I recently purchased a Beltronics STi Driver Radar Detector, which has the capability of "turning off" the X Band detection, which in my case would greatly cut down on the false alerts. I live in South Florida, NW Broward County.
Is the X Band in use in this area by local police, Sherif's office, or the FHP?
I certainly wouldn't want to turn off the X band only to be ticketed by an officer with a Radar Gun using X band.
The last time this thread was addressed on this forum was September 2007.
I can't verify the accuracy of it, but I found this post from 2007 on a forum for radar detector enthusiasts:
"Since I get a kick out of x band in use, I thought I would warn others of "potential" x band radar areas. We all know Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Oregon still use x band. Here are some other areas which use x band also, Western IL including some cities around Chicago such as Stickney,Crestwood,Aurora,Rockford,Freeport, and Orangeville, various parts of Wisconsin, various parts of Minnesota such as city of Eden Prairie, parts of Colorado, Missouri, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, and New York and parts of rural Northern Ontario still use x band to fool motorists. Please feel free to add to this list as time goes on because a smart LEO, will grab an old x band radar gun any old day of the week since a lot of rd users, turn x band off. "
I have always thought that an old X-band gun would be a pretty sneaky way for a LEO to catch a lot of people who disable their X-band detection. I guess you have to know what they use in the area you drive in the most.
Very little X-band use around here, but I have seen it a little, and also in Alabama - both in rural areas.
Although it's not a State, it could be based on size--Houston, Texas, uses x band with city police. Freaked me out--they also use k.
I have seen local sherriff departments use x-band near Asheville, NC as recently as last year. Luckily I had not turned off the x-band feature on my Escort 9500i.
can you not change the sensitivity of your detector? my snooper can be adjusted to alert me only when the gun is pointing directly at me as many of the local supermarkets use x or k bands for their automatic opening doors and my previous detector was going off constantly!
i can adjust the sensitivity from 1 to 5. 5 being any detection at all sets off the snooper and 1 being only a direct signal sets it off. i'm currenlty at 3 which seems to work well - in that i'm not done an emergency stop in front of asda for a while.
ninja
I'm in Brevard county but I drive down to Boca occasionally. I have never encountered X Band from a law enforcement vehicle in Florida.
Same here in southeastern NC as recently as this year.
On US 17 in Hampstead north of Wilmington I even encountered one that appeared to be instant-on. Instead of broadcasting a signal for miles, a deputy in the median blasted the car 400-500 yards ahead of me with X-band.
Not sure how to do this with X-band. I thought they had to be up to full power to work. But I witnessed it.
I thought cops didn't use X band radar anymore so whenever I picked up a signal I wouln't think much of it but still remained cautious. One day I get off a highway and stop at a redlight, in the meantime an X band signal ilstarts to get progressively stronger until it reaches full blast. I look in my rearview mirror and the it is, a State Trooper. So from then on, I always assume an X band source on a motorway is law enforcement.
I'm located in Maryland
Don't rely on your radar detectors too much. All of the police radars have instant on capability and most are taught to run it that way. Your only hope is that they try to clock someone in front of you. You don't have a chance if the radar is in stand-by mode and they pop you. The speed is locked in as your detector goes off.
I just recently encountered X-band use by a local cop on I-5 in Oregon. The state troopers are using Ka and laser, but the local guys seem to have a mix of everything.
