Thinking of purchasing a 8200 Mark II or III

[Hoseman292]

What's a fair price to pay for a 8200 MkII or III? I recently purchased a Sony ICF Pro-80 and to be honest, I'm not very impressed. I've collected scanners for years but I've never owned anything by AOR and was wondering if the 8200 is worth the money for a portable general coverage receiver.

Any advice certainly would be appreciated.

Regards,
Tim N3WIR
Silver Spring, Maryland

 

[SCPD]

Kinda depends what you want to use it for. It's really a radio that scans, rather than a scanner. Nice receiver in any case.

 

[dustin486]

ed_azailia, I keep hearing that AOR and ICOM radios are "radios that scan, rather than a scanner." I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything by any means, but im sort of new to all of this, but could you go into some more detail about that? I'm also looking into purchasing an AOR or ICOM radio, but I want to know the pros and cons before I do.

 

[Hoseman292]

Dustin,

I believe what Ed was referring to is that the AOR radio much like a scanner will scan an entire frequency range (i.e. 10Mhz to 200Mhz) was well as scan whatever frequency is saved in memory channels.

I listen to alot of HF and I'm thinking the 8200 MkIII would be ideal for me since it covers such a broad spectrum minus APCO-25. Now all I have to determine is how much I wanna pay :roll: .

Thanks Ed and Dustin.. night guys.

Tim

 

[Air490]

AOR and Icom are receivers that have a scan function. They are desiged for sensitivity and selectivity. Scanners are generally designed to cover set bands and to scan at a faster rate.

As to the 8200, I would give it a miss and buy the Icom IC-R20. I sold my 8200 after I got my R20 and have never regretted it.

 

[racin06]

What's a fair price to pay for a 8200 MkII or III? I recently purchased a Sony ICF Pro-80 and to be honest, I'm not very impressed. I've collected scanners for years but I've never owned anything by AOR and was wondering if the 8200 is worth the money for a portable general coverage receiver.

Any advice certainly would be appreciated.

Regards,
Tim N3WIR
Silver Spring, Maryland

I've owned both the R20 and 8200. Below are my findings and opinions from a previous post:

I did own both; however, after purchasing the R20, I was convinced to sell my 8200 Mark III. Regarding sensitivity and selectability on the VHF/UHF airbands, I believe that is a tossup between the two receivers. Both are very good on the airbands. However, you get much more for your money with the R20 IMO. The following are features/areas I believe the R20 excels above the AOR:

- Dual Watch: A fantastic feature with the R20 which is not available with AOR.

- CTSS: Standard with the R20 and an additional $100 option (slot card) with the AOR.

- Internal Recorder – Record up to 4 hours with the R20. A 20 second slot card is available for the AOR for an additional $80.00.

- Battery Versatility: The R20 uses either the standard Li-Ion battery pack or 3 AA alkaline batteries. The AOR uses 4 rechargeable AA Ni-MH.

- Battery Life: Up to 12 hours of use on R20 battery pack. The AOR will get you 5 hours of use per charge if you are lucky.

- Display: Good on the R20 and average on the AOR (Very large pixels and blocky looking).

- Squelch: R20 has an auto-squelch feature which is not available with the AOR. Also, the squelch is very poor on the AOR and is very erratic and unstable. Very difficult to set the AOR squelch at the threshold. The AOR squelch requires frequent adjustments.

- The R20 is a faster scanner than the AOR.

- Cost: R20 - $499.00, AOR - $569.00 (and additional cash is required for features that are standard with the R20).

- User Operation/Menu System – The R20 is MUCH and I mean MUCH easier to operate. The AOR is VERY and I mean VERY difficult to operate. Who ever developed the software for the AOR was…..well, I’ll just leave it at that.

The following features/areas I feel the AOR has the advantage over the R20:

- 12 character alpha tags, 8 on the R20 (what was Icom thinking?).

- The AOR has a better band scope over the R20.

- The AOR seems a little less prone to pager and strong FM station interference than the R20.

- The AOR audio power on SSB is a little better than the R20.

One last thing, the AOR has the Narrow-AM mode which is not available on the R20. Some say Narrow-AM is essential for monitoring HF, but I disagree. For a handheld, the R20 performs just as well as the AOR on HF.

There you have it. The R20 in my opinion is the hands-down winner. Both are good receivers; however, the advantage goes to the R20 because of the most functionality for the money.