Your authority on radar detectors for the Australian driver

The RX65 has always been given great reviews from or within the USA. It was designed for North America, and performs best in this location.  Whilst being an excellent detector for North American radar threats, it doesn't, perform best in Australia for two reasons.  Firstly is is NOT invisible to RDD's such as the Stalcar (Spectre in the US) deployed in Eastern Australia. If you choose to operate a RX65 on the East Coast of Aus, you run the risk of it being detected and the unit confiscated.  Fines vary from state to state, you can view these on our FAQ page; question 8.  You can see some videos on how far the RX65 can be detected by the Spectre 2 and Spectre3 above.

The second reason the RX65 isn't the best choice for Australia is that is has very poor performance against Multanova Speed Cameras used in Western Australia and New Zealand.  Inconsistent would actually be a better description.  On some occasions the Bell RX65 detector would give a couple of hundred metres warning on the cameras, but other times, as little as 50m.  The RX65 was never designed to deliberately "sniff out" Ka narrow band signals, like the Bel 990i was, and so for this reason is not ideal for Multanovas

So for these two reasons, we don't recommend the RX65 as the best choice for Australian conditions as the other detectors perform better and / or are much better suited.

Review by nvr2fast 7/9/04

"I have tested the RX65 against the Multanova 6F (34.3 KA band frequency), which is a very common and popular brand of radar outside of the USA, and is used extensively in Europe, Asia, Australia, etc. I am personally in Asia.

For these photo radars (photocop), the radar and camera is pointed forwards together with the outgoing traffic (to imagine, it is taking a photo of the rear number plate as you pass it, NOT the front like in the USA). So basically as you pass the radar/camera, it detects your speed and if you are speeding, it takes your photo.

Now, I've tested 2 different radar setups 10 times going back and forth on 2 separate occasions, so there is little chance that my results are a "fluke".

What I found is that if you are on the opposite side of the road (ie. not the side the radar/camera is operating), then the RX65 can detect it almost 8-10 seconds away while going approximately 60-70Kmph.

However, if you are on the same side of the road as the radar again at 60-70Kmph (the side that the camera can shoot your rear number plate!) then the warning is anywhere between 1 to 3 seconds ONLY! In my mind, 1-3 seconds is NOT SUFFICIENT to slow down or react. I was almost next to the radar before it beeped! I was actually watching the radar get closer... closer... waiting for it to beep...waiting.... THEN it beeped as i was almost there with only a second or two to react.

Also note that the radar must be put into "INTL" mode and not "USA" or "DEF" (default) mode. In any mode except International mode, ABSOLUTELY NO response is received. So I am sure that in USA mode, 34.3 KA band frequency is not monitored by the RX65 (if you know what frequencies USA mode monitors, please reveal!). This is not explained in the manual.

Also, I had the detector in "HIGHWAY" mode for maximum range and detection already! I predict that in "AUTOSCAN" and other modes, the performance will be WORSE.

I also tried progressively turning ON/OFF the X band, K band, KU band, and POP band, hoping the results would improve, but it didn't affect anything at all. Finally I turned everything else off except KA band (X band off, K band off, KU band off, POP band off, KA band on) and it still only responded about 1-3 seconds before the camera/radar, so there was basically no difference.

My friends with the Valentine 1 (V1) also tested it against the same radar, and they got about 2-5 seconds warning. This isn't a huge difference, but it is very slightly better.

Personally I would say you need at LEAST 5 seconds warning before the radar to react and slow down.

I even sent my unit back for replacement once, because I thought the perfomance couldn't possibly be this poor, but the same happened again. I purchased from a large authorized seller for Beltronics in the USA.

As a side note, when POP band is enabled it seems there are quite a few false alerts/warnings.

Also, the Escort 8500 X50 has basically the same electronic internals except with voice alerts and KU band disabled (same microprocessor, same antenna), so I cannot imagine it performing any better than the RX65 (I have not personally tested this unit's performance so I am not 100% on this but 99%. Maybe someone else with the 8500 X50 can directly test and comment!)

Overall, I am disappointed that the RX65 performs so poorly outside of the USA. This unit is supposed to be the BEST unit offered by Beltronics, so if this "best" unit performs so poorly, I can't imagine how the lesser units are going to perform"