Beltronics BEL 980 Radar Detector

I purchased a Bel 980 in November of 2000 based on the favorable reports I had seen on the internet and in magazines. I drive approximately 180 miles round trip to work and back and spend a lot of time exceeding the posted speed limits so a quality radar detector is a necessity for me. When I first got the 980 I left all the default settings in place and headed off to work. The first day it warned me of a speed trap in a location where I would not have expected one saving me from an expensive ticket. I was immediately impressed with the range and sensitivity of the 980, but the longer I used the 980 the less I liked it. It's extreme sensitivity is a major selling point for the 980, but it is also a nuisance because it translates into numerous false alarms. Most of the false alarms I received were on X band and there are no X band Police radar units in my area so I decided to program the 980 to ignore X band. This is where I encountered the second negative area, the complex method of programming the 980. I have worked with computers for more than 15 years and consider myself to be somewhat of a gadget freak, but even so I found programming the 980 to be a challenge. The manual is not very detailed and the method of programming is less than user-friendly. There are a number of useful settings that I feel will go unused by the majority of 980 owners simply because these settings are poorly documented and hard to find.

Anyway, after setting the options to suit my preferences, I used the 980 for about 4 months and for the most part was happy with it. One quirk that I found was that if you park your car facing a store front window or other reflective surface at night, when you start to leave your headlights will reflect back and the 980 will interpret this as a laser signal. If you have just turned on the detector and it is going through the self test it will fail when it reaches the laser test. This was easily remedied by waiting to turn the detector on until you pulled away from the parking space, but it was a nuisance.

As the weather warmed, I began noticing that my 980 seemed to be very sensitive to heat. I had the detector mounted on the windshield using the factory suction cup mount (which is one of the nicer mounts I have seen) and the sun shining through the windshield would cause the detector to get very hot. When the detector was hot it would not pass the self test upon start up. Removing the detector from the mount and cooling it in front of the A/C vent would allow you to turn the detector back on. This problem worsened until it reached the point where the heat produced by the detector itself was enough to cause problems. One night recently I was driving down the interstate and stopped for gas. When I started to leave the detector failed the self test. I knew it obviously wasn't the heat from the sun this time, but I reached up and took the detector from it's mount and the case was very warm. I cooled it off and it worked fine, but after about 10 minutes I reached up to check it and it was very warm again. I turned the detector off then back on and again it failed the self test. The detector also began to emit random beeps on the hotter days. These beeps were unlike any of the radar or laser alerts and none of the visual indicators would light up, it would just sound a faint beep. I contacted Bel customer service and was told that the detector needed to be sent back to be re-calibrated. I am just now sending it back so I can't say whether or not that will correct the problem, but for a detector in this price range (I paid $277) to be needing service after only a few months of use indicates to me that quality control may be a problem with the 980.

In my opinion, while the performance of the 980 is excellent, there were too many negative factors (false alarms, complexity, heat related problems) for me to recommend this detector. I purchased an Escort 8500 when it became apparent that I would have to send the 980 back for service, and after using it I plan on keeping the Escort and selling the Bel.