How to Program your Escort Passport

If you already own a radar detector you know how annoying k-band false alerts are becoming.

This is due in large part by the adaptive cruise control and blind spot sensors the car manufactures have been installing in new cars today as these sensors operate on the same K-band frequency police use.

And as more and more these newer cars hit the road this problem is going to get a lot worse.

Because of this issue Escort recently came out with a new Digital Signal Processing algorithm, which in effect looks for the DNA profile of real police radar while filtering out many of these false alerts caused by these sensors.

Escort has then integrated this new DSP technology into their three newest radar detectors, the Passport, the Passport Max and the Passport Max2.

Now during this video we will share with you how to properly configure your Passport radar detector so you can take advantage of this filtering, along with increasing its performance by segmentation.

Now there are two ways you can program the advanced features of the Passport manually by simultaneously pressing the brightness and sensitivity buttons, or by using the Escort Live app installed on your smart phone.

Now there are a number of things that you can change such as the color of the display, the mute functions, the voice and even the language.

However what we will focus on during this video is programming the detector for maximum performance.

If you have not already done so make sure that you register your Passport radar detector by going to the Escort website.

But before you do make sure that you have the serial number from the detector, its printed on a label on the outside of the box.

After you do that install the Escort Live app on your smartphone and pair the device through your Bluetooth settings and log in to your Escort Live app.

Now we will be using Escort Live on an iPhone so if you have an Android device the screen may look different however the settings we will be changing on the detector will be the same.

Now on the bottom right corner of the iPhone you’ll see a blue gear, press it and this page will open where you will be able to program your detector.

Then right here you will see Radar Settings, press on that and this screen will open.

The first setting we have is the sensitivity of the radar detector with Auto, AutoNoX and Highway.

By selecting Highway mode your detector will be at its most sensitive mode.

Now when you’re radar detector is paired to your smart phone it will use the GPS of your phone to automatically adjust the settings when you have selected Auto.

Example you’re driving in a shopping center parking lot at a speed of 20 miles per hour. Your Passport will sense this and turn its filtering to its max blocking out false alerts from the stores automatic door openers.

After leaving you hit the highway and you’re cruising along at a speed of 65. Again your Passport senses this and will automatically adjust to highway mode.

Now AutoNoX is basically the same setting as Auto however you’ve deactivated X band.

Now one question we are frequently asked is should I keep X band on and the answer is that depends.

X-band is the oldest radar band in use and the only state that still has an open contract for X band guns is the state of NJ.

However there have been several reports of police still using these older X band radar guns in Indiana and Ohio.

So unless you frequently drive in these areas I would recommend disabling X band.

Next we will drop down to the band setting area.

The first thing we would want to make sure that POP is disabled.

MPH is the only company that manufactures POP radar guns and basically what POP mode does is the radar gun sends out a short burst of radar at 67 milliseconds.

Now the manufacture recommends that an officer not use POP mode as a basis for issuing a speeding ticket because the reading may be inaccurate and the officer is unable to obtain a visual tracking history using this mode.

Because of this you have better chances of being struck by lightening then ever being hit with POP mode.

And if you do activate POP mode you’re opening up your detector to receive a lot more false alerts, so our recommendation is to keep it disabled.

The next setting we have in Ka Band.

Ka-Band is the widest radar band your detector has to scan, however there are only three segments of the Ka band here in the US used by police.

So what we will do is deactivate Ka-band here and then go to the bottom of the screen and turn Ka band 1, 3 and 4 on.

This will now enable your Passport to scan Ka band quicker and alert to instant on Ka band much earlier.

The next setting we will change is X-band.

Now as we mentioned earlier NJ is the only state that still has an open contract for X-band radar guns, so unless you live or drive in NJ we will turn it off.

The next setting is TSR, which stands for traffic safety sensors, and this controls the K band filtering of your detector.

By enabling TSR we are programming the Passport to filter out quick bursts of K-band signals that are caused not only by the traffic safety sensors, but also by the blind spot and adaptive cruise control sensors.

If you find that you’re getting an over abundance of K-band alerts make sure that this is activated.

Under this we have RDR, which stands for Radar Detector Rejection.

Many of the cheaper radar detectors leak a Ka-band signal right around 33.6 ghz.

Now by keeping Ka segment 2 off your detector will not scan that portion of the Ka band spectrum, so we would recommend deactivating RDR to increase the performance of your Passport.

Now that you’ve programmed your detector settings for maximum performance there are still a number of other setting you can change such as the color of the display, alert tones and so on.

Just go to these areas on your smart phone and adjust them to your personal preference.