kepstein

I just took my first extended ride in my new S4. My Valentine 1 was registering a rear contact for almost the whole ride. I tried relocating from next to the rear view mirror, center dash, and left side dash. There seemed to be no difference. This is an up to date Valentine. Any experiences or ideas?

Thanks,
Ken

NWS4Guy

Got Side Assist? That uses radar, and will give you falses all the time till you disable POP.

kepstein

I do have side assist. Is POP an important feature?

NWS4Guy

POP guards against instant on radars, you can either disable this on your V1, or have it go off all the time. That's one of the drawbacks of (and why many won't order) side assist.

kepstein

Thanks for the help. I like side assist, so I'll try turning off POP.

Ken

jimf15e

POP is not 'instant on' radar. It's been LONG documented that side assist interferes with the V1 POP detection. The next question that is asked: Toggling the side assist button does not disable the side assist radar, it only turns off the lights. See below from Radar Busters (FYI this was the first google hit when searching 'POP radar'):

"MPH Industries first introduced POP radar technology (also known as the Super Bee) in its radar guns in 1999 as a way to defeat radar detectors. Today MPH's radar guns while operating in POP mode, can defeat over 85% of the radar detectors in use today.

POP mode works by sending out a quick burst of pulse radar at approximately 67 milliseconds. MPH Industries admits that while in this mode, that the displayed speed of a vehicle may not be accurate. They recommend that the officer only use this mode to obtain an estimate of speed from the target vehicle, establish a vehicle tracking history, and then switch to normal mode to obtain the exact speed.

Therefore POP mode is seldom, if ever used by law enforcement and should not be a major concern as an "important feature" in considering your radar detector.

In fact, most radar detectors that have the POP mode have it disabled by default, as activating POP on detectors, opens it up to receive a false alerts."

I've said it before and I'll reiterate it again - if you have ANY questions about speed countermeasures please check www.radardetector.net. Every question you could possible have will be answered there, for example:

- Consumer radar jammers don't work
- Non-consumer models work but are felony offenses
- Properly installed, high quality laser jammers do work
- You get what you pay for
- Laser detection sensors on radar detectors will not save you from a ticket
- Mount high and level
- The only 'invisible' detectors use the M3 antenna - 9500ci, Redline, STi-R, STi Driver

k1speederS4

I have not disabled POP and I am having no problems on my V1. Rather than disabling POP, which is the most common form of Ka radar, I would recommend turning off your X and K band. Check this website (http://www.patzcatz.com/radarbands.html) to see if cops in your area use K. If not, I think you would be better of turning off the K band in your V1 rather than POP. I did that and mine has only falsed 5 times in about 4 weeks. Love it!

jimf15e

POP operates in K band, not Ka. And it is HARDLY common - it's actually very rare to see POP in use now. Check your frequency spectrums. POP is a *type* of (normally) K band radar that uses either a 67ms or 16ms pulse length. Ka (from "K above" since it's just above K band in the frequency spectrum) is a *frequency* of radar that runs from 26.5-40 Ghz.

k1speederS4

Thanks for the correction. I guess when I looked in areas around me it was common.

rktskicar

67 ms is pretty much "instant on for radar in my book. even a LIDAR/LADAR requires 300ms to 700ms for solid reading.

Bruce
MSEE