Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications General Mods Radar Detector

Originally posted by mbSVT:

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Originally posted by Kremithefrog:

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Originally posted by mbSVT:

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Originally posted by rkneeshaw:

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To get a detector because it has "less false alarms" is screwing yourself.

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I've always wondered why people never figured this out...

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Because it's WRONG. The 8500 has been rated by many places as having less false alarms than any other detectors BUT still having the best range out of almost all of them (comparable with V1).
I (like you) am no expert on radar, so I can't give a good explanation why, but I do realize that police radar and the things that give false alarms (other detectors,etc.) use different frequencies usually. Also, the 8500 is still going to alert on automatic door openers BUT probably alert less on them then some other detectors AND alert A LOT less on cheap detectors that are emitting radar.

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Here's the thing... the V1 does have less false alarms than others. I'm sure that the 8500 does too. No denying that... it has to do with the signal processing.

However, noone's debating whether or not your detector has less falses than another... read the quote again... what I said was I've never understood why people base their decision on which brand has the least false alarms!!! That's the LAST thing that you should be worrying about... i can't tell you how many times i've heard people say, "well i dont want the thing going off all the time"... THATS THE POINT!!

I'm hardly an expert on radar, but given that my dad was a cop and I've grown up on BOTH ends of the radar gun, I'd like to think I know a bit...

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The V1 actually has a good bit of false alarms from what I hear. Probably less than some of the lower end models but more than some of the higher end models like the bel 995 and the 8500.

I didn't see anyone in this thread basing their decision on false alarms. I agree it would be stupid to base the decision soley on that. BUT you really don't want it going off all the time. Why? Because if it is going on 24/7 you'll either just stop using it or just ignore it. You want something that filters out the false signals so that the detector is actually useful. If it was going off all the time, why even use it??? Of course you want a detector that does go off when it should, so you don't want to buy a cheap detector because it gets less false alarms, because it probably does not have a good range BUT a high end model that gets less false alarms but still has good range is worth it.

So really, false alarms is a main concern you should be worried about, other wise your detector is useless. You might as well put just some toy in your car that beeps all the time if you don't care about false alarms and actually think a detector that gives tons of false alarms is worth a crap. Of course you have to combine amount of false alarms with range,etc. to choose a good detector.


And cops are not experts on radar either, they just know how to use the radar gun. So you know a little bit about how to use a radar gun.