Beltronics STI-r Review II

Installing the Ultimate “Bird Dog” for Truckers

Title 49 Section 329.71 of the Federal Motor Carrier regulations prohibits radar detectors in all commercial vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds. Even with this ban the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that over 40 percent of tractors regularly use radar detectors.

Till recently truckers using radar detectors in their big rigs have been taking a big chance of having their “bird dogs” detected by the police and getting a large fine.

In 2004 Stealth Micro Systems introduced the Spectre RDD (Radar Detector Detector) that was able to sniff out all radar detectors that were sold. Numerous state commercial vehicle enforcement units though out the USA purchased these Spectre units through federal and private grants. As example the Texas Department of Public Safety purchased over 245 Spectre units though a federal grant for boarder security.

In 2006 Beltronics introduced the STI, first “stealth” radar detector that was able to defeat the Spectre. However as the STI was designed as a dash mounted radar detector, truckers had to come up with ingenious ways to hide the detector from the sharp eyes of law enforcement.

Beltronics is now in the process of releasing their newest radar detector the STIr. The STIr is the first remote mounted radar detector that is not only invisible to the eye, but also invisible to all the RDD’s in use today.

Having the honor as being one of the first in the speed counter measure industry to review this detector prior to its release, I seized the opportunity and installed it in my 2005 Columbia Freightliner.

I first installed the antenna in grill area of the truck. The STIr’s antenna doubles as both a radar antenna and a laser sensor. As laser is a narrow light beam, it is important to mount the antenna facing forward and level without any obstructions.

I cut out a small section of screen in the bottom grill area of the Freightliner and mounted the STIr’s antenna.

I then ran the antenna wire into the cab area through the driver’s door floorboard area, up the side floorboard, up to the overhead storage compartments.

Here I installed the main interface and plugged in the external speaker, the LED display and the main controller.

I then mounted the external speaker and the LED display in the driver’s upper storage area and mounted the controller switch right above my CB radio in the upper center consol.

After all of the detector’s modules were installed, I then connected the interface and the external powered speaker to my trucks power supply.

As I have installed countless radar detectors in the past, I had found earlier install manuals from Beltronics sometimes cryptic and sometimes hard to understand. However the manual provided with the STIr was easy to read and understand and made the install a breeze. The total time for the install was approximately 60 minutes.

With the LED display and the external powered speaker being in the upper driver’s storage area, the main display was totally stealth to prying eyes. However I could easily see the display from my driver’s position behind the wheel when it activated and with the external mounted speaker’s deafening alert beeps I could easily hear it over the roar of the engine even with the XM radio cranked up to full volume.

Next week we will be taking the STIr through its paces during an extended road trip though the southwest and I will follow up with both a performance and driver experience report.