Finally Beltronics Accept a Problem with Rampup on STi

I had one of those fine original beasts sitting on my dashboard secured by Velcro. It's what got me hooked on RD's. The STi is just plain horrible with audio ramp up. Living in VA, I have no choice but to run in dark mode durning the night. The minimum brightness is still way too bright and the hardwire setup's led alert lights my interior up like a xmas tree. I've had my V1 back on my windshield for 3 days now and I realize how much I miss it. Perfect ramp up, those wonderful arrows that almost always help me locate the radar source and of course it's phenominal sensativity. I find it very difficult to locate the radar source with the STi, especially with the horrible audio ramp up. It's narrower field of view definately makes for a quieter RD.

Same here. In fact, I would still be the proud owner of that puppy, had it not been that it was stolen out of my vehicle in the mid eighties. Also swiped was the follow-on, the much smaller Passport. I loved that piece of equipment as well; it was a worthy successor to the original Escort.

Perhaps Beltronics could add additional brightness (dim) levels. With the version I currently possess, they did inform me that they resolved the "pulsing" effect of the display that can occur when one drives under a series of street lights in the evening. That coupled with the improvement to the ramp would be welcomed updates

Veil Guy

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A friend of mine gave me the original Escort after he purchased his passport. The range on X band was unbelievable. I made the mistake of selling it for a fuzzbuster. That fuzzbuster seemed to false on anything that even remotely looked electronic.

Well, the wait is officially over. Upon arriving at home I immediately unboxed and installed my "fixed" Beltronics STi Driver. Bel was nice enough to send the STi back with a new cigarette lighter adapter and new suction cups and mount. The repair tag said, "I performed the following repair on your unit: update software, repaired antenna." "Ramp up", was listed on the repair card under the professionally tuned section and under the, "May we be of any further assistance?" section X, CVC, SW was hand written.

I then proceeded to go out for a test drive. I was able to find an officer running 35.5 ka and several k band auto door sensors. I wish that I had another STi to compare with or at least taken a video of my STi before sending it in for repair. My returned unit seems less sensitive overall, but only time will tell if this is indeed true. While testing k band door sensors, I suddenly picked up 35.5 ka and it was strong. I noticed an officer sitting at the end of the shopping centers parking lot. She was filling out paperwork and not paying any attention to her surroundings. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get enough distance to properly assess the newly "fixed" STi.

Impressions: K band appeared worse than before. Instead of a slow/fast alert, I am now getting a really slow/medium alert. Ka I have mixed feelings about. As I mentioned before, this will take some time to fully assess and I need to find more officers running radar. Ka appears to have 3 speeds now, but the maximum alert appears much slower than before. Before sending it in, I remember two distinct alert speeds. Slow was beep-beep and fast was beep-beep-beep-beep. Now it's more like beep, beep-beep and beep-beep-beep, but absolutely no really fast alerts. It's actually much more difficult to gauge the threat than before. With the officer not paying attention I was able to visually assess the alerts with audio. On K band, it beeps slow until 6 and medium above that. With Ka, it appeared to not start alerting semi quickly until around 7.

In conclusion, I am extremely disappointed with my returned unit. In all fairness however, I have been riding with my V1 for a week now and my results could be a little off. The V1 has the absolute perfect audio and visual ramp up. I will keep everyone informed after I spend some seat time with my "fixed" STi.

not good...as usual Beltronics does not want to listen to the consumer!!! A Damn shame indeed