[M4ord]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

From the minimal research that I have done, before receiving my R7, it appears that segments are used to exclude portions of the band not applicable to your area, this limiting false alarms. And speeding up the radar scanning process. Is that your understanding?

And it appears it can be done through Uniden R Series Tool in expert mode?

Does it apply to K-band, as well as Ka-band?

My assumption is that the default setting is no segmentation.

You are spot on with all your assumptions. There is a K band segmentation but its limited to Extended, Wide or Narrow. I run mine in narrow to cut down on K false positives but with the combo settings of quiet ride and narrow segmentation on K band I find it really cuts down false positives. For example I get maybe one false K band alert an hour for a automatic door opener, so its not annoying like some other radar detectors from previous generations.

All the settings I understand can be modified either through the buttons on the device or the app that connects via bluetooth.

[Dyeraudio]

I drive 100 miles a day roundtrip for work..all highway.....I run Waze on Apple Car Play and also run a Radenso Pro M detector. I used to do 45K a year just for work and not 1 ticket. Unidens are great but I don't care for the bigger size.

[Equilibrandt]

They're only going to save you if the cops are blasting radar.

That being said, +1 for the Uniden R7/8/9s plus a Blendmount, which I have in all my cars. Cops here in SoCal seem to sit on the roadside or offramp with their nose and tail radar blasting full time.

It's really just a mental gymnastic: if you're on a canyon road or you're on a road with no other cars, you significantly reduce your detection capabilities. I find canyons can sometimes still bounce signal and give me a chirp, depending on the valley size.

I don't even plug mine in on some of my longer drives, where I'm one of a few cars on the road, as more often than not, cops won't be blasting full radar in that instance; they'll chirp their gun or nose when they see headlights, and by then, your radar detector won't help. You only win if your detector catches sniffs of radar from the car ahead of you getting illuminated.

One of the scariest noises I've ever heard from my Unidens? The laser-detection chirp, which is different than the Ka band whine. You're dead meat if your detector's getting hit by a pencil beam laser as they try to strike your license plate for a return.

As for radar optimization, I used VortexRadar's guide on what's active in your area. I have X and K completely off (too many blind-spot detectors and automatic doors set it off), and Ka band significantly truncated to give my receiver faster sweeps of the applicable Ka band. As said before, the smaller the frequency bandwidth that your detector has to sweep, the greater the detection capabilites (and sometimes, receiver sensitivity/detection range!). I tune mine by plugging it into the computer (RJ to USB), and enable bands as I go to other states.

[DrVenture]

Set my new R7 up out of the box for the proper segmentation and added all known blind-spot frequencies as exclusions(?). Now I am selectively muting individual locations for automatic doors. I'll let the auto-mute do its thing, I suppose. We'll see how it goes.

This is clearly far more nuanced than the 9500ix, as far as silencing false alerts.

[Mech Spec]

Did you start by loading vortex's settings?

Thats what I use and didnt need to change anything else. Dont pick up any non radar sources that I know of.

[DrVenture]

No, I used the latest firmware and manually tweaked according to a guide/list that I found on forums.

I'll look into that too. Thanks. Is it a settings file that you load, or a list that is manually entered?

[Mech Spec]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

No, I used the latest firmware and manually tweaked according to a guide/list that I found on forums.

I'll look into that too. Thanks. Is it a settings file that you load, or a list that is manually entered?

I loaded the settings file.

[stbm5]

i use waze plus the escort. both save me on a regular basis. the escort redline max saved me three times in the last week. i really dont think theres that much of a difference between the premium detectors. but if i could only use one thing it would be waze - but i dont drive a lot at night.