Living in Virginia, I have no choice but to make the V1 completely stealthy, lest I get a ticket and possibly have it confiscated. I leave the Valentine suction cup mounted under the windscreen, but only make use of it when I am outside the state. While in VA, I put the unit inside my right side saddlebag, losing some of the sensitivity to X, K, and Ka radars and all sensitivity to laser - so far, so good, though. Running the cables up and down the bike in order to make it possible to use the V1 in both locations is a little tedious, but worth it to me. The cables run under the fairing lip, under the left sidecover and into the under-seat area. Coming up with a functional but stealthy arrangement was very time-consuming, but now it all works fine.
One story about the virtues of concealment: While riding the Blue Ridge Parkway substantially above the 45mph limit, I flashed by a cop who motioned to me to pull over. Not having gotten an alert on the V1 that lay concealed inside my multivario, I knew that his radar was not on, so when he asked me how fast I thought I was going, I deadpanned '45mph'. He pressed me but I stuck to my guns, knowing he in fact did not know how fast I was going; he of course didn't know that I knew he didn't know (follow that? -). Anyway, I rode away with a 'I'll tell my fellow deputies to be on the lookout for you' threat, and as I rode away the V1 told me he had turned his radar on. Would this have turned out differently if the V1 had been there staring him in the face?
I used wide velcro to make the V1 removable when inside the bag. The phone-type cable passes through a hole I made in the side of the bag and connects with another cable under the seat. The hole is very small and filled completely by the cable - no leakage. When I want to remove the saddlebag from the bike, I take the seat off, disconnect the cable and that's it. Also, in this configuration, I found it necessary to remove the plastic knob and mute ring from the unit and to tape on a protector over the brass stem that is left protruding. That is because otherwise, something in your bag might press on the stem, which at best will change the setting from "big L" to "A" to "little L", and at worst will take you into the technical mode used by Valentine service people. You will then have to call Valentine, etc... Just protect the stem.
Putting the V1 on the windshield mount simply requires pulling out of the bag after disconnecting the wire, and slipping it in the windscreen mount. Note on the pic above that I have a stick-on pad on the top of the unit. That is so that the V1 slides into the mount only far enough to be horizontal with the ground. This pad also prevents it from sliding further and further into the mount as the bike hits the inevitable bumps. If you allow it to do that, the unit will begin to point to the ground, and eventually will press on the metal bar connecting the two suction cups, releasing the whole thing. The wire is snaked under the instrument panel and up the side of the tach under the rubber flap. If the unit falls off - which only happened once before I put the stick-on pad on the top of the unit - the wire prevents it from falling off the bike. At least it did with me... I have gone through some pretty awesome bounces with the V1 on the windscreen mount and it has never fallen off.
This was more tricky. I had to fashion an aluminum bracket which I then screwed into the tube located under the instrument panel. This involved drilling and tapping this tube in two locations, a simple operation. The pic below on the right shows it somewhat, but given the angle and darkness, it is hard to clearly image.
Again I fashioned an aluminum bracket, velcroed the adapter onto the bracket, and then velcroed the top of the bracket and underside of the fairing lip. Because this arrangement would make the on/off/volume/mute impossible to manipulate with the left hand, I took apart a brass saddle valve, used for tapping into an existing water line by plumbers, and a piece of aluminum tubing to fashion an extension. I put in a right-angle connector for the audio connector to ease removal and also because otherwise, a straight-line connector is visible to someone standing on the right side of the bike, and might invite questions. The cable plugged into the audio jack is run to the under-seat area where it is soldered into the right side of the AM/FM radio's audio-out circuit. That way, I can hear the V1's audio alerts while listening to my radio, but only in one ear so it the beeps are less bothersome. The on/off/volume/mute control is accomplished by manipulating the saddle valve stem.
