Northstar Radar/Laser Detector Field Test.

Above: Northstar Unit
Also in Matt Black with Titanium Effect Buttons

This new radar detector is very simple in use, Power it up and all 5 bands come on, you can't turn off any of the bands. It is one problem area as far as I am concerned as we don't use some of the bands it has in the UK and the X band is the biggest problem in my eyes as it causes the most false alarms. Selectable bands on radar detectors are very important.

4 buttons grace the top of the unit, Power, Test, Scan and C/H (City or Highway). The POWER button is simple, press it and the unit turns on or off. The TEST button runs the unit through a simple test mode and demonstrates the various alarm modes. The SCAN button gives you a knight rider look, the LED's sequential light on and off from side to side, it does nothing to the unit apart from make it look flash or annoying which ever way you decide to look at it. The C/H Button is more important, to reduce false alarms around town you are better off in the City mode, on longer open stretches of roads then you must use the Highway setting as this gives the best range. One odd thing I found when going into City Mode the volume dropped. On the side is the power connector and the volume dial.

The warnings are via LED's and Audio. Both do the job well enough but you get no signal strength meter on this unit. The Audio Chirp gets faster as you get closer to the Gatso.

Mounting the unit via the Visor clip or the dash Velcro was a problem for me as my dash is lower than the windscreen base and the visor is higher than the top of the screen, Gendan are addressing this by making the more traditional windscreen sucker mount that should be out soon, (check with Gendan for availability), so I had to raise the unit for my tests.

Looks are odd as far as I am concerned, gone is the traditional black unit, they have gone for black and Walnut effect, I feel it makes the unit look a bit odd and I don't really like it but wood effect in cars is not to my taste.

The power lead is more than long enough and the user guide is very good even covering what it will and won't detect. Over all it is not bad for £120 The real test is does it work?

So what tests did we do?

I did the usual tests on this unit and got odd results, the times shown are the best I got. When I refer to odd results this is what I mean. I did a run round the North Circular road in London, no not the full length but from the A10 to the M4. The unit did false alarm but not by much, Gatso warnings were very good at times but at other times I was almost on top of the Gatso, I did a drive by on some Gatso's using the Valentine One to get a signal reading to make sure the gatso's were on full power most were.

The most important one is the Gatso Test. We have a section of road that we use for all Gatso tests, it has one of the lowest radar scatter fields making it more of a challenge to Radar Detectors it also allows us to do the national speed limit if we want to. All the Radar detectors are tested in the same vehicles and in the same position on the windscreen.

The Northstar was subjected to three passes using a stopwatch to time the unit from the first beep to the point of passing the Gatso to establish an average warning time . Speed was 50mph. Please note warning times can vary subject to conditions.