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First weekend with a new Valentine. Drove most of the week with it in my daily driver Altima then installed in in the C5 Saturday. Took a drive Sunday to pick up our wine club selections when on the Silverado Trail in the Napa Valley, CA it started beeping. About 1/4 mile later saw a CHP cruiser by the side of the road...and a black C5 Z06 with the driver looking really dejected. Anyone here on the forum?
Question for those more familiar with the Valentine: I got a pretty week signal; about a two light strength. Could it be the cruiser just had the had its radar unit powered on and since it wasn't pointed at me or "triggered" that's why I only picked a week signal?
BTW anyone cruising around in the Napa Valley, the Silverado Trail tends to be heavily patrolled especially on weekends. Lots of head on accidents lately and CHP like to also test for those doing too much wine tasting
The emitters only work one direction at a time, at the control of the officer: front or back
The weak signal was likely from him using the opposite facing emitter from your direction, but some of the signal was being bounced back to you and picked up on your scanner. Usually from large objects... roadsigns do it a lot. That is probably what you were getting in your case.
Can't really "point" radar, unless you mean point to the front or back. It's a wide area, that only gets larger with distance. Depending on the number of antennas per emitter, it picks up the faster (higher doppler shift) or largest/most reflective vehicle. This is why you can't be cited on the radar reading alone; there has to be a visual speed estimation on your vehicle by the officer in conjunction with the equipment.
Last edited by DefenderC5; Apr 2, 2007 at 12:53 AM.