Icom R20 , Alinco DJ-X2000, or AOR AR8200 MkIII

[joenhre]

Hello,

I'm looking for some opinions on these three receivers.
I already have a new Uniden BCD 396T for scanning digital
and analog trunked systems.Now I'm looking for a Wide Band
handheld receiver and have narrowed it down to the 3 listed
in the title.I've searched around the web and have read
reviews and user opinions on all three,but have not found many
side by side comparisons of them.

Right now I'm kind of leaning towards the R20,seems to have
alot of the features I want built in, unlike the 8200 where you need
to spend extra for addons that you can only use one at a time.
I also like some of the "gadgets" included on the DJ-X2000,
such as the Flash Tune and Voice descrambler.I know of a couple
of local frequencies that still use the old voice inversion so that
descrambler might come in handy.Also the Alinco has the edge when
it comes to memory capacity.

So if I would have to rank them by which one I think I will be purchasing first.It would go
1.Icom R20
2.Alinco DJ-X2000
3.AOR AR8200 MK3

Still,if anyone has owned all three or even just one of these receivers,
I would like to get you opinion before I decide on which one to go with.


Thanks,
Joe

 

[DaveIN]

Each one of those radios is excellent for what it does, but the Icom R-20 has a real dual receiver (able to listen to two frequencies at once), fast searching and scanning, super long battery life, and the abillity to record live audio directly.

 

[ka3jjz]

But keep in mind that if you do milair, the R20 has a serious flaw - it loses sensitivity around 290 mhz or so, as reported in a MT article. While we don't have any articles on the DJ2000, we do have some things on the R20 and AOR8200 on our Wiki, including any links to reviews, if any exist, in places like EHam. That would be a good place to start, along with the associated Yahoo groups for these handhelds. 73s Mike

 

[DaveIN]

It's available to read here: http://www.monitoringtimes.com/html/mtscan1104.pdf
While I agree with most things Mr. Parnass has written, this was only one sample and it was new on the market in November of 2004. I think the R-20 has been improved in the 290 to 300 MHz range once that was identified.

 

[trap5858]

I use my R-20 for MilAir and standard air band monitoring and it does quite well by my standards. I may not be up to the same level as the pros writing the articles in trade papers but I know what works for me.

I had an Alinco DJ-10X for a while and did not really care for it for a number of reasons, I know the DJ-2000 is more complex to operate. Depending on features needed, I think the R-20 is a heck of a value.

 

[joenhre]

Thanks for the replies

Guys,thanks for the info and suggestions.I probably won't be listening
to the Mil-Air band much but it's still nice to have.Seems opinions
differ on how well the R-20 receives that band.Still seems that the
overall pluses outweighed the minuses for the receiver.

 

[joenhre]

Thanks for the replies

Guys,thanks for the info and suggestions.I probably won't be listening
to the Mil-Air band much but it's still nice to have.Seems opinions
differ on how well the R-20 receives that band.Still seems that the
overall pluses outweighed the minuses for the receiver.So I'll probably be ordering my R-20 this week.


Once again thanks to everyone who responded.
This site and the forums are great.

P.S. Sorry Didn't mean to post this twice.


Take Care,
Joe

 

[Declared_Hostile]

I had an AOR AR8200MKIII. I really liked it. Probably the best handheld radio I've ever owned. Really versatile but like all AOR products the learning curve is very steep. I really couldn't do a lot of side by side comparisons because I didn't have much in the way of handheld radios to compare it with. I had an AOR 1000XLT and 2700XLT and it was more sensitive and was much better at rejecting intermod obviously. Did great for military air in the 138-144 and 148-150 and 225-400 bands. Public safety stuff in the 150s was really good as far as I could tell too. The little 800 work I did seemed good. Some other stuff in the 70s and 600-800 range was good too. Way better than my other hand held radios.

The band scope isn't all that useful normally but it is neat. I found it useful for something I was doing however so it does come in handy sometimes.

I didn't like the whole card slot system when it came to tone decoding. The inversion card is a bit limited as all of AOR's inversion cards have been. A good outboard box works better but if you can get the board to work with your target system you're in luck I guess.

The manual for this radio was really good by AOR standards I thought.

I'm not sure which I'd get. The Icom is a very nice radio but the mil air deafness and their excessive hacking on the 800 MHz band on their US models bug me. I'm a bit of an AOR junkie and I wouldn't mind having another one so I'd tend to buy it probably. I had the Icom R-1 and R10 and didn't like either one of them. The Alinco I have no idea. Might try it just for giggles.