After Saturday’s “official” testing at SML, Leon the owner of Blinder USA and I met up so I could review Blinder’s new software and system now included in the J15 version of the Blinder M25/M45.

Leon explained that the J15 update included newer LED’s and software that were developed specifically for the newer police laser guns used in Europe.

Leon’s test car was a white Impala with no front license plate and the jammer heads were mounted on the front bumper. Runs 1 and 2 were center of mass, run 3 was the drivers side headlamp.

During this test I did see a significant improvment with the J15 revision then with earlier revisions that I’ve tested.

Hats off to Leon and Blinder International for following through with this improvement with their system!!!

Those of you that have been following my blog know that in March of this year Wayne and Adam from Adaptiv Technology came out to our offices in Arizona to personally hand me their new TPX motorcycle radar detector.

One of the downsides I noted in my blog entry in my review was the false alerts. I was pleased when I met up with Wayne and Adam again, this time at the 2008 Radar Detector Shoot Out in El Paso, and they told me that they changed the filtering characteristics of their unit based upon my observations.

Overall the TPX system is on par with the mid class radar detectors such as the Whistler Pro-78 and would outperform any Cobra on the market today.

The following is an interview taken at SML with Wayne about his motorcycle radar detection system.

During the Radar Detector Shoot Out in El Paso this past weekend Marlin, a Whistler Representative, introduced me to their new XTR-695 Radar Detector.

Whistler has taken their Pro-78, which is one of my top picks in my Radar Detector Buyer’s Guide and improved the platform by adding several user customizable features that will even impress the hard core enthusiasts.

The first thing I noticed was the flat black “stealth” look of the XTR-695. Gone are the fancy chrome ribs and buttons that have a habit of causing windshield glare. Next was the SEVEN color LCD display that allows the user to select a color pleasing to the eye or to choose a distinctive color for each band.

Another feature is Whistler’s exclusive KA RSID that assists in taking out the guess work on Ka alerts. When the detector alerts on Ka it will determine if the frequency is close enough to the commonly used Ka frequency. If it is close enough it will display the normal operating frequency of the source, or it isn’t will simply display Ka.

With this new feature users can identify what commonly used frequencies are used by police in their area. Another advantage is if you have not received any 33.8 hits during your normal commute, you could rule out their use of the MPH Industries POP radar guns and disable POP mode entirely from your detector and further minimize false reporting.

And Whistler also added another exclusive feature called LSID that identifies and assigns the pulse rate the detector is seeing.

These two features are also a big plus as auto makers have been adding radar and laser cruise control systems. As some of these devices are K band based systems they have been causing radar detector alerts.  As the RSID and LSID have been preprogrammed with these known frequencies and pulse rates, thereby reducing these types of false alerts.

Whistler has also changed their laser programming to include detection of the Laser Atlanta stealth mode and have also included an audio out jack to accommodate the Cheetah Mirror as well as other new products coming on the market.

Yesterday morning SML crew headed eighty miles east from their testing site to do the long range radar detector test. A couple of the radar detector representatives lined up their detectors and received alerts on all three bands from radar guns being fired toward their direction over ten miles away. The remaining participants had to endure the hot Texas sun and blowing sand until they completed the testing several hours later.

Hats off to Carl Fors and crew for all their hard work and dedication and having another successful “Radar Detector Shoot-Out”.

I also complement Mem-Tek, a dedicated member of the RadarDetector.net forum, for volunteering his time and talents in assisting me and a few other participants in setting up and assisting in the testing.

The full results of this year’s SML tests will be posted on our website(s) once Carl publishes them for public viewing.

Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be publishing various videos of the event.

This morning I started out the day with Carl’s photo crew, Aaron from Legal Speeding and the crew from Adaptiv with a BMW, Bussa, and two Harley’s to do a photo shoot for American Iron Magazine. We left the SML test site and headed out to the Trans Mountain Highway and put our bikes with our detectors mounted through the twisties. 

We returned to the testing site five hours later as the El Paso officers were finishing up the POP radar testing.

After a short nap, I was able to test Blinder’s new M25 J15 version against the Stalker, Laser Atlanta, the LTI 20/20, the LTI LR and the Ultra Lite from Kustom Radar.

Its after 10:30 PM now and we have not had a chance to eat dinner or empty the desert sand from our boots. Tomorrow night after I return to my office, I’ll publish the results of my testing of the M25, along with closing comments on this year’s SML event…….

Last night Mem-Tek (RadarDetector.net user) and I arrived at the Speed Measurement Laboratories test site last night in El Paso during a severe dust storm. Just after midnight the winds subsided and we got the motor home and our test equipment ready for today’s test.

Today’s SML test opened with tests of various motorcycle radar detector systems, then a short round of laser testing and then after lunch we jumped into the radar detector testing.

I did get a chance to test and review the new Whistler XTR695, which had some very strong numbers during the test.

Stalker had a new portable automated laser enforcement system that I got to play with. Basically the system has the top end of the Stalker hand held laser gun that interfaces with a laptop and a digital camera. The officer first programs the capture speed into the laptop along with the location after the camera is set up. The automated system then photographs violations saving the images with the date/time/speed to the laptop I learned from the representative that Colorado and Illinois State Police will begin using this system in highway construction zones in the near future.

I also got a couple hours behind the scope of the new LTI (Laser Technologies Inc.) 20/20 TruSpeed laser gun. According to an engineer this gun uses a new algorithm, is vertically polarized and operates on 905 nm. The manufactures’ maximum recommended range is 2000 feet and its normal short range distance is 50 feet. The TruSpeed also has an inclement weather programming feature that increases the short range distance to 200 feet.

I tested the 20/20 against the ZR4, the Blinder M25 (J15) and the Laser Interceptor. The Laser Interceptor had the greatest difficulty with this gun at both long range and close range. The Blinder had respectful punch through with distances under 500 feet, however at times the Blinder did have a problem detecting the gun at close range. The only jammer that even came close at JTG (Jam to Gun) during my testing was the ZR4 from Escort.

Today I shot over an hour of video and once I have it edited, I will present several short video clips of today’s events.

Check back here tomorrow for Day Two of SML…

I have been working on a new website that will officially launch later this week, it is my “Radar Roy’s Buyers Guide”

On this website I took my “Best of Review” series, updated it with new information, and created a 22 page user guide on how to select the best radar detector and/or jammer on the market today!

I have a few additional pages to add to the site like the content page, but should have that done tomorrow.

In the meantime check out the new site and leave me your comments:

http://www.radarroysbuyersguide.com/

Escort Inc. recently released their new “Radar Detector Tools” program. This program enables owners of Escort’s 9500ci remote mounted radar detector to download the latest firmware and traffic enforcement camera database for their detector and installs them to your detector.

The user also has the ability through this program to change/save/upload the detector’s settings such as band detection, display modes, deactivating/activating Truelock feature and automute settings.

Hats off to Escort, as they are the first radar detector company that I know of that allows the end user to update the detectors firmware.

The following video demonstrates the various options with Escort’s new program.

Last month, I spent a week at Radarbusters.com’s corporate offices in Omaha Nebraska to video tape new product videos, to train their support staff on new speed countermeasure technology and to test several new products that are about to be released.

The product videos were shot on a professional sound stage and should be online within the coming month.

This is a short video that I shot during a portion of the taping and their telephone support staff.

Four years ago we launched RadarDetector.net and since it has grown to be the largest and most respected forum for radar detector enthusiasts which I attribute to the hard work by its dedicated administrators and moderators and the support from its 5,000 users.

Over the past several weeks we have been working on a new forum platform utilizing VBulletin and while integrating the user base and over 50,000 postings.

This morning the redesigned site launched!

I would like to thank “TheStanton” for his hard work with the backend and to Bill of PecksWeb.com for graphic design, great job guys!