12 hour test AOR AR DV10

[Boas]

Hello all,

here is a test to determine possible frequency drift problems with my new AOR AR DV10.

TEST Hard/Software:

AOR AR DV10 purchased on 28.07.2022 from AOR-France.
Firmware version: 2203A
For all tests at my QTH (JN38WI), the antenna AOR SA-7000 was used.
Comparison receivers: For HF a SDR ColibriNano (software: ExpertSDR2) was used and for UHF an Airspy R2 plus SDRsharp and DMR Plugin.


The receivers always ran in parallel at the same time and were connected to the AOR SA-7000 antenna.


1st test:

120 minutes decoding MIL-STD-188-141 (USAF) on 9025 kHz. Windows decoder: Sorcerer V1.0.1
After 120 minutes, the AOR AR DV10, with the iPhone decoder https://apps.apple.com/de/app/ale-automatic-link-establishment-mil-std-188-141b-decoder/id578358548 and the SDR ColibriNano continued to decode the connection attempts (Sounding THIS WAS and callsign) without any problems.
Connection SDR ColibriNano via VB-Audio Virtual Apps to Sorcerer V1.0.1.
Connection AOR AR DV10 speaker and microphone recording from iPhone.


2. test:

120 minutes Shannon-VOLMET 5505 kHz. After 120 minutes, the AOR AR DV10 and the SDR ColibriNano clearly reproduced the speech without any problems.


3rd test:

120 minutes of watching the DMR HAM frequency 439.96250 MHz (DB0ORT) from my QTH 25 km away. After 120 minutes, the AOR AR DV10 and the Airspy R2 played back speech without any problems. The DV10 did not miss any transmission from the Airspy R2 DMR.


4th test:

360 minutes of watching the EPRIB frequency 406 MHz with the Windows software decoder Multipsk.
Decoded two test transmissions from an aircraft (Lahr airfield) and two test transmissions from a ship (Rhine).
AOR AR DV10 with COSPAS and Airspy R2 decoded all test transmissions.

Note: My radio shack is located under the roof and I currently have an average room temperature of almost 30 degrees.

I could NOT detect any frequency drift with the AOR AR DV-10.


73
Josef
DE3JGA

 

[palmerjrusa]

Thanks for that update re your DV10

Here's some more of my impressions of the ARDV10 after owning it for a few days now.

I've been monitoring civilian and military traffic on my DV10 and IC-30 the past few days.

This is just my impression, playing around with them, I've no fancy test equipment or anything.

There's a fair bit of military air traffic where I am so I can monitor quite a lot.
I would say the IC-R30 definitely has the edge re sensitivity, maybe not by much, but it's there.

A problem with the DV10 is that if you adjust the squelch to where it's just closed and start scanning the radio makes a "clicking" sound, as if it's "thinking" about opening the squelch. The squelch doesn't actually open, but it causes the display light to be continually on when the radio's "auto display light" setting is activated, and that rapidly depletes the battery.

If you increase the squelch setting to where the "clicking" sound disappears, the weaker signals do not open the squelch. So I don't know what's up with that. In addition, the DV10 suffers from pretty severe intermodulation at frequencies where there's active military air traffic at my location, so I have to place a filter between the antenna and the radio that I bought from ScannerMaster to attenuate FM commercial signals to deal with that issue.

I've never experienced intermod with my IC-R30 in this part of the spectrum (or any other part), it scans just fine, never misses a beat.

My DV10 decodes DMR signals with no apparent issues so far.

Re the DV10 and P25 signals, it's a mixed bag. P25 signals sometimes get decoded ok, but a lot of the time the audio sounds very harsh and "digital", not at all natural sounding like the IC-R30 or my Uniden scanners. In addition, while the IC-R30 and the Unidens indicate the NAC value and a P25 signal's talk group, the DV10 only indicates the NAC value.

I would award an "A+" to the IC-R30 re decoding P25 signals, and only a "C"-rating to the DV10.

Also, there's a weird DV10 setting for the volume control, it alters the degree of volume attenuation. You get the setting wrong with P25 signals and the difference between very loud and ok can be just a single click of the volume control. And the suitable volume ranges for analog vs. P25 signals require you to change the degree of audio attenuation in the menu settings.

The DV10 is a strange receiver.
For a high-end radio it's lacking many features you would expect as standard. While the DV10 has three VFOs, there's no dual receive, you can only monitor one VFO at a time.
There's also no GPS, and the "record" feature is very primitive, you only get a time-stamp, no indication of the frequency or mode etc. with a recording. It resembles the "record" feature of the IC-R20 (I own one) that was a novel radio feature when that Icom model was released over 20 years ago now.

The DV10 also has many lines in the menu option pages that are just blank, it's as if AOR was planning to incorporate other features in the radio, but in the end just didn't bother. It leaves the impression that the DV10 is an incomplete project and was rushed into production for some reason.

 

[eorange]

Why would they not implement the same great recording functionality that the R30 has? And that squelch threshold issue would drive anyone crazy.

 

[Barnstormer7]

Thanks for that update re your DV10

Here's some more of my impressions of the ARDV10 after owning it for a few days now.

I've been monitoring civilian and military traffic on my DV10 and IC-30 the past few days.

This is just my impression, playing around with them, I've no fancy test equipment or anything.

There's a fair bit of military air traffic where I am so I can monitor quite a lot.
I would say the IC-R30 definitely has the edge re sensitivity, maybe not by much, but it's there.

A problem with the DV10 is that if you adjust the squelch to where it's just closed and start scanning the radio makes a "clicking" sound, as if it's "thinking" about opening the squelch. The squelch doesn't actually open, but it causes the display light to be continually on when the radio's "auto display light" setting is activated, and that rapidly depletes the battery.

If you increase the squelch setting to where the "clicking" sound disappears, the weaker signals do not open the squelch. So I don't know what's up with that. In addition, the DV10 suffers from pretty severe intermodulation at frequencies where there's active military air traffic at my location, so I have to place a filter between the antenna and the radio that I bought from ScannerMaster to attenuate FM commercial signals to deal with that issue.

I've never experienced intermod with my IC-R30 in this part of the spectrum (or any other part), it scans just fine, never misses a beat.

My DV10 decodes DMR signals with no apparent issues so far.

Re the DV10 and P25 signals, it's a mixed bag. P25 signals sometimes get decoded ok, but a lot of the time the audio sounds very harsh and "digital", not at all natural sounding like the IC-R30 or my Uniden scanners. In addition, while the IC-R30 and the Unidens indicate the NAC value and a P25 signal's talk group, the DV10 only indicates the NAC value.

I would award an "A+" to the IC-R30 re decoding P25 signals, and only a "C"-rating to the DV10.

Also, there's a weird DV10 setting for the volume control, it alters the degree of volume attenuation. You get the setting wrong with P25 signals and the difference between very loud and ok can be just a single click of the volume control. And the suitable volume ranges for analog vs. P25 signals require you to change the degree of audio attenuation in the menu settings.

The DV10 is a strange receiver.
For a high-end radio it's lacking many features you would expect as standard. While the DV10 has three VFOs, there's no dual receive, you can only monitor one VFO at a time.
There's also no GPS, and the "record" feature is very primitive, you only get a time-stamp, no indication of the frequency or mode etc. with a recording. It resembles the "record" feature of the IC-R20 (I own one) that was a novel radio feature when that Icom model was released over 20 years ago now.

The DV10 also has many lines in the menu option pages that are just blank, it's as if AOR was planning to incorporate other features in the radio, but in the end just didn't bother. It leaves the impression that the DV10 is an incomplete project and was rushed into production for some reason.

Agree with all that, especially the recording function, very primitive and full of bugs . But I think the Icom R30 is in a league of its own, as close to a perfect handheld receiver as you can get, no comparison. It's a "wait and see" game with AOR as to what they can fix and what they can't.

 

[palmerjrusa]

Agree with all that, especially the recording function, very primitive and full of bugs . But I think the Icom R30 is in a league of its own, as close to a perfect handheld receiver as you can get, no comparison. It's a "wait and see" game with AOR as to what they can fix and what they can't.

That's exactly what I was thinking re the IC-R30, in a class of its own.
In other words, typical of Icom gear, does everything Icom claims it will and does them all very well.

AOR have produced some outstanding radio gear (AR7030, AR5000 series etc.), but the DV10 is a very mixed bag.

 

[wb4sqi]

AOR have produced some outstanding radio gear (AR7030, AR5000 series etc.), but the DV10 is a very mixed bag.

I agree. For the price, the R30 is the better of the two by far. AOR apparently are working on the Dv10 to some degree but I have to wonder if it will ever compare with the DV1?

 

[Barnstormer7]

That's exactly what I was thinking re the IC-R30, in a class of its own.
In other words, typical of Icom gear, does everything Icom claims it will and does them all very well.

AOR have produced some outstanding radio gear (AR7030, AR5000 series etc.), but the DV10 is a very mixed bag.

Sadly even my old R20 and Alinco DJ X11 out class this DV10. If not for it's NXDN decoding ability It would go back in the box. Let's all hope that AOR is actually working to update and address all the old problems as well as the new ones. I've sent in "bug reports" to AOR but no reply.
As a funny foot note, they fixed the drift issue but at what expense!

 

[Citywide173]

The DV10 also has many lines in the menu option pages that are just blank, it's as if AOR was planning to incorporate other features in the radio, but in the end just didn't bother. It leaves the impression that the DV10 is an incomplete project and was rushed into production for some reason.

This post: New Uniden SDS100 Handheld

When the SDS100 was still vaporware, there were people like @ur20v that AOR had convinced that the radio would be able to do P25 Phase II trunking. Maybe they planned on adding it, maybe they released early because of the SDS100 threat and they had a better idea than others about what Uniden actually had. Either way, it never materialized and I think a lot of people fell for their hype.

 

[G7HID]

Hello all,

here is a test to determine possible frequency drift problems with my new AOR AR DV10.

TEST Hard/Software:

AOR AR DV10 purchased on 28.07.2022 from AOR-France.
Firmware version: 2203A

Hi Josef, is your new DV-10 within one of these serial number ranges:
AA6336XX AA6337XX AA6338XX or AA6339XX ?

Mike

 

[Boas]

Hi Mike,

yes AA6339XX.

73 Josef

 

[G7HID]

Thank's Josef..

Mike

 

[palmerjrusa]

I will say this about the DV10.

The construction quality is top notch, very rugged build, no "play" in the controls at all (Uniden take note).

 

[palmerjrusa]

Sadly even my old R20 and Alinco DJ X11 out class this DV10. If not for it's NXDN decoding ability It would go back in the box. Let's all hope that AOR is actually working to update and address all the old problems as well as the new ones. I've sent in "bug reports" to AOR but no reply.
As a funny foot note, they fixed the drift issue but at what expense!

The Alinco DJ X11 is a fantastic little wideband receiver, as sensitive as the IC-R30.
Picked one up a while back when HRO had a sale going on this radio.

 

[Barnstormer7]

I will say this about the DV10.

The construction quality is top notch, very rugged build, no "play" in the controls at all (Uniden take note).

Agree with build quality. And its features like the AUT1 and nxdn descrambler works perfect. But like everyone else who paid $1000.+ I expected a finished radio. There are days when it actually performs fine but then I hit a bug. For me the most aggravating issue is that AOR won't respond to bug reports.

 

[G7HID]

Agree with build quality. And its features like the AUT1 and nxdn descrambler works perfect. But like everyone else who paid $1000.+ I expected a finished radio. There are days when it actually performs fine but then I hit a bug. For me the most aggravating issue is that AOR won't respond to bug reports.

They used to reply to bug reports, I reported a number of bugs on my DV1 over the years and up to a couple of years ago they would reply, sometimes sending a beta version of the firmware to see if the bug was fixed... Now they cherry pick who to reply to and the rest are ignored.. If you comment in a public forum this is treated as Fake News and you become a persona non grata ...

Mike

 

[Barnstormer7]

They used to reply to bug reports, I reported a number of bugs on my DV1 over the years and up to a couple of years ago they would reply, sometimes sending a beta version of the firmware to see if the bug was fixed... Now they cherry pick who to reply to and the rest are ignored.. If you comment in a public forum this is treated as Fake News and you become a persona non grata ...

Mike

Copy that. Amendment: It's aggravating that AOR has not responded to my bug reports "yet", I'm sure they will soon...

 

[marlbrook]

Copy that. Amendment: It's aggravating that AOR has not responded to my bug reports "yet", I'm sure they will soon...

Some might 'think' that AOR have people that monitor many Sites / Forums that relate to their products, definitely this one, and report back to the Company.

Also anyone who posts anything which appears to them as criticism, and who can be identified, are put on a blacklist and AOR will not reply to emails from them.

Some may think that, I could not possibly comment.

 

[grosminet]

I'm one of them in France . I had been blacklisted .

 

[Boas]

Hello everyone,
in the last few days I've been doing another test. Recording meteor trails. How does it work?

Antenna: Discone
SD card: 16 GB Discriminator audio recording
Passive radar frequency: 143.050 MHz USB transmitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves_(system)

Because you don't know when a meteor will pass the transmitting frequency 143.050 MHz, you have to let the DV10 record for hours and start the evaluation later, for example with SpectrumLab. It is important that the frequency remains stable because the transmitting beam is largely responsible for the reflection of the meteors.

Here are some pictures of meteor trails I was able to take in the last few days.

73 Josef

 

[Boas]

Sorry, had a typo! The frequency is 143.048 USB.

73 Josef