AOR DV10 - first impressions

Hi all,

I'm from the Netherlands and have the DV10 now for 2 weeks. I did not test he HF side of the radio but mainly the VHF/UHF side and compared it mainly against the Uniden 3600XLT and whistler TRX2.

Sadly I have to say i'm not impressed at all, If I program the scanner with the same frequencies as the other 2 scanners I noticed the DV10 misses up to 60% of the transmissions the other scanner catch easily. all these scanner are on it's stock antenna.

If I use a different antenna on the DV10(like a stock Uniden one), it roughly misses 35% of the transmissions, so a little improvement there.... for what s meter are worth you can clearly see the DV10 is always behind on signal strength.. and this inst a small difference either..

The DV10 also seems to lack some shielding, some might consider this reasonable given its size and capabilities, But this seems to cause unwanted behaviour like being picked up by other scanners within a range of 2 meter. Other thing I noticed is it sometimes receives its own.

If I leave the scanner in auto mode, it sometimes produces a what sounds like a disorted digital signal.. even if take the antenna of, put NSQ up to 35 and place the radio in the closed tin can, it still seems to do this, which lead me to think its picking up its own noise..

Regarding DMR, the DV10 seem to need a much stronger signal then for example the 3600XLT does.. The transmissions i can hear on the my other scanner dont seem to be decoded by the DV10, sometimes it might see the wrong colour code, but thats it.. no audo.

So, it looks like a nice device but how it currently performs versus it's price point.. I would not recommend it. Maybe overtime AOR fixes some of the issues, but that isn't guaranteed.

There is facebook group called "AOR AR-DV10 Digital Receiver" where you can find some of my test videos. Now everyone might have a different opinion on how solid these test are, but I felt like I had to share them.

Are you sure you’re not a Uniden employee? Today is your first post and it’s this...

svenmarbles said:

Are you sure you’re not a Uniden employee? Today is your first post and it’s this...

Click to expand...

Lol... i have a whistler too just to confuse you!

The DV10 isn't a scanner so you will need to program much more for the digital side of things. Could that be one of the reasons you're missing traffic?

Not sure how AOR software programming is but if you go through the EZ-Scan settings and compare them with the DV10 and make sure things are as close as possible, then that would probably a better comparison. You may have done that already.

Start with analog signals and work your way up.

Maybe this explains...

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your helpful messages.

Your feedback, as well as the feedback we received from other customers, has helped us to analyze some problems faced with proper decoding of digital signals. It appears that the supplied rubber antenna, which is fine tuned for the "airbands 110-140MHz", does in some cases not provide the necessary signal strength and signal stability on other bands, for a smooth decoding of the digital modes, such as in the 400MHz area.
In order to provide the best user experience possible, we have therefore decided starting from the next production to add a telescopic antenna free of charge into each receiver box. As you may know, by changing the length of the telescopic antenna, it is possible to adjust to specific frequency bands and signal strengths, for optimal performance. Customers will therefore have the choice to use the rubber antenna or the telescopic antenna, depending on their target bands.
Of course we are not forgetting our esteemed customers who already purchased the AR-DV10, as they will be able, upon demand to the official AOR distributors where they purchased the receiver, to receive the telescopic anntenna free of charge. The antennas should be available end-June/early July, so we ask for your kind patience!

AOR Listens to Customers!

c0ne said:

Maybe this explains...

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your helpful messages.

Your feedback, as well as the feedback we received from other customers, has helped us to analyze some problems faced with proper decoding of digital signals. It appears that the supplied rubber antenna, which is fine tuned for the "airbands 110-140MHz", does in some cases not provide the necessary signal strength and signal stability on other bands, for a smooth decoding of the digital modes, such as in the 400MHz area.
In order to provide the best user experience possible, we have therefore decided starting from the next production to add a telescopic antenna free of charge into each receiver box. As you may know, by changing the length of the telescopic antenna, it is possible to adjust to specific frequency bands and signal strengths, for optimal performance. Customers will therefore have the choice to use the rubber antenna or the telescopic antenna, depending on their target bands.
Of course we are not forgetting our esteemed customers who already purchased the AR-DV10, as they will be able, upon demand to the official AOR distributors where they purchased the receiver, to receive the telescopic anntenna free of charge. The antennas should be available end-June/early July, so we ask for your kind patience!

Click to expand...

I'm impressed with AOR's response to customer feedback on the DV-10. I'll have to consider this as I look at more reviews that are going to appear over time. On paper, the product is impressive.

It would be great if a new DV-10 owner could compare this radio to say a Uniden or Whistler for general analog receive and digital decoding using the same antenna for both radios. That would tell us more if the radio is having problems or if the antenna is at fault as the factory is hinting.

prcguy said:

It would be great if a new DV-10 owner could compare this radio to say a Uniden or Whistler for general analog receive and digital decoding using the same antenna for both radios. That would tell us more if the radio is having problems or if the antenna is at fault as the factory is hinting.

Click to expand...

These tests are done and the results aren’t great at all. I shared videos on the facebook group that i was planning to share here to, untill the first moron suggested i worked for Uniden. I dont invest time in such kind of simple minded fools. Buy one and find out yourself, unless you work for uniden of course, lmao

The reason I asked if another test could be run using the exact same antenna on each scanner is because AOR announced its first run of antennas has problems and that would make any prior tests between different radios using stock antennas void. BTW, I don't work for anybody and I try to freeload off society whenever possible these days.

c0ne said:

These tests are done and the results aren’t great at all. I shared videos on the facebook group that i was planning to share here to, untill the first moron suggested i worked for Uniden. I dont invest time in such kind of simple minded fools. Buy one and find out yourself, unless you work for uniden of course, lmao

Click to expand...

prcguy said:

The reason I asked if another test could be run using the exact same antenna on each scanner is because AOR announced its first run of antennas has problems and that would make any prior tests between different radios using stock antennas void. BTW, I don't work for anybody and I try to freeload off society whenever possible these days.

Click to expand...

Here is a test showing the comparison, bear in mind the DV10 is 3kHz off frequency and even when tuned 3kHz up it still doesn't receive the DMR transmission, all on the same external antenna using a 4 way power divider:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=410cJZjjp2Q

Yea, that looks pretty bad for the DV10. Something to consider is a direct conversion SDR can have a local oscillator running right at the receive frequency and that can leak out of the antenna into other radios and cause interference. I experience this with mostly HF SDRs but it can happen at VHF/UHF.

Not knowing what SDR architecture the DV10 is, it might be a good idea to run the test in the video again unplugging all other scanners from the divider and see if reception changes. If say the TRX-1 is leaking an LO signal on frequency it could be interfering with the DV10. Or the DV10 could be interfering with the other scanners and they might receive better with the DV10 disconnected, which would make it look even worse.

Either way, I had $$ set aside for a new DV10 and cannot justify buying one with the problems I see. If AOR can get the DV10 working as it should then I'll buy one.

woodpecker said:

Here is a test showing the comparison, bear in mind the DV10 is 3kHz off frequency and even when tuned 3kHz up it still doesn't receive the DMR transmission, all on the same external antenna using a 4 way power divider:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=410cJZjjp2Q

Click to expand...

prcguy said:

Not knowing what SDR architecture the DV10 is, it might be a good idea to run the test in the video again unplugging all other scanners from the divider and see if reception changes.

Click to expand...

The DV10 uses a 47.25MHz IF which is digitised, the block diagram shows 2 mixers, one for 100kHz to 76MHz and another for 76MHz to 1300MHz.

The 2 LO seem to be related though, when warmed up the DV10 sits 3kHz off frequency at 450MHz, 8-9kHz off at 900MHz, it can be aligned in the factory menu but there appears to be only one value that can be changed, aligning it for UHF results the HF error (normally 300Hz) increasing to 600Hz, I presume that both LO are drived from the same oscillator, the radio is a mess. There is a block diagram in the Yaesu brochure here:-

https://www.yaesu.com/downloadFile....t AR-DV10.pdf&FileContentType=application/pdf

A list of the most important faults/bugs is here:-

https://www.aoruk.co.uk/aor-ar-dv10-faults-and-problems/

AOR have given no confidence they will (or can) fix the main issue which is the frequency drift/error, Yaesu have not replied to a single email, most users only get an auto reply from AOR, I don't think they give a crap, its not fit for sale.

I was going to purchase a DV-10, however, after seeing the reviews by many who own one...I think it would be best to wait until another version is released. Most manufacturers run a great many of tests before releasing equipment to sell. My impression with AOR is, they don't and suffer the consequences later. I've noticed this with the AR 8200 series as 3 remakes of this version were released. The AR Dv-1 seems to be a much better choice as it is right on frequency and has no drifting.

Attn to Moderator: Please stop insults

svenmarbles said:

Are you sure you’re not a Uniden employee? Today is your first post and it’s this...

Click to expand...

I agree with you ! For the month protested DV10 and the Japanese brand AOR without having a single device.
Finally, he decided to buy one.

I would like someone to tell me what kind of person could buy something he hates? I am not a doctor, but there is an illness that explains this.

But maybe he does not have DV10? Can C0ne give us the serial number of his DV10 to prove his good faith?

For many weeks, c0ne also insulted me on this forum and no moderator dismissed him. it's deafening!

F5HPE said:

I agree with you ! For the month protested DV10 and the Japanese brand AOR without having a single device.
Finally, he decided to buy one.

I would like someone to tell me what kind of person could buy something he hates? I am not a doctor, but there is an illness that explains this.

But maybe he does not have DV10? Can C0ne give us the serial number of his DV10 to prove his good faith?

For many weeks, c0ne also insulted me on this forum and no moderator dismissed him. it's deafening!

Click to expand...

Hey snowflake, cry me a river!! I never insulted you, you are the one that keeps coming after me just like you did here again. For the record i dont own you anything. You think i made up this video without owning a DV10? Man.. you’re are bit pathetic and clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box. You are AOR retailer with false motives to harass anyone who says something bad(honest) about the DV10.

not sure why i’m posting this, but lets call it proof of your false accusations

Folks, if you can't play nice, I'm taking away the ball.

To everyone and especially to our European friends, play nice. Making insults and accusations is not permitted in the RadioReference forums.

This thread is closed. If anyone has additional information to pass along regarding the AOR DV10, please start a new thread and post your first person findings.