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!!!

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…….

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!

Over the past two weeks with the Escort 9500ci installed and driving over 1800 miles through the Arizona desert and high country, I can honestly say that Escort has developed the most intelligent and “super charged” performing radar detector/laser shifter that I have ever laid hands on!

Radar Detector Performance:
The 9500ci’s radar sensitivity and overall performance is identical to that of the Beltronics STI-r (STI Remote) that I have been using in my motor home and both are immune to all radar detector detector devices including the latest Spectre RDD.

Many radar detector enthusiasts consider the V1 the baseline, which all radar detectors should be measured; therefore I began my review by hanging a Valentine 1 radar detector (version 3.864) on my pickup’s windshield.

My first “real life” encounter was on a desolate stretch of a divided four lane highway, north of Buckeye Arizona. The 9500ci first alerted Ka then flashed my speed of 67 mph. A few seconds later the V1 began its alert. As I rounded a sharp bend on the highway I spotted a Buckeye PD black and white vehicle parked in the turnout lane.

My second encounter was in the city of Glendale in a densely populated business/residential area early in the morning. The 9500ci alerted K band and displayed my speed of 51 mph and again a few moments later the V1 alerted. During this initial alert I was concerned that this was a false as I had a clear view of the road ahead, but as I approached the next intersection a Maricopa County Sheriff’s patrol vehicle came into view pulling up to a stop sign at a 90 degree angle from my approach.

Most “low end and mid level” detectors would had failed during both of these “extreme off axis” encounters, but both the V1 and 9500ci performed very well, with the 9500ci having a slight edge.

The most dramatic difference between the V1 and the 9500ci was the increased number of false alerts that the Valentine One alerted to over the 9500ci. The ratio was almost 5 to 1 and once the 9500ci automatically registered the false bogies with its GPS Truelock, the ratio decreased to 5 to 0! 

Over the course of the last seventeen days I’ve had additional fourteen “real life” radar encounters with the 9500ci. During each the Escort 9500ci’s long range sensitivity sniffed out the radar traps three to five seconds prior to the V1, providing me with ample time and distance to properly adjust my driving.

GPS Powered Truelock Filter:
False alerts are the chief complaint of radar detector users and the areas that I normally drive are littered with X and K band devices that would drive most motorists crazy. With most other radar detectors I normally deactivate X band and cope with the K band false alerts. However during my review of the 9500ci, I allowed the detector use its “computerized brain” to identify by frequency and mark out the trash.

Once the 9500ci alerts to the same frequency the third time at the exact location identified by GPS, the detector emits a short beep indicating that the frequency and location were marked as a false. Subsequently, if you drive by this same location after the location was marked as a false, and the detector does not sense the same signal, the location is deleted from memory.

During the last seventeen days my 9500ci has automatically marked thirty seven positions as false alert locations.

Safety Camera Database:
Red light and fixed photo radar cameras are becoming more prevalent each day as cash strapped municipalities install these cash cow devices to raise cash under the guise of traffic safety.

The 9500ci has an internal database of most, if not all the fixed camera locations in North America. Based upon your speed the 9500ci will alert you ten seconds prior to arriving with an LED read out of the camera type and distance.

My wife is often critical of my fervor to radar detector testing and she first grudgingly rode with me during my initial review of the 9500ci. However her viewpoint quickly changed and commented that she never knew the abundance of the red light and speed cameras in the vicinity of our home nearby shopping centers and wanted to know when I could buy and install a 9500ci in her car.

To update the database on the 9500ci, you first must register your unit online on their website. But once this is done, you simply download the database (and any other firmware updates) to your computer and then connect the 9500ci with a USB cable.

Laser Shifter:
During my fourteen day review of the 9500ci I did not encounter any laser enforcement by police. However as noted during my testing of the ZR4 and our install of the 9500ci, the shifter did a respectable job of jamming police laser on my large profile F250 pickup at my test facility.

During the previous test of the ZR4 on our Toyota Sequoia, a midsize SUV, the ZR4 jamming performance was awsome with numerous “Jam to Guns” on many of the laser guns tested.

Closing Comments:
I have to admit, I have a pretty neat job. Radar detector and laser jammer manufactures send me their latest gadgets to test, I write a review discussing my personal experiences and if I like the unit it remains in my vehicle until the next bigger and better detector/jammer comes out.

However in the case of the new Escort 9500ci I find it hard to imagine that anyone, even the engineers at Beltronics/Escort, can ever top this. Yes, the 9500ci the most expensive radar detector on the market today, but worth every penny!

By making an investment in purchasing the most advanced radar and laser defense system ever made you’ll have the first smart radar detector with its own brain to knock out false alerts and warn you well in advance of radar, laser and fixed camera enforcement traps you’ll encounter.

The downside; once your “better half” finds out about the all the features and performance you maybe purchasing a second 9500ci for their car, as I am doing now!

Radar Roy’s Badge Rating
Five Stars

The new Escort 9500ci radar detector has been creating allots of buzz on the radar detector forums and has become the most anticipated speed countermeasure device by detector enthusiasts since its introduction at January’s CES show. Therefore I was very excited when I found out that I was one of three reviewers selected by Escort Inc. to test drive one of their final production units prior to its release to the public.

Yesterday my UPS driver pulled up lugging what I first thought was a case of radar detectors because of the size of the package but inside I found a single retail 9500ci package containing Escort’s new radar and laser defense system!

Inside the retail box I found three other packages each containing the modular parts and accessories for Escort’s system along with three manuals. After installing countless radar detectors and laser jammers during my career I’m not one to normally read a manual. But after eyeing all the various cables, interfaces and accessories I sat down in my office for an hour reviewing each.

Included with the manual is an Escort product key code card for registering your 9500ci online and allowing access to their online database for software updates and their enforcement camera database.

In a separate package there is a USB cable that interfaces with the 9500ci which allows you to connect your computer to install the software and enforcement camera database updates.

In box one the Control Module, Display Module and speaker is packaged. The LED display is “brilliant blue” in color and the control module has five buttons used to adjust the sensitivity, the volume, to mark locations into the GPS, to power the unit on and off and to mute the detector.

The second box contains the 9500ci’s interface, the radar antenna and an external GPS antenna. The radar detector antenna is the same used with the Beltronics STi-r making it completely undetectable to all police radar detector detectors, including the Spectre.

The interface unit which tucks under the dash is labeled and color coded making it easier to confirm that the correct device is plugged into the correct port.

The external GPS antenna is magnetic and includes a windshield mount to allow mounting in the interior of the car.

The third box contains the ZR4 shifters, two heads for the front and one head for the rear. The front shifters have the “ratchet” style mounting system attached and included are secondary mounting brackets. During my previous install and test of the ZR4, I found that I could not properly level the front shifter heads using the “ratchet mounting” system as I was between adjustment points. The proper placement and leveling of the Shifters are of extreme importance and I would encourage anyone doing this install to watch my ZR4 video prior to attempting it.

The 9500ci’s manual states that by default that the Shifters are programmed in receive mode only and must be programmed to active the laser jamming capabilities. I suspect the reason for this is to allow the sale and install of the 9500ci system in states that prohibit such active laser jamming devices.

One of the most anticipated features of the Escort 9500ci is its GPS capabilities allowing the user to mark their own locations, use Escorts speed enforcement camera database and the units ability to sniff out and identify false alarms on its own.

The 9500ci comes preloaded with a database of fixed US traffic enforcement cameras. As camera locations are frequently moved or added by cities and towns I strongly encourage users to download the latest database from Escort’s website on a monthly basis.

By pressing the “Mark Location” on the control module, the user has the ability to add their own locations to the database such as “Speed Trap” locations, “Speed Camera” location, “Red Light Camera” locations and other places of interest.

The Auto Learn/Auto Unlearn feature is for X and K band only. If the exact radar frequency is detected at the same location three times, the 9500ci will automatically lock out this location as a false alarm location. Once this frequency is locked out no alert will be given at this location unless it detects a new signal on a different frequency. Also once a location is self programmed as a false alarm location, if on a subsequent pass that same frequency is not detected the 9500ci removes it from the database.

I suspect that many radar detector enthusiasts will be testing the “Lockout” feature after installing the 9500ci. My experience in doing this type of test is that the user must leave the area prior to doing any subsequent radar tests. From experience the detector remains in “lock out mode” registering other radar alerts until the detector determines through its GPS that the unit has left the “locked out area.”

This coming week I will be installing the 9500ci and performing various radar and laser tests. I plan on videotaping the install along with the alerting features including the detectors ramp up upon detection of a signal.