ALP parking sensor and STIR Plus integration

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11-22-2015, 11:17 PM
pimp-boy

ALP parking sensor and STIR Plus integration

Hi BRD and others, I just finished installing the ALP with 2 front sensors and also the ALG with STiR+ integration. I never registered, but the firmware is on 5.1.4 and voice packs for the HiFi are all updated and installed. Couple of questions.

1. I was testing out the parking sensors. How far do they work? It seems it only works up to 2 feet or so even when the setting is on 8. Is that normal?

2. I disabled X and K band for the STiR+. I selected wide KA and POP, TSR and whatever RDR is. I drove around the San Jose, Ca. area around grocery stores and freeway, and not once did the radar detector go off. The receiver module is behind the Tesla model S plastic bumper that pops off. Either this system has really great filtering from false signals or something is wrong? Is there a way to test whether this system detects whether it sees the receiver?

Thanks for your help.
11-23-2015, 12:31 AM
Holla

Nice set up!! With you having X/K OFF you are set up to have a quite detector as most Any KA encounters will actual cops. You want POP-OFF / TSR- OFF(only for K band) and RDR-OFF thats for KA band and you want that off for ultimate detection. also segment your KA to 2/5/8 ON and the rest Off

The parking sensors are only good for a few feet.
11-23-2015, 06:57 AM
AirMoore

Quote:

Originally Posted by pimp-boy

Hi BRD and others, I just finished installing the ALP with 2 front sensors and also the ALG with STiR+ integration. I never registered, but the firmware is on 5.1.4 and voice packs for the HiFi are all updated and installed. Couple of questions.

1. I was testing out the parking sensors. How far do they work? It seems it only works up to 2 feet or so even when the setting is on 8. Is that normal?

2. I disabled X and K band for the STiR+. I selected wide KA and POP, TSR and whatever RDR is. I drove around the San Jose, Ca. area around grocery stores and freeway, and not once did the radar detector go off. The receiver module is behind the Tesla model S plastic bumper that pops off. Either this system has really great filtering from false signals or something is wrong? Is there a way to test whether this system detects whether it sees the receiver?

Thanks for your help.

You MUST register your system with ALP... (at least this is my understanding) wait a couple business days, and then try re-downloading and applying all the settings.

At any rate, as Holla said... any detector that doesn't have X/K on is likely to be rather silent.
11-23-2015, 07:26 PM
pimp-boy

Thanks guys for your recommendations. I finally registered the system, but was able to update the firmware on the CPU and controller with no problems previously. So driving on the road, the parking sensors seem to detect further when a vehicle is in front of you as opposed to a human or metal post.
@Holla: So cops in California don't use POP? What is RDR? Also, there's an option under "Stalker" for Optimal, Max, or off. Would you select Optimal rather than max?

And to confirm, segmenting my KA band to 2/5/8 will cover all the necessary KA bands in the bay area or California?
@AirMoore: I'll try downloading all my settings again and upload it. When I had my old Bel RX65 radar detector, I would get some type of KA false signal. But with this STiR+ receiver with the ALG hookup, I get zero. Drove around 60 miles around the freeway and intown and not a single peep. I hope it's really working....
11-23-2015, 10:17 PM
AirMoore

Quote:

Originally Posted by pimp-boy

Thanks guys for your recommendations. I finally registered the system, but was able to update the firmware on the CPU and controller with no problems previously. So driving on the road, the parking sensors seem to detect further when a vehicle is in front of you as opposed to a human or metal post.
@Holla: So cops in California don't use POP? What is RDR? Also, there's an option under "Stalker" for Optimal, Max, or off. Would you select Optimal rather than max?

And to confirm, segmenting my KA band to 2/5/8 will cover all the necessary KA bands in the bay area or California?
@AirMoore: I'll try downloading all my settings again and upload it. When I had my old Bel RX65 radar detector, I would get some type of KA false signal. But with this STiR+ receiver with the ALG hookup, I get zero. Drove around 60 miles around the freeway and intown and not a single peep. I hope it's really working....

Remember, register your ALP unit!
11-23-2015, 10:23 PM
Holla

So here is a great explanation of RDR from the other forum: Also POP is not used by anyone and is not a form of radar enforcement thats legal. You want to keep the option set to MAX under your Stalker laser settings

RDR- When RDR is activated (default is on) two or more consecutive sweeps of Ka band are required before setting off an alert. This allows to confirm if the initial alert is real or a false alert and if it should be suppressed. With RDR off it will trigger an alert on the 1st detection, no filtering at all.

We know turning off RDR will increase the range by quite a bit. However you will get falsing, especially from other RD's, so this is where you will want to Segment Ka to eliminate sweeping specific parts of the Ka Bandwidth were false signals reside but no real radar exists, like below 33.7 (ka1). Segmenting other portions of Ka will also help increase range/response, though RDR is the main feature increasing range/response.

The most popular radar bands used are 34.7 Ka 35.5 Ka & 33.8 Ka, so those segments you will not want to leave off (turn on 2/5/8).
11-24-2015, 04:17 PM
pimp-boy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holla

So here is a great explanation of RDR from the other forum: Also POP is not used by anyone and is not a form of radar enforcement thats legal. You want to keep the option set to MAX under your Stalker laser settings

RDR- When RDR is activated (default is on) two or more consecutive sweeps of Ka band are required before setting off an alert. This allows to confirm if the initial alert is real or a false alert and if it should be suppressed. With RDR off it will trigger an alert on the 1st detection, no filtering at all.

We know turning off RDR will increase the range by quite a bit. However you will get falsing, especially from other RD's, so this is where you will want to Segment Ka to eliminate sweeping specific parts of the Ka Bandwidth were false signals reside but no real radar exists, like below 33.7 (ka1). Segmenting other portions of Ka will also help increase range/response, though RDR is the main feature increasing range/response.

The most popular radar bands used are 34.7 Ka 35.5 Ka & 33.8 Ka, so those segments you will not want to leave off (turn on 2/5/8).

Thanks guys for your help. I enabled X and K band to make sure my STiR+ receiver was working and it did trigger at a Safeway grocery market. So, that's a good thing. I guess there are not that many Ka band false triggers. I set it up to what you suggested for the Ka radar segments.

One last question. You mentioned to set the Stalker to MAX sessions. In the description it gives, it says may provide a Jam signal with Stalker guns. Is this if you dont JTK in enough time? if so, is 4 sec still good enough or you need to kill it earlier so that they don't get the Jam signal?
11-24-2015, 04:32 PM
BestRadarDetectors

Quote:

Originally Posted by pimp-boy

Thanks guys for your help. I enabled X and K band to make sure my STiR+ receiver was working and it did trigger at a Safeway grocery market. So, that's a good thing. I guess there are not that many Ka band false triggers. I set it up to what you suggested for the Ka radar segments.

One last question. You mentioned to set the Stalker to MAX sessions. In the description it gives, it says may provide a Jam signal with Stalker guns. Is this if you dont JTK in enough time? if so, is 4 sec still good enough or you need to kill it earlier so that they don't get the Jam signal?

It mostly effected older guns anyway and should not be a big concern. You can also get a Jam code if aiming at a telephone pole so its not unusual to see one. I would set it at 4 seconds and if you are in a situation where you can kill even quicker just press any button on the controller during the alert to kill it immediately.
11-24-2015, 09:53 PM
awj223

Quote:

Originally Posted by pimp-boy

Thanks guys for your recommendations. I finally registered the system, but was able to update the firmware on the CPU and controller with no problems previously. So driving on the road, the parking sensors seem to detect further when a vehicle is in front of you as opposed to a human or metal post.
@Holla: So cops in California don't use POP? What is RDR? Also, there's an option under "Stalker" for Optimal, Max, or off. Would you select Optimal rather than max?

And to confirm, segmenting my KA band to 2/5/8 will cover all the necessary KA bands in the bay area or California?
@AirMoore: I'll try downloading all my settings again and upload it. When I had my old Bel RX65 radar detector, I would get some type of KA false signal. But with this STiR+ receiver with the ALG hookup, I get zero. Drove around 60 miles around the freeway and intown and not a single peep. I hope it's really working....

For California, you only need band 5. CHP uses 34.7 ONLY. A few sheriffs use 35.5 (we've seen it up in the Tahoe area for example) and some local cops use K band. I think you'd do best just switching everything off except for band 5, and just not speeding on city streets. You'll get a much quieter detector that way. Sometimes I'll drive 300 miles without picking up any Ka.

If heading up to Tahoe on I-80, switch on band 8 (35.5), otherwise you don't really need it.
11-24-2015, 11:08 PM
Holla

Why chance KA by only running seg 5, I understand what you are saying but even having 2/5/8 on you are still going to have a super quite detector while covering your ass completely!! Me--I would never chance it!
11-25-2015, 02:07 PM
awj223

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holla

Why chance KA by only running seg 5, I understand what you are saying but even having 2/5/8 on you are still going to have a super quite detector while covering your ass completely!! Me--I would never chance it!

1) Possible Cobra falses on band 2
2) Improve responsiveness by scanning only band 5
11-25-2015, 03:17 PM
Holla

Quote:

Originally Posted by awj223

1) Possible Cobra falses on band 2
2) Improve responsiveness by scanning only band 5

I agree #1 to an extent
Dissagree #2--You will not see any difference in scan speed with only 3 segs running that will affect a radar encounter. Its all good :)
11-25-2015, 11:07 PM
awj223

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holla

I agree #1 to an extent
Dissagree #2--You will not see any difference in scan speed with only 3 segs running that will affect a radar encounter. Its all good :)

Look at this video from OpenRoad over at RDF. Segmentation makes a difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQjo-k9vI7E

RDR was on during the second run, but off during the first run. With RDR on, the signal needs to be found twice in order to trigger an alert; with RDR off, it'll alert if it just sees it once. So all of those alerts way back from the sign were caused by the Redline seeing the signal once, but it obviously never saw it again on the second time through. The signal comes and goes so quickly, it isn't there on the second sweep. So consider what would happen if it just doesn't see the signal at all because it's not sweeping 34.7 during the small amount of time that there's a distant 34.7 signal that's coming through. Most of the performance gain was probably due to RDR being switched off, but the segmentation helps too.

Why sweep unnecessary bands? You only need 34.7 in most parts of CA. Just don't forget to turn it on when leaving the state, or when driving up to Tahoe.
11-30-2015, 02:51 PM
pimp-boy

Thanks a lot for all of your recommendations guys! This really helps. I'll try out a couple of different configs and see which works best.

Right now, I just hope mounting the radar head behind the plastic bumper cover isn't going to affect my range or off axis coverage too much. I don't really have any where else to mount it to. Currently, it is 3M double sided taped on top of the bumper pointing behind the plastic bumper cover.

If sitting on top of the metal bumper, would you recommend sticking the head (Curved portion) further forward past the metal bumper or can it be slightly recessed back sitting on the metal bumper? Just want to make sure I maximize as much as possible. I'll try to get a picture tonight.
12-02-2015, 10:53 AM
pimp-boy

3 Attachment(s)

Attachment 5011 Attachment 5013 Attachment 5012

I stuck out the laser sensors as far out as I could, but it is still tucked slightly under the nose cone. Please provide any feedback of placement on the STI-R+ receiver or ALP sensors if there is something I can improve. Thx!
12-02-2015, 10:58 AM
Holla

Best thing to do now is get hold of a member here on the site and see if they can test your setup with a real Lidar gun to see how good it is and do any adjusting from there!