I presume some of you saw my YouTube video of the AR-DV1 here in Los Angeles at
https://youtu.be/2O46DOwuF_g I rotated the video through the YouTube Editor but still cannot get it right. So some of you guys will probably say "Steve doesn't know up from down, left from right" and you're probably right. Now to get serious.
I downloaded the new firmware 1505G about 90 minutes ago and have been using it with the AR-DV1.
I don't really see any improvements in some of this issues I have described. If you look at my YouTube video with the 1505C firmware just before the update, you'll see a scan speed on analog of about 10-12 sec and much lower on digital. When the radio hits a digital signal, it really seems to stall, then picks up speed. However, this is only when I turn the squelch up to more than 80. Anything less, and the scanner stalls in search and scan. The new firmware doesn't do any better, and perhaps a bit worse. I am also not really impressed with the digital decode and voice quality, either analog or digital. Its OK, but only OK. I would expect much more from a receiver in this price range.
I told Taka and Jeff at Ham Station I would keep the radio for one more firmware update, but in the last 90 minutes, I can see there is nothing major that will help me. I hope many of you find this radio to be useful. Perhaps if software becomes available, and if I see a few great future reviews, I might be inclined to actually purchase the AR-DV1. But not at this point.
By the way, during the time I have been writing this post, the radio has gotten hotter, the scan function has stopped working, and the radio is making a loud clicking noise, and there is now no receive function, even on the weather stations. Turning the radio off and on stopped the clicking, and the receive function came back on.
