Review: BEL GX65 GPS-enabled Radar Detector

One of the best-kept secrets about radar detectors is the Beltronics (BEL) GX65. Overshadowed by its heavily-hyped sibling, the Escort Passport 9500ix, few know that the BEL GX65, save for mostly cosmetic differences, is the same detector. When parent company Escort rolled out the GPS-enabled 9500ix, its subsidiary, Beltronics (BEL), was given a slightly altered version as well. Although the two share a platform, housing, switchgear and electronic innards, each has a distinct personality and targets a different audience. The nuances aren't readily apparent, but after many months of driving with these detectors the distinctions between the two, not to mention with the competition, have at last become clear to us.

BEL promotes this Pro-series model as a sophisticated tool for the serious road warrior. To illustrate that mission, one menu option, for example, is called Tech Display. Once engaged, it will show a radar signal's digital frequency.

While this news generally elicits yawns from most drivers, to the savvy it offers a major advantage. Ka-band signals often are non-police radar, unworthy of any panic-braking. But conventional detectors can't tell the difference and merely display a generic Ka-band alert. In contrast, Tech Display reports the frequency numerically, letting the driver know at a glance whether it's alerting to a passing Cobra radar detector—or the Stalker Dual SL radar in an approaching highway patrol cruiser. Drivers deeply concerned with checking e-mail on their iPhone won't care about Tech Display. But a serious driver, fully engaged in the task of driving both briskly and safely, will appreciate this kind of information and exploit it to maximum advantage.

Expert drivers are constantly multi-tasking, eyes darting incessantly between all three mirrors, scanning the road up to a mile ahead, checking the gauges and instruments, scrutinizing every potential hiding place for a traffic officer. Pro-level drivers are also studying—not merely glancing at—every vehicle approaching from the opposite direction. They're comparing each to a mental flowchart: Is it a full-size sedan, a Ford Expedition or Chevrolet Tahoe or an extended-cab pickup? Is it wearing a light bar? No? Okay, does it have spotlights? How about a Squad Shield or a big push bumper? Any extra radio antennas showing? What about color: fewer than a dozen states use black-and-white livery (CA, TX, OK to name three) but white-over-black is one tell-tale you can spot at long range. There's more to this process, but you get the drift. Those otherwise preoccupied should either back off the gas or expect to get nailed: it's only a matter of time. The pros will be packing a detector like the BEL GX65—and also making maximum use of its considerable information-delivery capabilities.

Motorcycle riders increasingly are packing radar detectors. This Yamaha R6 sport bike is equipped with a BEL GX65 mounted on our Sport Mount; the detector is magnet-mounted for easy detachment. Optional: Bluetooth or wired communication with a helmet headset or earbud speakers; also a Motorcycle DirectWire Smart Cord to power it from the bike's electrical system and operate it from a module near the left handlebar grip.

The black housing of this range-topping Beltronics (BEL) GX65 is thinner than the Escort Passport 9500ix's and its speaker is on top, not the bottom. This arrangement makes the BEL GX65 the better choice for those who prefer to flush-mount the detector on the dash but still want loud audible alerts.

The BEL GX65 has double row of three top-mounted controls. Their shape and spacing differ from the Escort's, making them easier—for this writer at least—to locate and to operate, without snagging an adjacent button in the process. With the Escort, when rushing to mark a location it's possible to hit the power button and shut off the unit by accident. With wider separation between buttons, the BEL GX65 controls are easier to locate by touch and to use, particularly by those with XXL-size digits. Finding those buttons is also assisted by the BEL GX65's more sharply-slanted upper housing, making the controls easier to see from the front, particularly when the unit is mounted high on the windshield. The font of their labels is also larger, making the BEL GX65's switches easier to decipher for those without perfect vision.

The display can be minimized to a small, pulsing red dot for ultra-discrete nighttime running. Discretion in this case means not advertising the detector's presence to detector-poor drivers, many of whom delight in anchoring themselves to the back bumper of anyone who's packing. A sharp driver knows that having some twit drafting him at warp speed is fraught with danger. Stabbing the brakes in reaction to an alert could well result in getting center-punched in back by the moron. Keeping the detector stealthy promotes good PR with the fuzz as well. Many officers dislike radar detectors and rather than issuing a verbal warning, a detector dangling from the windshield may well escalate the enforcement action into a citation instead.

There are other display options. One is vehicle speed, a useful duplication of the speedometer that doesn't require the driver to glance down for that information. It can also be set to display vehicle voltage, letting the driver monitor the health of the battery and charging system. An indication that an electrical gremlin is at work isn't limited to the digital voltage display: if the volts fall below 10.5 or over 16.5 a special audible alert calls attention to the problem. Unless the vehicle has a voltmeter—almost as rare today as "Baby On Board" placards—the first hint of an electrical system collapse will likely be a generic Check Engine warning light. But this covers everything from a frozen engine to a loose gas cap, making the BEL GX65's information rather more valuable. I confess to having once regarded voltage display as marketing puffery—until an experience with a friend and his electrically-challenged BMW 540i Sport induced me to reconsider that opinion.

Over our 86.5-mile-long city loop the non-GPS Valentine One (pink line) claimed to have spotted 92 different radar guns while uttering an endless series of 50 false alarms. The BEL GX65 remained silent for the entire trip. This supernaturally quiet operation is the hallmark of the BEL GPS radar detector.

Audible alerts are by tones or voice. These can be routed via a 3.5 mm audio jack to an external speaker, headphones or, for motorcyclists, a Bluetooth transmitter. With the latter in place, audible alerts can be transmitted wirelessly to a helmet headset. Riders who dislike helmet headsets can use earbud speakers linked directly to the audio-out jack. Once connected, the audio alerts are loud enough to overcome road noise at triple-digit speeds, including on Harleys with straight pipes.

BEL added GPS to this high-performance detector to sharply reduce false alarms generated by roadside sources, mainly radar-controlled automatic door openers. These operate on the same X- and K-band frequencies as does police radar and no detector can distinguish between the two. But the BEL GX65 can. In an encounter with, say, a Walmart door opener, as the detector alerts, the driver taps the mute button on the Smart Cord three times. The detector records the frequency and GPS coordinates of the signal, announcing its action with "Location Marked" or, if audio tones-only are selected, with a special double-beep. It now stores that information in its database, forever after remaining silent in that signal's presence, even if your next visit occurs years later.

The BEL can accomplish this magical feat reliably because every radar operates at a slightly different frequency, so if a radar-toting police car should park nearby, the BEL GX65 will note the new frequency plus the different GPS coordinates and sound an alert.

Threat Display mode tracks up to nine separate radar signals simultaneously, displaying the band and relative signal strength of each. While doing so it warns audibly of the menace, saying "Multiple signals detected" and inviting the driver to take action while there's still time.

A BEL GX65 counts down the distance to a camera. Vehicle speed regulates the onset of the alert; the arrow indicates which approach is camera-monitored.

GPS lets the detector know how fast you're traveling, enabling the use of a second strategy to limit false alarms: variable-speed sensitivity. Exclusive to this BEL and a few Escort models, the strategy lowers sensitivity significantly at the lower speeds common to rush hour traffic, the reasoning being that police radar is hardly a threat under the circumstances. As speed rises, sensitivity increases proportionately.

This elegant bit of engineering makes the BEL GX65 the quietest radar detector at this price point we've tested in 21 years. Alerts are so infrequent, they come as a surprise, which is precisely as it should be. Any radar detector that routinely shrieks warnings for no reason—the Valentine One being most infamous for this unfortunate trait, along with many Cobra models—presents a credibility problem. How does one know when to trust it? Should every alert be answered with a mighty stab at the brakes? And which alerts can safely be ignored? Conventional detectors are hopelessly dim-witted when it comes to threat identification.

We quantified the differences between conventional technology and GPS by testing the BEL GX65 in parallel with another hypersensitive radar detector, the Valentine One (V1). One test used an 86.5-mile-long urban loop. The other test entailed a 759-mile round-trip highway blast from Phoenix to San Diego. On the outbound leg we noted the frequency and location of the spurious signals, then locked-out each with a triple-tap of the Smart Cord's mute button. On the return trip we again recorded each alert from both detectors. We were astonished by the BEL GX65's superiority in resisting false alarms: the Valentine One (V1) reported 133 radar signals, only six of which were police radar. The BEL GX65 spotted the same radars while alerting twice to door openers on the westbound leg and remaining silent on the return leg of the trip.

BEL introduced the GX65 just as automated enforcement took off and it's unusually adept at spotting red light and speed cameras. It ships with its database loaded with every camera in the nation and database downloads are available weekly. Executing the task involves connecting the detector via USB cable to a PC and takes about three minutes.

The database is kept current and it proved dead accurate: during that California test trip it warned of 11 red light cameras, each of which came as a surprise, even to this ex-San Diego resident. Its voice alerts helpfully offer the specifics about an encounter with a camera. As a red light camera is approached, an alert sounds: "Caution, red light camera ahead". The message changes to "Speed camera ahead" if the red light camera is set to Speed on Green, monitoring speed as well as signal status. The onset of camera alerts varies according to vehicle speed, averaging about 400 feet at 40 mph and rising to over 1,000 feet at, say, 80 mph. This keeps alert duration to a tolerable level without compromising the time allowed to react. It also prevents the BEL GX65 from alerting to distant cameras on surface street when you're driving on camera-free urban freeways, a feat the competing Cobra GPS radar detectors find impossible to accomplish.

A GPS radar detector can defend against red light cameras only if they're programmed into its database. And our 18-month test of competing camera databases proved conclusively that the BEL's Defender database, shared with Escort, is the best in the business with a 95 percent accuracy rate.

Knowing whether you're rolling up to a red light or to a speed camera can be critical. The latter is interested only in speed, but a red light camera can also monitor speed plus right- and left turns. For instance, while driving a customer's SUV in Scottsdale I approached a major intersection equipped with no fewer than four red light cameras. The light turned yellow as entered the intersection and, anxious to get clear, I punched it. As I rolled past, the camera flashed. No red light violation; the mailed citation said 56 mph in a 45 zone.

We tested against conventional radar at our two desert sites where the BEL GX65 displayed exceptional radar warning range. At the fairly simple Straightaway Test site its scores replicated those of the 9500ix. It was the same story at the far more difficult Curve Test site where it weighed in with notably better performance than competing Cobra GPS models.

Cheap detectors may spot radar soon enough under favorable conditions, but conditions often favor the opposition. Long range is everything in radar detection.

Judging from the newsgroup chatter some are of the opinion that by adding expensive GPS components, the manufacturers cut some corners elsewhere to take up the slack, hobbling performance in the bargain. We beg to differ. When we tested the BEL GX65 alongside the hotrod Escort RedLine, a non-GPS model, it wasn't all that far behind.

In one exceptional test where the RedLine spotted all four of our radar guns from 14.25 miles away—a record—the BEL GX65 and its Escort sibling spotted them from over nine miles away. This was literally miles sooner than the competition.

Is this a big deal? Not every day, no, but when conditions favor instant-on radar—sparse traffic in the dead of night, for instance—it can mean the difference between getting tagged or not.

The Beltronics GX65 also proved to be uncommonly adept at spotting photo radar vans. Photo radar by design is inordinately tough to detect. From a van or similar vehicle parked at roadside, the sliver of a radar beam is aimed at an angle across the road, photographing speeders at no more than about 125 feet, usually much closer. With no need for long range, the radar beam uses a fraction of the power employed by conventional radar. And with the radar beam pointed away from the detector antenna, the job of spotting this lethal enforcement tool is vastly more difficult than with ordinary radar. Many detectors alert far too late, usually at the moment the photo is snapped, some never alert at all

Here it trailed the Escort Passport 9500ix by a neglible 20 feet when detecting the Ka-band ATS photo radar van. And it scored best-in-class honors in detecting the lethal Redflex photo radar, an ultra-low-powered K-band model, by eking out a slim lead over its Escort sibling.

Competing Cobra GPS models failed entirely to protect from the Redflex, leaving the BEL Pro GX65 (and the Escort 9500ix) as the only GPS-enabled radar detector we've tested that offers comprehensive protection from these commonly encountered types of photo radar.

The BEL Pro GX65's phenomenonal resistance to false alarms, industry-best protection against red light and speed cameras plus its superb detection range against all types of radar, easily earned it top-dog status among GPS-enabled radar detectors at its price point. Drivers less concerned about trendy blue displays and more focused on flying under the radar would do well to consider this cost-effective solution to speeding tickets and the red light camera menace.

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