markbxr400
New Member
After buying my ST, I was looking for a radar detector option. On my Victory Cross Country, I had an Escort 8500i mounted inside the fairing with a Radio Shack small siren mounted inside one of my fairing speaker enclosures and the Escort remote mute switch. I also mostly wore an open helmet so had no problem hearing the small siren. No such room to do something similar on the ST, and given I wear a fully enclosed adventure style helmet I didn't think I could hear it either.
So I started a search of different options. I have a Sena 10S headset, so decided being able to transmit through that would work. I looked at some of the Bluetooth option for being able to plug in my 8500i, and I could have done it with the Sena SM10 or SR10, but takes more real estate.
So, in my search I found the Cobra DSP 9200 BT, which is Cobra's first digital signal processing unit (Cobra recently merged with Escort so now benefits from the Escort DSP technology). It also has bluetooth and uses their iRadar app to connect to an iPhone or Android. It is a tiny detector, less than half the size of the Escort. Originally these things were $500, but they've come way down. I paid about $140 new for one on-line. I wired in a small 12V to micro USB adapter that I found online for about $7 to power the detector. I tied it into my Eastern Beaver 3 circuit fuse box. I also had a mount that I had leftover from another bike, and found it mounted perfectly on the left side of the headlight shroud to one of the existing holes, where the detector will actually sit behind and shoot through the factory windshield. I used that heavy duty velcro to attach the detector to the mount.
Once I got it all installed, I had no idea how this whole thing was going to work. I installed the iRadar app on my iPhone, paired my phone with the radar detector, set the app to put the alert to my phone, and then left on a test ride. I hit the highways around my house, going through town after town where I know police typically shoot radar. I was really pleased with how the whole thing works. While my music was playing through my Sena, when the detector went off it lowered the volume on the music (not all the way off, just lower volume), then announced the radar hit, telling me whether it was X, K, Ka or Laser (Laser, by the way means pull over, you are getting a ticket. Fortunately, not used much in my area). It would then give beeps and about every 5-10 seconds would repeat the message. As I got closer to the police car, it would ramp up the rate of beeps. The display also gave me a visual indication of the radar band, and a bar graph showing signal strength (correlating to distance from the source).
I've only been running with this for about 200 miles over 2 days, and have had about 8 hits, it reliably finding the officers every time. I haven't had false hits yet, like garage door openers, business security systems or vehicle radar braking systems. The DSP is supposed to eliminate many/most of these, and so far it has. I do get hits at school zones that use the radar warning signs. Some of our towns also have speed zone change signs that have a radar signal box to slow people down, and it picks those up as well.
As this is not a weatherproof unit, I have a ziplock bag in my saddlebags that I plan to put over it, or I will simply remove it in the rain. Like I say, I've just got this going in the past couple of days, so don't have a thorough test to share, and can't speak yet to the reliability of the unit.
In any case, it is about the simplest, least expensive and smallest radar detector option I have found. And so far, it's finding the radars out there which is what I was most interested in.
Mark
(mount similar to mine)
http://www.radarfunstore.com/motorcycle-mirror-mount-left-side.html
So I started a search of different options. I have a Sena 10S headset, so decided being able to transmit through that would work. I looked at some of the Bluetooth option for being able to plug in my 8500i, and I could have done it with the Sena SM10 or SR10, but takes more real estate.
So, in my search I found the Cobra DSP 9200 BT, which is Cobra's first digital signal processing unit (Cobra recently merged with Escort so now benefits from the Escort DSP technology). It also has bluetooth and uses their iRadar app to connect to an iPhone or Android. It is a tiny detector, less than half the size of the Escort. Originally these things were $500, but they've come way down. I paid about $140 new for one on-line. I wired in a small 12V to micro USB adapter that I found online for about $7 to power the detector. I tied it into my Eastern Beaver 3 circuit fuse box. I also had a mount that I had leftover from another bike, and found it mounted perfectly on the left side of the headlight shroud to one of the existing holes, where the detector will actually sit behind and shoot through the factory windshield. I used that heavy duty velcro to attach the detector to the mount.
Once I got it all installed, I had no idea how this whole thing was going to work. I installed the iRadar app on my iPhone, paired my phone with the radar detector, set the app to put the alert to my phone, and then left on a test ride. I hit the highways around my house, going through town after town where I know police typically shoot radar. I was really pleased with how the whole thing works. While my music was playing through my Sena, when the detector went off it lowered the volume on the music (not all the way off, just lower volume), then announced the radar hit, telling me whether it was X, K, Ka or Laser (Laser, by the way means pull over, you are getting a ticket. Fortunately, not used much in my area). It would then give beeps and about every 5-10 seconds would repeat the message. As I got closer to the police car, it would ramp up the rate of beeps. The display also gave me a visual indication of the radar band, and a bar graph showing signal strength (correlating to distance from the source).
I've only been running with this for about 200 miles over 2 days, and have had about 8 hits, it reliably finding the officers every time. I haven't had false hits yet, like garage door openers, business security systems or vehicle radar braking systems. The DSP is supposed to eliminate many/most of these, and so far it has. I do get hits at school zones that use the radar warning signs. Some of our towns also have speed zone change signs that have a radar signal box to slow people down, and it picks those up as well.
As this is not a weatherproof unit, I have a ziplock bag in my saddlebags that I plan to put over it, or I will simply remove it in the rain. Like I say, I've just got this going in the past couple of days, so don't have a thorough test to share, and can't speak yet to the reliability of the unit.
In any case, it is about the simplest, least expensive and smallest radar detector option I have found. And so far, it's finding the radars out there which is what I was most interested in.
Mark
(mount similar to mine)
http://www.radarfunstore.com/motorcycle-mirror-mount-left-side.html
