K Filter Shootout: V1C and LRD950 Versus Kustom Falcon K Band

[Tallyho]

The Contestants:
V1C 3.894 (POP off on) and LRD950 1.51 (GPS off)

The Opposition:
Kustom Falcon K Band Gun- Stationary and Constant On

The Course:
A non-closed, slightly over 1 mile, on-axis course that is actively used by LEO’s in a typical suburban environment with mobile and stationary K pollution sources and no more than 30 feet elevation from end to end.

The Objective:
The idea was to see what type of range each detector could provide with unfiltered raw power and then to determine the “performance penalty” for the respective K filters implemented by Uniden and Valentine Research. At which point a comparison could be made for overall detection.

The other motivation for this test was to see if it would be advantageous to use a 2 detector strategy with the LRD950 and V1 sharing the duty for sniffing out K band since I/O K band usage in this area has been aggressively increasing as witnessed in my last video. I didn’t run the detectors together for this testing.

Observations:

• The unfiltered V1 almost maxed out the course but…
• …The unfiltered V1 also had up to 5 or 6 false bogeys showing at times.
• The LRD950 was very quiet and had NO falses even with K filter off.
• The LRD950 had a relatively small K filter performance penalty, up to 18% or 675 feet.
• The V1 had a significant TMF performance penalty, up to 32% or 1300 feet.
• V1 always had at least 1 run that was a significant outlier to its other two runs both with and without filtering.
• LRD950 was very consistent between runs with relatively little variance.

Conclusions:

• The LRD950 provides impressive filtering performance in every mode.
• In this area, it would be entirely impractical to run the V1 without TMF on, which also means sacrificing significant range.
• In this area, it would not be impractical to run the LRD950 with K filter off.
• Despite the performance penalty the V1 still provided excellent range with TMF on and compared favorably to the LRD950 with K filter off.
• Draw your own.

Videos:
At the end of each video, I added a "detection snapshot" which is the moment of truth where each run first alerts to detection. When I get a chance I may move that snapshot to the beginning of the video or use it as the video thumbnail.

Run 1

https://youtu.be/n-4milKyJjY

Run 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEuIssfv1Lg

Run 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBJ6l3w9aNg

Run 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fpwpYQQQtw

Run 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4g7USY9rlg

Run 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzw-qvdIFSA

Run 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njD27yi8E0M

Run 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNCdqxgNvVc

Run 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwD3sP7mcjg

Run 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjlFlspbp5c

Run 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI_nZBYWrB8

Run 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW9qr0zM8WM

 

[Vortex]

Interesting!!

Might be time to put the Uniden up on the windshield and drive around a bit...

and yeah, the V1 is crazy town without TMF/TMF2.

 

[cihkal]

Awesome stuff! My two favorite detectors at the moment.

The v1 truly is awesome on K when unfiltered and it doesn't even have a LNA for this band.

I run my 950 on 1.37 and would guess the performance from the K filter would be pretty small seeing this.

Thanks for the great work!

Sent from my KFFOWI using Tapatalk

 

[RadarScout]

Great job Tallyho. Looks like the Unidens remain consistent in all the tests by multiple members. The V1 was much better in distance unfiltered, but that chatter would drive me insane. Thanks for your work.

 

[Ferdirand]

Excellent work!

It confirms brainstorm69's tests that the V1 beats by a little the LRD950 fw1,51 on K-band.

Can you please do one more test with fw1.23 on the LRD950?

 

[PointerCone]

[MENTION=3565]Tallyho[/MENTION] , are you running your recently acquired V1 with TMF 2 or is this your old unit?? Looks like Wheeling area to me

 

[GTO_04]

Awesome work! You just about have me sold on a Uniden. OTOH the V1 is still very good even when filtered! You almost don't need the filter with the Uniden, given the fact that it didn't false even when not filtered.

GTO_04

 

[Tallyho]

Yes, as Vortex noted it is crazy town without TMF on the V1 and the chatter would quickly drive anyone insane. For testing purposes the TMF off results are almost irrelevant because nobody would want to drive with that level of falsing in real-world conditions. However it's still interesting to see just how much filtering comes into play. It also serves to show how the companies filtering approach impacts all around performance on each unit.

@PointerCone, this is not the V1 unit from @kdo2milger. But it is from @deathrider. Forum members have been awesome. If you need to do business on the used CM market this is the place to do it.

One of the takeaways from this test is to mount the units in view of the camera for testing transparency. Feel free to provide constructive feedback.

 

[ryan93civic]

Great job on the testing. Did you run the Uniden with the gps off for a reason? I have mine on but if the results are better with it off I might change my settings.

 

[Tallyho]

Great job on the testing. Did you run the Uniden with the gps off for a reason? I have mine on but if the results are better with it off I might change my settings.

Great question. I wasn't sure it if did and because in the case of the red light camera alert it does override detection I just wanted to ensure that all processing power was where it needed to be. Out of pure caution and no other reason GPS was turned off. Would be worth finding out if GPS impacted performance for sure. Maybe some of the other guys can answer this such as [MENTION=9768]Brainstorm69[/MENTION].

 

[croup]

Many thanks for sharing this test....

Question:

Was Pop on or Off?

Question:

On K band, will I get better range/sensitivity with Pop on and TMF2 off...

I ask because this is what I am running now and its driving me crazy....However K band surrounds me on the rural roads I travel....Frequencies are everywhere from confirmed LEO's.....24.151, 24.171, 24.2xx are 3 confirmed in 15 mile radius around my local area just this past week....Seconds matter a lot to me in the terrain I travel daily...This setting will beat my redline on K band repeatedly by seconds....However, its entirely unbearable when hitting the interstate or in the city....I know PoP off, helps immensely quieting the falses down...Without testing equipment I have no clue if POP on is helping my range...

Forgot to say V1 but you already know that...

 

[PointerCone]

Many thanks for sharing this test....

Question:

Was Pop on or Off?

Question:

On K band, will I get better range/sensitivity with Pop on and TMF2 off...

I ask because this is what I am running now and its driving me crazy....However K band surrounds me on the rural roads I travel....Frequencies are everywhere from confirmed LEO's.....24.151, 24.171, 24.2xx are 3 confirmed in 15 mile radius around my local area just this past week....Seconds matter a lot to me in the terrain I travel daily...This setting will beat my redline on K band repeatedly by seconds....However, its entirely unbearable when hitting the interstate or in the city....I know PoP off, helps immensely quieting the falses down...Without testing equipment I have no clue if POP on is helping my range...

Forgot to say V1 but you already know that...

Hes in Chicago, so there's no way he can run pop on and tmf2 off......the V1 would be useless.

 

[Tallyho]

Many thanks for sharing this test....

Question:

Was Pop on or Off?

Question:

On K band, will I get better range/sensitivity with Pop on and TMF2 off...

I ask because this is what I am running now and its driving me crazy....However K band surrounds me on the rural roads I travel....Frequencies are everywhere from confirmed LEO's.....24.151, 24.171, 24.2xx are 3 confirmed in 15 mile radius around my local area just this past week....Seconds matter a lot to me in the terrain I travel daily...This setting will beat my redline on K band repeatedly by seconds....However, its entirely unbearable when hitting the interstate or in the city....I know PoP off, helps immensely quieting the falses down...Without testing equipment I have no clue if POP on is helping my range...

Forgot to say V1 but you already know that...

I think Vortex answers your POP question here....

https://www.rdforum.org/showthread.php?t=48928&p=655456&viewfull=1#post655456

In theory you may get slightly better K band detection with POP off since every millisecond scanning Ka band is another millisecond not scanning K.

Not sure how anyone can run with TMF off in this day and age. K band pollution is out of control without some kind of filtering to tame the K beast.

The LNA on the LRD950 is clearly doing its job.

Hes in Chicago, so there's no way he can run pop on and tmf2 off......the V1 would be useless.

@Windstrings, can you clarify if POP is automatically enabled in Euro Mode? I was running Euro Mode through V1 Connection App and there is no POP toggle which suggests it's on and I've updated the thread to indicate POP On.

Ok, the answer is POP is on automatically in Euro Mode. Here's the documentation from the YaV1 manual:

>>>​K*Pop​ * ​(checked is on, unchecked is off)​ With YaV1, you can turn off K*pop if
desired (​“33.8 Ka pop not affected”​) even while in Euro mode to help remove blind
spot sensor false alerts such as in the Audis cars.
K band sensitivity is not affected to any notable degree, and reactivity is lowered “just
enough to lose certain blind spot indicator signals ” so using as a blind spot sensor filter
is totally safe, but you're still fast enough to catch all but the quickest QT “quick
trigger”. ​(​A power cycle “restart V1” is recommended after changing K*POP settings
to on or off​) ​If you honestly suspect QT in your area, you may choose to leave K*pop
on.

Hmmm, now I'm curious about the "K band sensitivity is not affected to any notable degree" claim...

 

[GTO_04]

You can turn K POP off though in Euro mode via YaV1, but you cannot turn off Ka POP in Euro mode. As a matter of fact, if you turn TMF2 on, K POP will be forced off.

I can run with TMF2/TSR off on some days. It varies from day to day depending on how many Buicks are on the road. I generally have it on though during my commute. Stationary K band false alarms are not an issue for me.

GTO_04

 

[RINGWAYMAN]

I am going to order a Uniden in next week. I guess from BestRadar. I am leaning towards 950. I thought about 850, however my gut says someway I will be happy with GPS and the other options. Are there any IO tests with Kband and traffic filters on? Not just for the Uniden's. I live in Ohio, I need all the filters on.

 

[wasdapharm]

thanks for the test! I may be grabbing an extra lrd950 soon.... They're just such good solid units. Especially after the update...

I don't think the LNA on the uniden affects k-band?

I would have liked to see a comparison of 1.35 vs the 1.51 .. filter vs no, just for kicks. I'm 1.35 and I run the filter on. Gives great warning, and quiet. Quieter than anything else I own. Maybe it's time to dust off the uniden and let it shine a little

 

[BhamGuy]

Thanks very much for this excellent work. It is appreciated.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[happya$$]

Thank you

 

[Tallyho]

Are there any IO tests with Kband and traffic filters on? Not just for the Uniden's. I live in Ohio, I need all the filters on.

I actually ran an I/O test on the same day and was planning on sharing that. Unfortunately I realized after the fact that the Uniden still had K filter off which wasn't a fair test with the V1 TMF on. Nonetheless they both did very well, although I'll have to re-run with K filter on the LRD950.

I/O test was at 3000 feet from the gun with 1 and 2 second trigger shots.

---------- Post added at 10:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:09 AM ----------

I would have liked to see a comparison of 1.35 vs the 1.51 .. filter vs no, just for kicks.

Me too. I'll run that next time.

 

[RINGWAYMAN]

Great, thanks.