A Critical Review

[Joe B]

Just want to bring people up to date with my Solo woes since my thread starter of August 11.

To keep the story short for those who don't want to start at the beginning I have both a S2 and an X50 that I have been using in Australia.

The S2 has never worked even close to satisfactorily. It was sent back for service and in due course returned with the note that it was tweaked to max perfotrmance. Still found next to no performance and re-contacted service who said the would do nothing further to sove the problems, (Both of these during the waranrty period.)

In posting my experiences here the story came up that I couldn't expect reasonable servive here as the locals use a frequency slightly off normal US use and the Solo goes to sleep and doesn't wake up or words to that effect. OK I say, my bad, not Escort's fault.

I have continued to play and compare with no luck. I had my St Louis based son out for Christmas and we went through the whole thing again. He said I could give the near new S2 to him to take back to Missouri and he would test it out. If it tested OK he would keep it and send me his X50. Certainly a win-win situation (in theory).

He has just phoned and said that the S@ doesn't work their either. He in the S2 mounted car and his son in a X50 car jusy went out on Manchester Road Balwin where it is easy to find a LEO. Conversing by hands free phone they found bogeys. The X50 performed well, the S2 was efectively non-functioning (with new batteries installed). He reported that it certainly went off with every false that the X50 found.

So I must now conclude that either the S2 that I have (and now in St Louis) is a considerably sub-standard unit or that all S2s are considerably sub standard. If it the first of these then I certainly think that Escort should fix it even if it out of warranty as I have a clear record of seeking service in period and they refused to do more. I guess that I could donate it to Escort's R & D department so they can play.

My son just called back and he is even right now out trying a couple more tests and he plans on phoning Escort in the morning.

Regards

[Rocky2]

Think of it this way.

Solo = Bicycle

8500x50= Corvette

Redline= Ferrari

The Solo is based on a older platform it just doesn't preform well against Ka band threats especially 35.5. It also struggles with I/O. The battery powered detectors just don't preform as well as the corded ones.

[Nine_c1]

The Solo has decent performance against K-Band but nothing close to the X50 in Ka detection.

The Multinova Photo radars are low power to begin with and horizontally polarized vs the vertically polarized antenna in both the X50 and Solo. Since these are also most likely Ka units, the only chance you have of picking them up with the Solo is to mount it vertically. Mounting the X50 vertically would also improve it's range to these units but would decrease range and off-axis performance against standard mobile units.

See here for more details on the effects of polarity on microwave radiation and detection.

http://www.escortradarforum.com/foru...07&postcount=1

[OpenRoad]

I have a friend who has been running with the Solo for years, and he loves it so much, you'd have to "take it from his cold dead hands". He's one of those guys that never throws anything away. (old tires in his yard, and literally about 12 cars that only 1 runs). (Way up in the mountains and away from sight, of course).

It's some cordless model from many years back - I'm guessing 6 or 7.