Whistler DE-1660 Radar Detector

I suspect I am not exactly within the demographic of people most likely to be buying a radar detector. I drive an energy-conserving car (see my Honda Insight review), I respect the law, and the only time I'm likely to speed is when I miss seeing a speed limit sign. But I recently became curious about how I was being monitored on the highway, so with disposable income in hand, I went shopping for my first radar detector.

It didn't take long in my research to discover that Whistler seemed to be a well-liked and respected brand, so I hit my local gadget stores to look for them. Cobras and Bels seem to be the easiest to find here in the Seattle area, but eventually I came to a Circuit City store and found the only Whistler on their shelves, a DE1660.

The DE1660 is very closely related to the DE1650, the only difference being the 1660's voice-alert feature, which seems to add about $30 to the price. If you have a choice between the two, I would recommend saving your money and buying the DE1650. More on this below.

The 1660 detects signals in the X, K, and Ka radar bands with a front-facing detector that can pick out signals from all directions. It is also capable of detecting laser speed checks (also known as "ladar" or "lidar") with two light receivers facing front and back. It can also receive "safety radar," coded messages sent via the Safety Warning System (more detailed information on SWS is available on the official Web site at http://www.safetyradar.com.)

Alerts are presented both visually and audibly. The 8-character alphanumeric display shows the band in which the signal was detected, a short bar graph showing relative signal strength, and a numeric value indicating signal strength on a scale of 1 to 9 (in the case of a laser detection, it simply displays "LASER"). The speaker plays one of five different alarm tones depending on the kind of signal detected (X-/K-/Ka-band radar, laser, or a safety message), then speaks the kind of signal in a female voice, then repeats the tone in "heartbeat" fashion, slowly for a weak signal or more quickly for a strong signal. If a signal is picked up in a burst too quick to register on the meter, the display will show "PULSE" to inform you of the event.

I find that the voice alert is too quiet relative to the alarm tones; when I adjust the volume to put the alarm tones at an appropriate level, the voice is unintelligible over the road noise on the highway. There is no way to adjust the volume of the voice alerts and alarm tones independently of one another (except for using "quiet" mode, described below), or to disable the voice alerts. In this regard, I would probably have preferred a DE1650 over the 1660, saving $30 on the useless voice feature.

Different kinds of alerts can be silenced with the "quiet" button as they occur. Also, holding the "quiet" button engages "auto-quiet" mode, which gives an initial alarm on new detections but then quiets down.

Although I can find no published specs on the Whistler's sensitivity, it seems to be good. To test it, I went for a drive on a stretch of highway with several permanently-mounted road radars, and I got at least a quarter-mile's notice on each. It can be a little too good--it also excels at picking out the motion detectors every time I drive by a gas station or grocery store! For such cases, the 1660 has a "city" mode that will sound a simple beep after detecting a weak signal, then beep again only if it gets a stronger signal (it does not attenuate the signal, so you still get the same visual readout regardless).

For hardcore scofflaws who want to use a radar detector where they shouldn't be, the 1660 has a "VG2" mode, named after the Interceptor VG-2, a radar-detector detector supposedly popular with some police departments. When this mode is enabled and the 1660 thinks it is being spied by a VG-2, it will go into hibernation, shutting down all detection and showing "VG2 VG2" on the display. Then it will wake up every 30 seconds, just long enough to see if a VG-2 is still around, and resume normal operations only when the coast is clear. This mode is not particularly useful in areas like mine where radar detectors are legal (and if I lived in an area where radar detectors were illegal... well, personally, I wouldn't be buying one!). It is also unlikely to be helpful come the day when radar-detector detectors are inevitably developed with a design different than the VG-2's.

The Safety Warning System feature is only useful in areas where SWS transmitters are in use. According to the SWS Web site mentioned earlier, they are not widely used here in Washington state, but in Oregon (where I make occasional family visits) they are used by both the State Patrol and the Department of Transportation. So I may get a chance to exercise this feature in the future and post an update to this review.

The alphanumeric display can be set to one of three different brightness settings. The display is not quite bright enough to be read easily in sunlight, even at full intensity. After dark, it is more than adequate, at which time I prefer the "dim" (middle) setting. The truly paranoid can use the "dark" setting to make the display go completely black.

There is unfortunately no memory for the push-button settings, which include city/highway mode, VG-2 mode, display brightness, and auto-quiet mode. These must be enabled every time the unit is powered up. (This is probably a side effect of the power supplied via the cigarette-lighter adapter. In my car, this power comes on only when the ignition is on.)

Another quirk of the 1660 is that it doesn't seem to notice buttons are being pushed if they are clicked too quickly. I had to train myself to push a button, then wait for exactly one-quarter of a second before letting go of it. This gives the most consistent operation. Timing is everything, as holding down a button for a half-second or so is considered a "push-and-hold" operation (there are only three buttons, so "push-and-hold" is used to double the number of push-button commands). Some people may find that pushing buttons harder seems to work better, and thus may mistakenly believe there is a problem with the sensitivity of the buttons, without realizing they are subconsciously pushing a button for longer when they push it harder.

As for mounting, the 1660 does come with a suction-cup mount along with the necessary power adapter, so it is ready to use out of the box. I have a low-angle windshield, so I had to bend the mount bracket to put the detector parallel with the road. I also find I have to give the suction cups a good wet seal to make them stick. But stick they do, even though the detector wobbles nervously in place. A windshield visor clip is optional.

Despite my gripes, I'm pretty pleased with this unit. I won't be testing the limits of the law anytime soon, but I'll feel better with this thing helping to keep me alert on the road.