Does anyone have an AOR 8200?

[ryangassxx]

If so, how do you like it? And how would you say it stacks up against other popular scanner models?

I just made a trade for one and am curious what I can expect.. I really like the frequency coverage on it.. 500Khz - 2.0Ghz pretty much covers everything..

 

[Turbo68]

The AOR-8200 is an excellent receiver and its one of the best around.

Regards Lino.

 

[morfis]

If so, how do you like it? And how would you say it stacks up against other popular scanner models?

I just made a trade for one and am curious what I can expect.. I really like the frequency coverage on it.. 500Khz - 2.0Ghz pretty much covers everything..

I have a couple and like them a lot. Far better receiver performance than most of my Unidens.
Downside possibly that they don't natively support trunking (not an issue for me as I don't have them for that). Memory, though conventional bank arrangement, is fairly flexible. Scan/search speeds are reasonable. Programming is fairly straight-forward (and there is plenty of software around to help if necessary) but slow.
You don't say which version of the 8200 - original, MII or MIII, US market or unblocked. There are minor differences.

 

[ryangassxx]

Just the original AR8200 is the one I'm getting..

 

[morfis]

Early versions had poor internal shielding

 

[ryangassxx]

Early versions had poor internal shielding

What does that mean exactly?

 

[morfis]

They suffered a lot of internally generated noise/birdies.
AOR would be able to advise you from which serial number they had the improved shielding. AOR UK found the problem and modified the units they held before the official modification was done at the manufacturing site.
There were notes on how to effect a DIY modification on the original hobby AOR8200 website, run by someone in the UK, which might be archived online somewhere. If the site is archived it had a wealth of information about home made interfaces for radios etc as well.

 

[ryangassxx]

They suffered a lot of internally generated noise/birdies.
AOR would be able to advise you from which serial number they had the improved shielding. AOR UK found the problem and modified the units they held before the official modification was done at the manufacturing site.
There were notes on how to effect a DIY modification on the original hobby AOR8200 website, run by someone in the UK, which might be archived online somewhere. If the site is archived it had a wealth of information about home made interfaces for radios etc as well.

Are you sure you're not thinking about the AR8000?

Because in the Strong Signals review of the AR8200 they said there were very FEW birdies across the entire spectrum..

Here's a clip of the article..

Performance
To test the AR8200, it was subjected to a birdie test for a measure of internal interference suppression, an in home test for images and intermodulation, an urban assault test to measure the effects of strong signal bombardment, and finally, compared back-to-back with an AR8000 to see how it compared to its older sibling.

The AR8000 had a horrible reputation for a large number of wide birdies which follows a pattern associated with this manufacturer. Luckily, it looks as though the AR8200 has broken that string of bad designs. Between 25 and 1300MHz I only found 14! Compare that to the AR8000's 250+. Of these, 3 of them won't even be tunable by US versions while the others are within the TV bands or above 900MHz.

and here's a link to the entire article,..
http://www.strongsignals.net/access/reviews/reviews.cgi?type=display&rtype=rev&class=recv&num=018



I think you might be thinking of the model even BEFORE the AR8200 that had that problem..

 

[morfis]

Are you sure you're not thinking about the AR8000?


I think you might be thinking of the model even BEFORE the AR8200 that had that problem..

No, I'm talking about the AR8200 (that is eight thousand two hundred for the hard of hearing). I also own a couple of AR8000's which are excellent birdy receptors (and also superb V/UHF receivers with cases designed to fit modifications!).

As I said, do a search and see if there is an archived version of the original hobby AR8200 website and contact AOR to find out from which serial number the improved shielding was fitted by the factory (bearing in mind that AOR UK modified radios before this number on site when they realised there was a problem)

(bad spelling day)

 

[morfis]

Try looking at the ar8200 yahoo group archives also. Just had a quick browse through that and the problems were mentioned quite frequently on there as is the URL of the original AR8200 hobby site. The site has long been discontinued so any normal links to it will not work. The person who maintained the site does not have it archived (was lost during a house move)

 

[morfis]

The official reply from AOR UK as posted to the yahoo group:

****************************************************************************
******************
Hi, Thanks for the e-mail...

Our parent company AOR Japan passed modification information to us
stating that if the original screening plate was extended to also cover
the RAM, internally generated microprocessor noise would be reduced.

In the UK every set was retro fitted with this extra larger plate in the
workshop of AOR UK Ltd.

The larger screening plate is now fitted during production. The last
few shipments from Japan have included this larger screening plate.

AOR UK Ltd is a small company that "looks after" the UK market.

AOR USA is an office for AOR Japan. I can only suggest re-approaching
AOR USA. Alternatively you could contact AOR Japan:-

AOR Ltd
2-6-4 Misuji
Taito-Ku
Tokyo 111-0055
Japan
Tel: +81 3 3865 1695
Fax: +81 3 3865 1697
e-mail: post@...
WEB http://www.aorja.com/

****************************************************************************
******************

Where they say "every set" that is only after a certain date/serial number. If an early set was returned to them they fitted the shielding whilst they had it (I had this and the thumbwheel changed on two early models)

 

[wvscanner]

I owen one of the 1st aor8200 and yes, they did later mention that it had a sheild problem covering the processor and something else. At times you would see the noise from whatever was flashing on the screen. I still own it but I busted my screen display and not able to use since I can not see what mode it was in. I still can turn it on and tune by hand a freq. but again not sure if it is in am, fm, wfm,..ect. I have planned on sending it in for repair, at one time aor said they would fix the sheild problems if they were sent to them but I'm not sure if they will do that on their own anymore.
Jeffery Smith

 

[cristisphoto]

I own the AOR Mark 3
With The TCXO Built in to Stop overload
Cant Speak on behalf of the Mark 1 nor 2
but mine the 3 is among THE best if not THe best in Handhelds
Nothing but joy here..
DOnt worry youll be happy so long as you get a "reel" Antenna or any Anttenna Designed for that range as without them the Unit can not be blamed for ANY lack of reception
Good Luck
Crista

 

[n4voxgill]

I have the european version that was reprogramed for the US band plan. I also have the extended memory, ctcsss, voice inversion and one other SD card that expands the AR8200 MK III. I use mine primarily on milair, the voice quality and sensitivity is fantastic.

If you want to see all the information on the MKIII www.javiation.com is great. That is wherre I ordered mine from, and Jonathon will answer any questions. Some times he is slow to respond, but it will come.

 

[DaveIN]

The EM-8200 is not a secure digital card, it's a memory expansion card, but I think I understood what you mean

The AOR8200 in any form is a great receiver. I've had most of the incarnations except the IR Military version. It does well on HF surprisingly with the right antenna. I like it for Mil-air mobile monitoring.

 

[n4voxgill]

they are shaped like SD cards, not sure that they are not. Just slide them in their slot.

 

[wa8vzq]

I owned an AR 8200, green case version, for about 6 months and was very disappointed with its performance. We use AR8200MK3's at my work and I had expected that the 8200 would be similar. I would say that my experience with the AR8200MK3's is quite positive and I would consider purchasing one of these. There is a clear difference in performance.

I also have to admit that I had been spoiled by the performance my Yaesu VR-500 that I have owned for many years. I considered that the AOR's were a better receiver (the 8200MK3's are) but did not do my homework on the 8200 I purchased. My expectations were that I was going to get much better performance between 500 Khz and 30 Mhz. That didn't quite work out as planned.

I was underwhelmed by several issues with this version of the AR8200:

Sensitivity in AM broadcast band was poor.

Sent it back to AOR USA who replaced the RF amp module. That improved sensitivity but it was still poor. Comment from one of the tech's there was that this version had notoriously poor sensitivity. They are a first rate operation out there by the way. No qualms with their service and I give them high marks for being frank.

The S meter would not indicate for signals below 10 microvolts. This did not improve when the RF amp was replaced nor was it a calibration issue. I recalibrated using one of the free AOR control programs and I was using calibrated test equipment for measurement. I even tried pushing my own calibration settings into the radio using some of the AOR control codes. That didn't work very well either.

Although it had 1000 channels I found the memory layout to be very annoying. My VR-500 also has 1000 channels which are logically divided into banks of 100 channels. The green case AR8200's channels are not laid out in that pattern. I'm not going to try to explain beyond stating that it wasn't logical in my book.

One last negative point was that I could not fit NiMh batteries into the case. It appeared that the shape of the radio battery terminals wouldn't allow the NiMh's fit squeeze into the case. I had never considered that, asssuming that a AA NiMh would be exactly the same size as an alkalyne. Apparently that's not quite exactly true, at least with the ones that I own. My Alkalynes fit fine, NiMh's don't. However, all AA types fit into my VR-500.

All that being said, parted with the radio.

Dan

Apple Valley, MN

 

[gcgrotz]

I've had the same problem with my green case 8200. It seems that the slots for the positive terminals on the batteries is marginally too small. You have to try different brands to get some to fit. Right now I'm using some no-name imported 2400 mah cells from Big Lots that fit ok.