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Anytone Info on the new Anytone 168

Ubbe

Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2006
Messages
10,049
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
It's bug ridden at this point in time. They have in a very short time done five upgrades of firmware and CPS from 1.00 to 1.05 but there's a lot to fix that haven't been done yet. For simple use with HAM repeaters it's probably fine though. Its internal speaker are terrible, probably worse than the one in a Uniden SDS100 but when using a big external speaker it sounds really great. For some reason its 3.5mm jack are for a mic and the 2.5mm jack are for the speaker, so an adapter cable are probably needed to be able to use a standard speaker that comes with a 3.5mm plug.

One trap to fall into are if you copy one channel and then paste and only change something like a frequency, that it then will screw up most of your channel programming. But that also seem to happen with some other Anytone radios.

/Ubbe
 

Kedas

Newbie
Joined
Apr 26, 2025
Messages
1
I updated to the latest version 1.05 without issues. (it arrived with software version 1.03, Factory Oct 2024)
Since the freq stability changed from 2.5ppm for the 878UV to 1.5ppm for the 168UV
I thought I should measure it to see what the freq really is, I added 30dB to the antenna output and then measured with a GPSDO referenced frequency counter. (gate time set to 2 seconds)

In short:
  • 0.2W at the lowest setting is correct (Europe), I measured a bit less like 0.16W but I do not have an calibrated device for that.
    (I did not measure higher power settings since I wanted to know how low it could go)
  • Freq was -0.21 ppm and changes little.
So that is good, certainly mine is within spec of 1.5ppm
Attached the measurement of 145MHz and 440MHz
 

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  • Anytone_D168UV_ppm.png
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KD8DVR

Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2004
Messages
1,349
Location
Columbus, Ohio
I do not know of it being bug ridden. It's based on a proven design that's had the bugs killed. I enjoy mine very much.
 

Ubbe

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Sep 8, 2006
Messages
10,049
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
It's supposed to handle encryption so I tried it with a system using Motorola ARC4 and it kind of decodes it with the proper key programmed but 1/3 of the time it outputs digital noise and when a conversation stops and the data goes to idle it still outputs digital audio as if it thinks that they are still talking. I guess it's a buffer getting filled and overflows as the processor might not be powerful enough and skips data packages and at the end it finally manage to empty the voice packets buffer after a couple of seconds of idle data.

It will be interesting to see if they can make the firmware code more efficient or if it takes a more powerful DSP.

/Ubbe
 

pb3400

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jul 1, 2015
Messages
42
It's supposed to handle encryption so I tried it with a system using Motorola ARC4 and it kind of decodes it with the proper key programmed but 1/3 of the time it outputs digital noise and when a conversation stops and the data goes to idle it still outputs digital audio as if it thinks that they are still talking. I guess it's a buffer getting filled and overflows as the processor might not be powerful enough and skips data packages and at the end it finally manage to empty the voice packets buffer after a couple of seconds of idle data.

It will be interesting to see if they can make the firmware code more efficient or if it takes a more powerful DSP.

/Ubbe
This happens quite a lot with digital encrypted modes. There is no re-initialization of the key data midstream, so if enough packets drop or the transmission drops it will not always pick it back up successfully.
 

Ubbe

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Joined
Sep 8, 2006
Messages
10,049
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
This happens quite a lot with digital encrypted modes. There is no re-initialization of the key data midstream, so if enough packets drop or the transmission drops it will not always pick it back up successfully.
Understood, but it is full strength and the SDS100 or even DSD-FME have no issues with it connected to the same splitter.
They have just released 1.06 firmware but it doesn't adress any of its major issues.

/Ubbe
 

doriboni

Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2023
Messages
67
This happens quite a lot with digital encrypted modes. There is no re-initialization of the key data midstream, so if enough packets drop or the transmission drops it will not always pick it back up successfully.
This is wrong.
Are you sure you know about DMR encryption? because there is a new synchronization at each superframe so re-synchronization is ALWAYS possible.
 

lwvmobile

DSD-FME
Joined
Apr 26, 2020
Messages
1,359
Location
Lafayette County, FL
This is wrong.
Are you sure you know about DMR encryption? because there is a new synchronization at each superframe so re-synchronization is ALWAYS possible.
Not necessarily, I have seen instances where MS sourced input carries the single burst alg/key in VC-F, but the repeater doesn't perpetuate it in the same field, and in that case, if you aren't forcing the alg/key value (like DSD-FME can be configured to do) then you can't necessarily resynchronize on DMR EP, but that's usually a repeater configuration issue. So, in that situation, if you miss the PI header, the radio will not pick up on the alg/key, even if it can get the MI from the AMBE frames.

Understood, but it is full strength and the SDS100 or even DSD-FME have no issues with it connected to the same splitter.
They have just released 1.06 firmware but it doesn't adress any of its major issues.
Does DSD-FME show anything in the SB field for late entry when you run tests on that? is is all zeroes, or does it pick up a late entry alg and key value?
 

doriboni

Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2023
Messages
67
Not necessarily, I have seen instances where MS sourced input carries the single burst alg/key in VC-F, but the repeater doesn't perpetuate it in the same field, and in that case,
All right. For my part, I was responding to Ubbe and Pb3400.

Ubbe said that his Anytone 168 has bugs because it decodes ARC4 badly while it is well decoded with his sds100 or dsd-fme. We can therefore conclude that nothing is missing in the signal.

Pb3400 said that this is normal because in the DMR there is never a resynchronization after the start of the transmission, which is wrong.

This happens quite a lot with digital encrypted modes. There is no re-initialization of the key data midstream, so if enough packets drop or the transmission drops it will not always pick it back up successfully.
 

lwvmobile

DSD-FME
Joined
Apr 26, 2020
Messages
1,359
Location
Lafayette County, FL
If I look in the log file it's always an algo ID and key ID each 18:th frame.

I went back and re-read part of what you said, sounds like you mentioned, perhaps the radio starts to lag on keystream creation and application, overflows, and then eats **** and dies, resynchronizes and puts out the garbled audio until the encryption parameters get set again, rinse and repeat until the buffer is empty or something.
 
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