Re: Stealthy A4 courtesy Valentine One

[Bob Edmison <808list@mail.music.vt.edu>]

The Valentine was the first addition I made to my '97 A4Q 1.8T. I was
looking for a fairly stealthy place to conceal the V1, as I live in the
detector hostile state of VA in the US. The problem is that the state
police have been known to confiscate detectors from time to time, and when
hard mounted into the vehicle, they have also been known to impound the
car. For "evidentiary" purposes... So I wanted to detector "installed" but
not so firmly that in the unlikely event of getting stopped with it, I
couldn't just hand it over to the guy ( begrudgingly of course ), without
much fuss.

I have the black sport seats in my A4, and the solution I came up was to
slip the V1 in the gap between the top of the seat and the headrest. There
is direct line of sight visibility fore and aft, the V1 can't slide around,
its out of direst sun so it doesn't bake, it disappears in daylight, is
invisible at night, and the cable can be easily hidden in the upholstry
seams in the seat back. And since people are mostly radar-transparent,
there seems to be no degradation in performance when I have a passenger.
Though it does freak folks out the first time they sit there and it goes
off :^).

Additionally, I have the remote display unit for the Valentine, which I
mounted in my ashtray. That was a bit of a trick, because the RJ11 cable
supplied was too bulky. So, I built a substitute cable using ribbon cable
and standard RJ11 phone connectors. Now the remote unit can disappear when
necessary.

Enjoy,
Bob


At 12:16 PM +1200 09/14/1998, G Spark wrote:
>The latest addition to my A4 is a Valentine One radar/laser "locator"
>(interesting term that and quite accurate)
>Has reduced false alarms to virtually zero compared to my old Iniden and
>briefly trialled Bel 845 sti.
>
>I await efficacy testing, although a friend who has one has some impressive
>stories.
>
>This detector has to be head and shoulders over all others - feedback from
>happy users appreciated.
>
>Price here is breathtaking cf. US - equivalent to about USD$750 !!
>
>Problem: -I want to hard wire it in and need to remove the RH A-pillar
>trim - have pulled as hard as I dare to no avail. Help please.
>
>TIA
>
>Greg
>Greg Spark
>'96 A4 1.8Tq 5sp mtm 187hp.
>http://avant.extreme.com/a4.org/registry/details.asp?car=887
>Hamilton, New Zealand

========================================================
"To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid,
you must also be well-mannered."  --Voltaire
========================================================
Bob Edmison
Software Engineer, VTLS, Inc
808list@mail.music.vt.edu
Blacksburg, VA,  USA,
Planet Earth, SOL, Galactic Sector ZZ9PluralZ-A