|
About Me
Long time Subaru modifier, Host on Edmunds, and race car driver. :) SpeedzoneSpeedzone, for everything speed related! Jan 14, 2008 - Escort Passport 9500i Radar Detector!Second blog entry for you guys. Hopefully I'll have more time to write a more regular column. Anyway onto one of my Christmas Gifts to myself. The Escort Passport 9500i Radar Detector. Let's start this off with my driving record. My official record includes 2 tickets, one for an "unsafe lane change" and the other "disobeying a road sign". This doesn't mean however that I haven't been pulled over a lot of times. I also drive about 30-40k miles a year so I'm a bit above average in terms of miles driven each year. I haven't been pulled over in about 2 years or so but felt that with the purchase of my 2005 Legacy GT Wagon w/5MT it was only a matter of time before I would get pulled over again. With that said, I did my research and as most enthusiasts have said, you come down to either a Valentine 1 or an Escort. I'm a gadget guy, and could not pass up the Escort 9500i with it's built in GPS chip. After having it for about a week I finally got into all the features. It has the usual X, K, KA, KU, Pop, Laser, and a few other bands that it will detect. It also does SWS signals which some road signs emit giving messages to you in a digital readout. Those are the "regular" features. In addition, it has an adaptive volume control, so if your ambient interior sound is high, like if you have your stereo up or window open it will be louder than normal. Once you get familiar with the bands and the warnings you can flip it to "expert" mode where it actually gives you the frequency of the radar in addition to the level of radar you are being hit with. Another important feature is you can "black out" the whole detector and only get audible warnings and flashing lights on the cigarette lighter where you can also remotely mute it. In any mode you get an audible alert in beeps and a voice saying "K Band or X Band" or what not. If you don't have it blacked out you can also set it to light the unit based on ambient light as well. Now onto the "gadget guy" features. There is a GPS chip embedded in the unit so once it gets a signal, it opens up a whole mess data. For instance if you are going below 30mph, it automatically will switch to city mode and the alterts won't be very loud as you are likely going below the posted limit already. You can use the GPS to lockout random non-police radar such as electronic doors, security systems, construction sign radar, etc. It will lockout the signal based on not just the GPS location, but it will also cross reference it with the actual frequency of the signal, so if a cop shows up in a spot where you marked out a bank signal you are still warned. I tested this out and it works. When it's blocking a signal based on GPS you get a small rotating compass on the screen so you can "remove" the block if need be. With the built in GPS when you get hit with Radar you also get a flashup of your current speed on the screen as well, so if you aren't speeding at the time, you can just proceed w/o stabbing your brakes. You can also opt to have your current speed displayed as the "pilot" light on the screen as well which is a great side effect. Lastly the GPS allows you to "mark" a location as "Spd Trap", "Camera" or "Other". Once you mark a spot the next time you come through it will warn you 1 mile in advance of the speed trap and give you a countdown in feet to the location. If you are going below 50mph it will start at 1/2 mile. So far so good, I have been keeping track of the signals it's finding and rejecting. The GPS lockout really makes it worthwhile cause where I travel there is a lot of stray signals, so once you lock them out, if you get hit, you know it's probably real and know to slow down. Escort also has a mini-USB port on it so you can update the software and download/backup your speed traps and in the future can upload other people's traps to your unit. I'll keep you posted as to how well it's working! -mike
|
