Cobra’s Transition to More Honest Marketing Most people actually shut this feature off because it’s of little to no practical value, it isn’t used much at all, and you get better performance with it disabled. It can detect laser guns with a variety of different pulse rates (just like every other radar detector).Īnd it can detect Safety Warning System (SWS) alerts which are messages that some K band speed signs can transmit to say things like “construction ahead” or “road closed ahead” but the feature never actually took off and it’s virtually unused. It can also detect several different antiquated radar detector detectors which is of very limited usefulness. So let’s see… it can detect the 4 different radar bands we talked about. So Cobra likes to refer as “things it can detect” besides legitimate radar bands also as “bands.” What else can it detect? Here’s a look at some technical specifications from the manual of the XRS9370: What Are the Extra Bands Cobra Is Talking About? It’s actively in use in OH and NJ and a few other small cities around the US, but by and large the only two radar bands that are actively in use all across the US are K band and Ka band. X band has been mostly phased out of the country. When Ku band was first introduced, some radar detector manufacturers added support for it and made a big deal for it saying “Ku band isn’t here yet, but buy our detector so that when it does arrive, you’re prepared!” However, that turned out to be nothing and so now it’s primarily a marketing ploy. ![]() Ku detection is completely irrelevant in the States. ![]() So really all we care about are X, K, and Ka band. X band is the biggest one on the left, there’s two different types of K band antennas to the right of it, and a Ka band antenna is right underneath my hand. If you’d like to see X, K, and Ka band antennas, you can watch the video below. Some Ku band guns are in use in Europe, however.) Here’s what we have here in the US: (Ku band is allowed, but no manufacturer produces or sells Ku band radar guns in the US. However, of these 4 bands, only 3 bands are actually in use: X, K, and Ka band. When it comes to police radar, the FCC has allocated frequencies within just 4 different bands for police to transmit within. Radar-frequency bands on Wikipedia ( original source here) Police Radar Bands Here’s a look at all the different radar bands, thanks to Wikipedia: The entire range of radar frequencies are broken up into smaller sections called bands. You know how the stereo in your car can tune to different radio stations by changing what frequency it’s listening to? Well radio waves (including radar) can operate on a variety of different frequencies. What “things” can it detect? Does detecting them actually help us avoid speeding tickets in any way? and what are “bands” in the first place? What Is A Band? It’s actually misleading and deceptive and means absolutely nothing. ![]() Cobra’s marketing team likes to incorrectly refer to “things we can detect” as different “bands” to make their products seem like they can detect more “things” than other manufacturer’s radar detectors. There aren’t 9 bands of police radar to detect. So in short, this is a bunch of misleading marketing nonsense designed to make otherwise crappy radar detectors sound very capable. What the heck is a “band” though? Is a model that more bands going to do a better job of protecting you? Why don’t other brands of radar detectors also advertise being able to detect so many bands? Why isn’t Cobra advertising how many bands their newer detectors can pick up? Let’s take a look at what all this means. If you look online, you’ll see Cobra still advertising their detectors (particularly the older ones) as being able to detect lots of different bands, maybe 9 bands, 12 bands, 14 bands, 15 bands, etc. How many bands of detection did I need? With nothing else to go on, I figured that the best ones were the ones that detected the most amount of bands and had the highest price tags. Some claimed to detect more bands than others. (This was way back before I got into radar detectors.) I was checking out the different models they had on display, mostly different Cobra brand radar detectors, and wondering what the differences were between models. One day some years ago, I was walking around the automotive section of Best Buy.
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