AR8000- Love It!

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commscanaus

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Jan 27, 2006
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Managed to purchase an AOR AR8000 in brand new condition recently.
The elderly owner had purchased it to listen to the airbands back in the nineties, could not figure out how to use it properly and shoved it in a drawer.
There it stayed until now.

In mint condition with carry case, owners AND service manuals for $100.

Back in the early nineties, I purchased an AOR AR1000 handheld. It was such a poor performer and very difficult to use. I soon gave up on it and sold it, swaring never to get an AOR again.
When the AR8000 came out in 1994, I simply scoffed at it. Hugely expensive and no doubt just as hard to use.

Well here I am 16 years later.....and I love the AR8000!!!
Wish I had bought one back then.
Excellent audio, super receiver (beats the Icom IC-R7100 on the same antenna on airband) and a nice size in the hand.
It scans fast enough and does not seem to suffer from too many birdies.
No where near as hard to use as the AR1000.
Even found the P.C. interface fairly cheaply with the ribbon cables (horrible connection method) and have programmed the set up with close to 800 channels.

If it had CTCSS/DCS, it would be close to a perfect analog scanner for me.

Now this leads me to the question...is the AR8200 as good a radio as the AR8000?

I have a sudden urge to get more AOR radios!

Commscanaus.
 

Turbo68

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Dec 12, 2005
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East Devonport,Tasmania,Australia
I use to own the Aor-8000 paid around $1300 in 1995 from power band in cheltenham excellent receiver across all bands with the right antenna regret selling it currently own the Aor-8200MK3 its also excellent across the bands the only thing i never tried is to programm these radios with frequencies mainly use the Arc-8200/Scan Cat Gold software and only monitor frequencies on vfo been buying aor for over 25 years and they are a fine product & realiable.

Regards Lino.
 

SigIntel8600

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Pine Barrens
I have owned many handheld communications receivers, Icom R3, R20, Alinco DJX-2000, Yaesu VR-500. The AOR 8200 MK II blows them all away IMHO. I think it is the best handheld receiver around.
 

jplyler

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Jul 30, 2003
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Cornelius, NC
I have had 2 x AR8200MKIIs (the first was stolen). The radio is great and really does need an update to include CTCSS/DCS and all that jazz. But where that's not warranted it works like a champ. I do have one issue, however. Sometimes I get a strange interference unlike anything I've had with any other receiver I've ever owned. It's not intermod or anything like that. It sounds really strange, similar to static but not exactly. In the freqs in which it happens I have to run the squelch back to get rid of it. I should have an audio clip of it but I don't right now. Especially prevalent on the air band (VHF). Ideas?
 

Joeee83

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Mar 24, 2010
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Hi there,
i'm desperatly searching the service manual for my AR8000. Would you be so nice to scan it and upload it to a file sharing service or send it by mail?
Greetings,
Joe
 

Joeee83

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Mar 24, 2010
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Thanks i already had this info. But i would need the complete service manual.
For setting up and programming, i can recommend the Butel ARC8000 software. As they don't sell it anymore the only source i have on my mind is the ar8000 yahoo group, where you can get the shareware version of the program. (For me its fully operational)
If you don't have a PC Interface for it, there are also Max232 (I would recomend Max233 as it doesn't need external capacitors) schematic and the pinout for it.
Mounting a Discriminator both for NFM TK10489M or-85M U1 11
and for WFM/AM TA7792F U3 8 is also possible.
Regards,
Joe
 

edgerift

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May 16, 2009
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AOR8000 = great radio. Highly sensitive. great receiver. They hear everywhere. The 8K has a system of mapping the band-plan which allows for total coverage.
Sensitivity goes away above 1.2 gig. maybe before (1ghz).
$100 is a GREAT price for one. I would NEVER sell my 8K for so little.
BTW there is an accessory for voice inversion for the 8K which is (was) pretty cool.
OPen your 8K up and look at how well it is made. it is like a Jewel inside.
ERT
 

Joeee83

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Mar 24, 2010
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Great you mention the voice inversion decoder. Its a little pcb on an horizontal header inside of the unit. If you don't have it, there is supposed to be a jumper on the header to bypass the audio signal.
Reprogramming the bandplan is supported by the butel software but doesnt work for my unit. When i type in the serial commands manually it works out fine.
As long as its available i suppose you might want to save this http://web.archive.org/web/20000929110402/www.laputan.com/~peckish/appendix.html
for advanced modifiactions on the unit have a look at AOR AR8000 Scanning Receiver Modifications
greetings
 
Joined
Apr 14, 2010
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Location
Halifax, NS
Hey guys, sorry if this post is a bit old, but I've been looking at buying an AOR AR8200Mk3 Wide Range Receiver & VI-8200...Im looking to do some HF listening, but have never done so before, so I am kinda lost

Question for you guys who have one, would the VI-8200 make much difference for me, when I will be focusing on mostly HF, my goal being military, mil air, coast guard, maybe some civilian air, I have a 396T so I wont be listening to much above 200MHZ or so on it, if even that high, is there still a need for voice inversion in my area of interest?

Also what/who would I hear exactly, with the Add on?
 

invergordon

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May 5, 2013
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I've just bought an AR8000 for NZ$86!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, eighty-six dollars.

Apparently it has a battery terminal missing and some worn lettering on the keypad, but I'm sure these will not inhibit my enjoyment of the most sensitive of receivers to go into my collection. We'll see what it's like when it arrives in a day or so.
 

foxtail

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Dec 19, 2002
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Niagara Region Canada
Still have an 8200mk1 with the film on the screen, modded cable for disc out and ctcss decoder card. I have been able to use it with software on a win 98 and win 7 pc. great piece.
 

yaesumofo

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Jan 4, 2003
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los Angeles
what is this thread about?

If its about the aor AR_8000 I'm all in!!

I have 2 at the moment one of them has a translucent Blue case I purchased from AOR way back when.


Anyway My AR-8000 is one amazing radio. way ahead of its time.
If you have one do yourself a favor and open it up and have a look at the beautiful circuits they made for it.

They really gave the end user complete control of this radio, allowing you to easily edit the band plan. good receiver!!
$100.00? WOW what a great deal!!

Yaesumofo
 

dkf435

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Apr 15, 2006
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Sweet Home/Foster OR
Hello James, I still do have the AR8000 and Scout that I used to carry around at TRW. Time to trap the VGU remote was under 30 seconds with Scotty talking.

Did the FM filter mod, and the crystal resonator mod also. Have total of 3 AR8000s now, but did miss out on the blue case special run.


Also on Ebay right now Dick Robinson that used to have EEB when they were the importer for AOR has an auction going on EBAY with a whole stack of AR8000 boards side panels, cases displays and hardware.

Think somebody was looking for an LCD awhile back.

New AOR AR8000 Scanner Parts Must Be One AR8000 in There | eBay

David Kb7uns
 

invergordon

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May 5, 2013
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Location
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Well having bought my AR8000 for NZ$86 it arrived as described and after a short visit to my workshop a new battery terminal was fashioned and fitted. Perfect, the receiver can now be operated tethered to the mains power pack or by the four NiMi batteries I installed.

I also sought a new keypad from AOR USA who promptly put me in touch with AOR Japan. Mr Naoto Nozaki there organised me a new pad at a very good price and that is now winging its way from Japan. That was excellent service by Mr Nozaki.

All in all, a happy chappy!
 
Joined
Feb 21, 2015
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Aor 8000

Just picked up a 8000 in mint condition on eBay. Got it for SSB monitoring but it is awesome on airband freqs too!

Really love this classic !
 

TassieJay

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Apr 12, 2012
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Location
Australia
AOR got the AR8000 'just right' in so many respects in my opinion.
Recently, I needed to obtain a scanner that could be used for interference location duties, and was tossing up between the 8200 or 8000. An opportunity presented itself to get an 8000 fairly cheap, so that's what I went with. When the technical specialists bring in their fancy & expensive spectrum analysers... I bring out an AR8000, and can find 90% of problems faster than they do with it!

Not really sold on those clear blue cases for the AR8000... they make it look a bit cheesy / cheap / toy like, and they don't have any RFI-protecting conductive coating on the inside which was a feature of the standard AR8000. How much did that help? I dunno, but my AR8000 can be held in front of a panel antenna which has 100 watts of RF energy blasting out of it, and it still maintains full sensitivity on the input frequency, with no apparent blocking. You can't say that about many other scanners! (Though to be fair, I did trick up the 8000 with mods specially to cope in this very harsh RF environment... see: http://www.scanningtasmania.org/aor-ar8000 )
 

ratboy

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Link gives me a 403 error. I have an 8000 coming to fix for a friend, who just ordered an 8200, so I might end up buying the 8000 from him if I like it. All it needs is the BNC and the speaker replaced. It's not dead, but it's really raspy. I almost surely have a speaker that will fit it, and I should have a BNC that will fit too. Other than those issues, it's working fine, according to him. I always like getting to take apart a radio I've never worked on before.
 
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