come to think of it, there is a vague resemblance.

The utilitarian black plastic housing of the V1 has very few curves and the display looks like it was something of an afterthought. The band indicators, small LEDs for X, K, KA and Laser, are a real letdown from the more sophisticated BEL display. Warnings are characterized by the "beep" and "braaap" system. If you're good with music, they may be distinctive enough and if you can remember a "beep" means X band and a "braaap" means K, you may not have as many problems with the display as I do.

The unit itself is also gargantuan compared with my little 605. Granted, the 605 does not have LASER detection, nor does it offer a rear-facing detector.

The controls on the V1 are also a little hard to get used to. The big knob controls sound for "important alerts". The "balance control"-like ring controls the sound for "muted alerts". The BEL provides an auto mute feature which drops the volume of an alert to a series of "clicks" which can be silenced with a push of a button. If you press the big knob on the V1 during a full volume alert, it changes to the "muted" volume level, however, there is no way to totally silence the unit without a turn of a knob. It took a little getting used to.

So far, I'd still give the ergonomics prize to BEL.

I've already mentioned my lukewarm reception of the small K, KA, X and Laser LED's, but I should temper this with a big, enthusiastic thumbs up for the RADAR locator display.

After couple of RADAR encounters, I cannot imagine how I've ever lived without this feature! I've got to hand it to Valentine - this has got to be the biggest innovation in detector history! (OK, the $400 is still smarting). Not only does the locator display tell you where the RADAR source is, it also tells you how many sources it is monitoring. This allows you to sniff out revenuers who sit in the shadow of another radar signature hoping you'll get sloppy. Let's say you always pass the Dunkin Donuts and it always makes your detector go off. One morning you're rolling by, the detector goes off, your tendency is to ignore it, but instead of one source, it shows two so you hit the brakes! There, hiding behind that big jelly roll is Officer Bob Speed, hoping you'll just fly on by, helping to fill his quota. The V1 has just earned it's keep. There are a couple of other features I've discovered in the past week or so - The V1 actually includes a light sensor, so it automatically dims itself at night and brightens during the day. The unit is also upgradable - Valentine will upgrade both software and hardware as new features are added.

The V1 operates in three modes which are changed by pressing and holding the big knob when you're not under fire:

• A - "All Bogeys" mode. In this mode, the detector alerts you, at full volume, of every burglar alarm, automatic door, microwave dish or any other source of RADAR (including Police RADAR) in the vicinity. For those of us who live in the city. This mode will drive you stark raving mad in about a minute.
• l - "Little L" Logic mode. In this mode the detector filters out what it does not think are "significant" sources of RADAR and only calls attention to them with the "muted" volume if they seem to increase in strength. If something seems really threatening, you get full volume. I've found this works well for me on my daily commute.
• L - "Big L" Super Logic mode. In this mode the detector tries to make the most decisions for you. I've fundamentally never trusted computers, so I'm a bit leery of this mode and have not made a lot of use of it.

Nice features, but pretty much equivalent to BEL and other makers with advanced logic for signal processing.

The cost of the V1 still bothers me. Not so much for the cost itself, it's more the responsibility of a $400 detector on my dash. The instructions even warn you about leaving it in plain sight - it's an invitation to a break-in. I never had to worry about that with my $40 BEL - I simply left it on the dash. With the V1, there's really no alternative, you disconnect the unit every time you get out of the car and hook it back up when you get in. That's the main reason I chose not to use the mounting bracket. The velcro approach is a lot easier to deal with. I'll save the windshield mount (which strikes me as kind of flimsy) for road trips where I need peak performance. I constructed a pocket in the trunk as a place for the V1 to sleep during the day when the car is parked at work.

The big test came when Cambridge decided to mount one of those dorky "The Speed limit is XX your speed is..." automated (self service?) RADAR signs on the way to work. The unit was mounted around a corner and up a hill. I could use the unit to test the various brands without annoying the cops. (Ever ask one of them if you can test your RADAR detector with their gun?). The V1 gave me consistent .2 mile warnings (even on "small L"). The BEL gave a respectable (but definitely shorter) .15 mile warning. Given some other encounters, I'd also predict the V1 would do better in a straight line-of-sight situation than the BEL (which is what Car +Driver said too). The sensitivity advantage clearly goes to the V1.

So. The $400 question - is it worth it?
At this point, after a few week's use, I'd say "yes", but it is a qualified yes. I still say you should buy what you need and for many people, the V1 is just overkill. If you can afford it, however, I can see no reason to spend your bucks on anything other than a V1, simply for the locator function alone. I'd like to see a better packaged V1, one with something other than those dorky RJ11 plugs for power cords, one which has a digital display of X, K, KA and L in big letters, but you certainly can't fault the unit for performance. At an average of $100 per ticket with an insurance surcharge which can easily run into the 4 figures over 10 years (yes! MA counts those tickets against you for the next decade!) it becomes easy to justify the $280 increment over a competing brand. If you can afford the V1 - go for it! If not, be sure to test your choice with the top both up and down under your particular "normal driving conditions" before committing to the unit. It could save your hide in the long run.
Note: Images of BEL and V1, Mike Valentine and Dilbert were all yanked from various sites w/o anyone permission and are presented here merely for purposes of illustration.

Car & Driver 4/97, Page 115, "Rating High End RADAR/LASER detectors" (Also the issue which compares the SLK, Z3 and Boxster)
Detector	Price	Overall Score	X**	K	KA	Laser*
V1	399	97	0.30	1.50	1.70	10
Bel 855STi	200	54	0.15	0.90	0.90	8
Escort Solo	230	48	0.10	0.65	0.15	8
Cobra RSA515	119	45	0.10	0.70	0.17	9
Whistler 1490	148	42	0.10	0.40	0.60	10
Uniden LRD 6399 SWS	83	41	0.05	0.70	0.70	9***

* Laser units in band detection spread @ 1000 ft, all other measures in miles
** X band City Mode, highway mode is much greater for all models
*** Rear detection did not work

Car & Driver 9/95, Page 87, "Five Budget Radar Detectors" (also the issue which "Reveals the 1996 Z3 Roadster") Note: This comparison is now over 3 years old and none of the units listed (except the V1) are likely to still be on the market.
Detector	Price	Overall Score	X**	K	KA	Laser*
V1	399	97	1.00	2.40	1.10	19
Uniden LRD 220 SWS	86	89***	0.39	1.00	1.70	17
Fox	230	57	0.19	0.50	0.80	10
Whistler 1140	63	56	0.25	0.30	0.40	19
Bel 535i	93	54	0.25	0.41	0.80	16
Cobra RDL212	80	27	0.19	0.30	0.00	6

* Laser units in band detection spread @ 2000 ft, all other measures in miles
** X band City Mode, highway mode is much greater for all models
*** Looking at these older figures, it seems clear the Uniden models in subsequent years have gotten worse, not better

From the same issue:

Countries where US detectors will probably work:

Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Finland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Saudi Arabia, much of South America and Sweden.

Countries using bands not covered by US detectors:

Austria, Holland

Countries using US and other bands:

Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.