I got a chance over the past few days to use my AR5700D and try out some features.
One neat feature is the tone/DCS search. The radio can search both CTCSS and DCS at the same time pretty fast. One quirk is ALL sometimes does not immediately get selected with a left turn of the sub knob on the first setting, it goes to the highest tone/DCS. The sub knob needs to be turned back to the right for ALL to be selected. A limitation is the audio remains muted when there is no tone/DCS, unless the CTCSS or DCS is false decoding. It will also decode digital modes when in DALL mode.
I noticed that the receiver will decode Yaesu System Fusion Voice Wide mode (VW) but the display will still say DN.
While there is a global auto-store setting via the AS command over the serial port, the only way I found to do it on the receiver is to put the search bank in a search group and turn auto-store on. The frequencies are also stored in the 1024 frequency search memory. This search memory can not be displayed directly, but can be accessed via the FL command over the serial port. The FL command displays up to 40 entries of the search memory.
I could not seem to get FFT Search to work properly on my AR-Alpha, but it works somewhat better on the AR5700D. It is called Cybersearch on the AR5700D. If a mode like P25 is set, then the receiver will only stop on P25 signals. The save to memory bank 38 seems broken and only stores up to two frequencies at most. Save to memory bank 38 is only active when the global auto-store command (AS) is set to 1 over the serial port. Setting auto-store on in the search group containing the search bank does not work.
FFT Search (Cybersearch) acts differently when using the serial port (FF command). It appears to find multiple frequencies active in the search bank at one time and thus does not output audio from received signals. This also changes the usefulness of the various FL commands. FL2 is useless because only one frequency is outputted. The counts of FL4 seem more duration-based rather than the number of transmissions heard. The FM command over the serial port works properly as I was able to use a FM4 command to store the found frequencies to memory bank 38.
Unfortunately the ARL2300Local program can not do a FFT Search or access the frequency search memory.
Here are sample outputs of the FL commands when using the FFT search (FF command) over the serial port. ... means I truncated the output.
FL000 DL-069 RF0471387500
FL001 DL-076 RF0470812500
FL002 DL-070 RF0471387500
...
FL038 DL-077 RF0470812500
FL039 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL040 ---
FL100 DL-069 RF0471387500
FL101 DL-076 RF0470812500
FL102 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL103 DL-085 RF0472425000
FL104 DL-081 RF0472050000
FL105 DL-082 RF0470237500
FL106 DL-077 RF0470262500
FL107 DL-080 RF0472912500
FL108 DL-076 RF0472962500
FL109 DL-080 RF0470050000
FL110 DL-078 RF0471212500
FL111 DL-080 RF0470662500
FL112 DL-078 RF0470062500
FL113 DL-080 RF0472287500
FL114 ---
FL200 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL201 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL202 DL-060 RF0472412500
...
FL238 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL239 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL240 ---
FL300 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL301 DL-068 RF0471387500
FL302 DL-074 RF0470812500
FL303 DL-076 RF0472962500
FL304 DL-077 RF0470262500
FL305 DL-077 RF0471212500
FL306 DL-078 RF0470050000
FL307 DL-078 RF0470062500
FL308 DL-079 RF0472912500
FL309 DL-079 RF0470662500
FL310 DL-080 RF0472050000
FL311 DL-080 RF0472287500
FL312 DL-082 RF0472425000
FL313 DL-082 RF0470237500
FL314 ---
FL400 CT224 DL-060 RF0472412500
FL401 CT197 DL-068 RF0471387500
FL402 CT162 DL-077 RF0471212500
FL403 CT104 DL-078 RF0470050000
FL404 CT079 DL-080 RF0472050000
FL405 CT077 DL-078 RF0470062500
FL406 CT075 DL-074 RF0470812500
FL407 CT049 DL-079 RF0470662500
FL408 CT017 DL-077 RF0470262500
FL409 CT014 DL-079 RF0472912500
FL410 CT011 DL-080 RF0472287500
FL411 CT007 DL-076 RF0472962500
FL412 CT004 DL-082 RF0470237500
FL413 CT003 DL-082 RF0472425000
FL414 ---
