I wish I had spent $100 more to get a V1 to get the direction indicators. My Passport 8500 doesn't do that. And it goes off randomly in areas with a lot of retail stores due to the automatic door sensors. It's really annoying!!

 

Oh, also, over time I've developed the "skill" out of just being annoyed to death my Passport 8500 to tune out the beeps and blinking lights from my radar detector, so sometimes I dont' even notice that it is going off. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having one. Other times I just pull the plug.

Worse yet, I feel "unprotected" when I drive other people's car because there is no detector. Perhaps a radar detector is not for me.

 

I have a V1 and when I catch myself ignoring the sounds, I just turn the main volume up and use it that way until I get readjusted to being aware of the sound. Then I turn it back down to a more manageable level.

 

v1 FTW
[QUOTE=EP Heart,Jul 21 2008, 01:50 PM]I have a V1 and when I catch myself ignoring the sounds, I just turn the main volume up and use it that way until I get readjusted to being aware of the sound.

 

just turn off the x band on the 8500, that is what I do. If I am drivign hard, and that thing beeps, I do not ignore it. I have heard the valentine does has a little more range. That may be worth the extra 100 bucks

 

IMO, that's still a bit useless because I'd just as soon ignore one loud beep than when it was originally set at a lower volume. Turning up the main volume high so that it becomes a bit annoying and grabs my attention helps me to pay attention to it again. Plus, it makes me want to hit the mute to the secondary volume, thus making me aware of what's going on again.

Oh, and I never set the secondary volume to off so that I can still hear that there's a signal instead of periodically glancing over at it after muting.

I guess we all have our little ways of using THE BEST RADAR DETECTOR EVER.

 

The Valentine is worth every penny... nothing comes close in terms of performance... I've had mine for mine or ten years and it has paid for itself many times by providng quick, more than timely and dead accurate speed trap intel. Plus, it failed/broke (only once since I have had it). I gave the Valentine folks a call, they told me to wrap it up, stuck a check in the box, and they would fix it. In about two or so weeks my unit comes back with my uncashed check and a note saying my problem was due to a manufacturing issue and the fixed it at no charge... it was way out of warranty at that time. Great unit + fantastic customer service = customer for life. Spend the bucks and get the best... you're V1 will pay for itself with two saves.

 

You probably wouldn't be happy with the V1 then. It's rather chatty. You can adjust it to reduce that.

 

I've had a V1 for probably 10 years, and have owned probably 10 detectors of varying brands and prices before that.

It's absolutely great. And it works. And it's reliable. And it's upgradeable.

Don't leave home without it.

The only potential downside is your comment about your 8500 being too noisy. The v1 can be "chatty" as someone else said, but that doesn't bother me.

Steve

 

Love my V1. Arrows and bogey counter make a world of difference. I have my initial volume set pretty high (I call it "stun"). It occasionally scares me when it first goes off but that's a good thing.

My wife thought it was annoying until it went off on a drive to Hilton Head and she said "ha, there's not even a cop around", I slowed down anyway and 20 seconds later we go hit full blast by instant-on from a cop behind a stand of trees. The initial warning was probably from him hitting another vehicle. It pays not to ignore the chirps on the open road.

Now she wants one for her car, but I've told her to stick with her typical tactic which is look hot and cry. It's gotten her out of two tickets so far and I don't think it would work with a V1 in the window.