I notice Beltronics market their systems as being 'software upgradeable', however in practise what does this mean?

My Bell LR is 'sw upgradeable' so I should be able to upgrade it to look for the Ku band, however why would Beltronics offer this as opposed to asking me to upgrade to a 990?

So is s/w upgradeable just a marketing ploy?

Greg

 

Many systems are software upgradeable.
A good example is a 3Com (USR Courier)
modem.

4 years ago I bought one which was twice the price of similar non-upgradeable models. Hence when a new modem standard came out, V.90, I just downloaded the new code and software upgraded the modem to handle the new standard.

Hence even though I originally bought a 28.8kbps modem it now works at 56kbps since it is software upgradeable.

To answer you question, no it is not a gimic it is for real, check out:

 

Err, thanks John, but what does a modem being sw upgradeable have to do with a radar detector!

A modem plugs into a computer, thus is fairly easy to upgrade, a radar detector doesn't!

Cheers,

Greg

 

Greg,

The significance of the software upgradeable modem to your radar detector is that they both use a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chip. A DSP is just a specialised processor and as such it runs a program just like your PC. Within certain limits, reprogramming the DSP can add new functions, or remove certain glitches or problems, such as false detections etc in the same way as John's modem was upgradable to support a new comms standard.

I suspect the detector is 'software upgradable' by a dealer or service center rather than you. They can open the case and change the program stored in the EPROM or flash memory. In terms of the ability to enable or disable detection of a particular radar band, this would probably be constrained by the analogue or RF hardware of the detector.

Companys like software upgradable devices because they a) add a USP for the customer b) allow them to correct bugs in the firmware that are identified after releaase and c) allow them to update the product for minimal cost to keep it competitive.

Cheers,

Alex




[This message has been edited by AlexM (edited 08-03-2000).]

 

You must have a radar programmer with it surely.


You just point the emitter at the detector and beam the new code in...

Perhaps you could upload via the ciggy lighter socket attached.