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AOR 8200
Okay so away with the review, (Oh yes I have just remembered the other reason I did not want to do this review.... BECAUSE IT HAS SO MANY FEATURES TO COVER!!) Boy this is going to take a long time. The model reviewed is model number 070089 is about three or four years old (I Know all this as I once owned this very scanner). Is Green in appearance, I have read in other articles as described as military green I would say this is a fair assumption and has the LCD Display at the top of the cabinet this is of ample size and boy it needs to be with all the different function icons it needs to display. The top of the unit consists of BNC socket for the aerial, Squelch control ,volume and a MW Antenna for the reception of lower frequency signals.(Note as this is an optional antenna and can be removed I found that it was easily lost and was always worried about it getting broke).Power up is via a "PWR" button rather than a on off/volume switch.The mid region is made up of buttons for all the different functions and controls 19 buttons in all which can be customed to your tastes when depressed e.g. beep loud beep quiet or beep not at all.The bottom of the unit is made up of the speaker grill. On the Left side (as you look at it) of the unit is a rotary wheel which can be used for different functions such as setting text and scrolling to functions and changing channels and frequencies. There is a function button for activating the different functions that are available, below this there is a very small key lock button for deactivating the keypad(Note:this is very small and you can find yourself looking for it when trying to access it but it makes accidental switches more difficult),below this is a monitor button which doubles as a squelch defeat button for monitoring distant signals and for monitoring both sides of a duplex conversation when the talk through facility is turned off. Next there is a four way rocker switch which can be used for a number of functions such as memory navigation and the function settings .Finally there is a switch that opens the bottom compartment which houses cards which can be inserted to add different functions such as ctcss decode, encryption decode, and recording facility. On the opposite side is a 3.5mm socket for earphone monitoring this is covered with a rubber dust blocker when not used, below this at the bottom of the unit is another socket this has two openings one for DC power and the other is for computer control via a CC8200 cable.The back of the unit consists of the belt clip and battery housing compartment, of which I have heard some bad comments but I always enjoy using this when changing batteries as once you get the hang of using it it closes with a nice "Schnick" You know what I mean the difference to closing the door on a Jag compared to an old Ford Cortina. To the touch it has a rubbery affect I'm not sure if this is done for a purpose or was a mere coincidence of the modeling techniques used.
MEMORY A look at the user manual is very daunting (Well it was to me.) I find that it is best to learn the basics first just to get you up and running. To get up and running you depress the red "PWR" button where you are greeted with a "WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD OF 8200 RECEIVER" message (This can be changed to a personal greeting (Or threat, such as get off my scanner or I'll smash your face in.) to enter a frequency into memory switch to vfo mode (If you are not already in this mode) enter a frequency into one of the two vfo's and press enter you will the be given the option of entering it into the first available memory CH or you can determine where you want to enter the frequency. Whilst on the subject of VFO whilst in 2 VFO mode you can do a number of functions from here you can set the upper vfo to one frequency and the lower frequency to another, from here you can enter frequencies into memory or you can search between the to defined frequencies, with the top one being the upper limit and the bottom one the lower (Or vice versa). Also you can monitor both frequencies for activity with the top one being the priority frequency.(Note this is not a dual watch function that is available on some amateur radios where you can actually monitor the two frequencies simultaneously), but is ideal if say there is an incident on and fire brigade and police are involved then you can set the VFO to switch between the two frequencies when there are transmissions, a nice little feature.(NOTE some amateur transceivers have a dual watch which can monitor two frequencies simultaneously yes you hear both transmissions at once, this I find is very handy although sometimes annoying but it can be disabled this is a feature I would like to see on a scanner.) Another nice little feature of the 8200 is the ability to tailor the memory bank sizes, For instance say you use Bank A for PMR type frequencies you will find the 50 Ch's (The default) in a bank very limiting, by setting the bank sizes you can adjust Bank A to 60 70 80 or 90 Available Ch's in increments of ten. Bank a will lose ten Ch's each time you add another ten Ch's to Bank A. Which is fine if you only listen to a few frequencies in bank a. Remember A and a are linked just the same as B and b and so on.
Once you have entered a frequency into memory there are a number of things you can now do (Some you can do whilst in vfo mode and when entered into memory will keep their values) such as alpha tagging which helps to identify the channel. With alpha tagging you can enter a name of the user this function I found invaluable when you have multi users on one frequency and you are using the optional ctcss card.(More of ctcss later).(Note Although the Alpha tagging is a great facility and I find myself at a loss without it now the method for entering the Alpha tags on the 8200 is very tedious but quickens with experience but not to a satisfactory standard)
You can also set up the duplex frequency where applicable, and use the monitor button on the side of the unit to check for activity, OK a bit of an explanation most repeaters require a frequency from the mobile unit but the repeater rebroadcasts it on another frequency for example a university on 456.625 uses an input from the handheld's on 462.125 as this band uses a +5.5MHz split. This is done via the offset button at the bottom of the keypad set the offset to +5.5 now when there is activity you can check to see if the unit is local to you by depressing the "Moni" button, this is especially useful for systems where talk through is turned off and you want to hear what is being said. You can set the attenuation for strong signals which can overload the system (To be honest I have never had to use it for this reason though I understand it is more used in the lower frequency ranges). There is also the AFC (Automatic Frequency Control) which searches for the exact frequency being used as sometimes transmitters are sometimes off frequency slightly,using this function I have been able to get a couple of extra bars on the signal strength meter showing that some transmitters are quite a long way off frequency. Also this function is handy if you have the receiver set up to have a delay after transmissions as there is not a function to have a delay on certain channels and none on others it is all or nothing I'm afraid, but if you add the afc in most cases at the end of a transmission the scanner will zoom off looking for the next available CH. This can be a pain when set up on a search though as any new frequencies found will zoom off as soon as the squelch closes before you got a chance to enter it into memory. There are other functions such as NL (Noise Limiter I believe) which I have never really exploited and therefore cannot comment on. You can also set the display so that the frequencies are not displayed so if you have set up your alpha tags rather than seeing the name of the use displayed along with the frequency you will only see the user. If you have no alpha tags then you will see a blank screen. To be honest I do not use this function that much as I always have frequencies I am trying to identify which I can't do if the frequency is not displayed. Also there are various settings for contrast I found setting 12 adequate I think the default is 11. There are extra features such as determining a maximum amount of time the memory CH is monitored, so for instance you do not want it stopping on a continuous transmission and holding up the scan then you can set it for a predetermined amount of time so that it will resume the scan after this allotted time. Voice squelch is another handy feature that I use from time to time, it works like this sometimes a CH may be left open for any number of reasons with no speech on CH thus holding up the scan forcing a manual press on your part to resume the scan (Plus this will be draining your battery unnecessarily) with voice squelch activated the 8200 will check for voice audio if there is nothing there then the scan will resume, I found this feature works really well. To skip a programmed frequency then a press on the pass button does the job. Incidentally there is another nice feature about the 8200 which is if you have selected a Ch to be skipped on the memory scan and you don't want to go to the trouble of searching for it then you can actually set the 8200 to open up again all skipped memories. Which brings me to another function which I use regular, you can set the 8200 to search out a specific memory Ch to do this you have to have the Alpha tags set up and set it to search for that Text for example you have a Ch with the tag "Fire" now there are Fire engines blaring everywhere and you want a piece of the action, rather than manually searching through up to 1000 Ch's you set the 8200 up, type in Fire and away it goes and will find it for you! I found that entering Fi the first two letters does the job just as good without having to enter the whole word. If you roughly know where a frequency is stored then sometimes it is better to go find it yourself as it can take a bit of time for the 8200 to find the required Ch. Another nice feature (There are loads aint there?) is the Select scan function where you can tag some of the more interesting frequencies to be selectively scanned, then when activated it will only monitor your chosen frequencies to scan.
Priority this was a bit of a let down for me as I expected a receiver of this calibre to have a better priority feature, such as the bearcat 9000xlt which had I believe ten priority Ch's which I really grew to love, the idea being the first priority Ch takes precedence over the others then they follow in pecking order of priority. With the 8200 you only get one priority Ch and it has that annoying habit of some other receivers whereas what ever Ch you are on if it is in a scan and it checks for activity on the priority Ch and it finds nothing then it does not return to the active Ch it just shoots off and continues scanning. I also found the priority function to be a bit of a hit and miss affair sometimes it would only bother checking for activity when the 8200 stopped on an active Ch. SEARCH The 8200 comes preloaded with search banks such as civil aviation, Military air, Ham bands etc. But you will most certainly tailor these search banks to your own needs. There are 40 search banks in all so you should have no problems searching all the required bands you want to cover. The banks are lettered A-Z and a-z. Ten search groups which you can set up any combination of search groups to search, for example You want to search the military airband and the civil airband then you can set up search group one to search these two bands or if there are simplex frequencies that you are looking for but you do not know what frequency band is being used so you want it to search all available search banks then you can set up say search group 2 to search bank D which has the frequencies 159-165 and to also search Bank G which has the frequencies 459-462 and bank a which has 453-454 you get the picture? Also you can set each search band its own alpha tag so that when it is searching you can see which band you are searching such as "Fire" if you enter a frequency into memory this alpha tag will be displayed in the memory Ch. But this can be changed to something more suitable. Not sure on the search speeds (I have attached a specs to the bottom of this review) but it is very fast! Compared to My Icom ICR2 It Flies! All other settings can be set to the search function such as step size, Mode etc. Or you can leave it on "AUT" (Automatic) for most cases this should be set up for the country in which it is sold. E.g. in the UK Vhf PMR band will default to 12.5khz steps NFM mode .Whereas in the US this would be 5khz steps. Autostore Now this is a feature I liked on my bearcat 9000xlt and Pro 26 basically it means you can go out for the day whilst leaving the 8200 to search a frequency band(s) and all active frequencies will be put into a memory Ch, in the case of the 8200 they are stored in bank J. I found it a good idea before doing this to do a "dummy run" and delete from the search any frequencies that stop on dead carrier signals which are there for any number of reasons ranging from computer hash or electrical type interference .Incidentally I do not know the limit for deleting unwanted frequencies I believe the AOR 8000 the limit was 500 but with the 8200 it seems endless.When you have deleted the unwanted signals then go away and do something else whilst the 8200 finds and stores the frequencies then when you are ready scan bank J and see what has been found for you.Any previously auto stored frequencies will be skipped so that it is only entered into memory once. There are extra features which we have covered already for memory which work just the same on the search facility such as determining a maximum amount of time the frequency is monitored so for instance you do not want it stopping on a continuous transmission and holding up the search then you can set it for a predetermined amount of time so that it will resume the scan after this allotted time. Voice squelch is another handy feature that I use from time to time, it works like this sometimes a Ch may be left open for any number of reasons with no speech on Ch thus holding up the search forcing a manual press on your part to resume the scan (Plus this will be draining your battery unnecessarily) with voice squelch activated the 8200 will check for voice audio if there is nothing there then the search will resume.
Band scope I wont dwell to much on this as I find it a very boring and pointless function I have used it about 5 times each time thinking...Why?? OK it looks pretty I know some people drool over this function maybe I am missing something, I don't know but yes it works and it looks pretty but you hear nothing when this function is activated, I am sure some people have a use for it but I am unable to comment on it as it is not a facility I am familiar with so cannot give an honest evaluation. Slot Cards The 8200 comes with a slot at the bottom (The cover which unhinges from the bottom) to which can be inserted various slot cards to expand the functions available on the unit. These are. The VI8200 slot card is an analog voice inverter with a selectable inversion point between 2.4kHz and 5.6kHz in 157 increments. The CT8200 slot card is for CTCSS squelch control and search of 50 tones. The TE8200 slot card is for tone elimination and helps to avoid the search and scan processes from stopping. Tones may be specified in 256 steps which cover the range from 0.4kHz to 4.2kHz. The RU8200 slot card is for 20 second audio recording and playback. The EM8200 slot card is a memory expansion card. It allows the entire memory contents of an AR8200 (scan banks, search banks, parameters and band scope data) to be saved. In fact, there is enough room to store four AR8200s worth. While the data can't be accessed from the slot card itself, the data can be copied to and from the AR8200 memory for usage. This allows four different AR8200 configurations to be specified and used as seen fit. Additional features allow the entire memory contents to be saved/loaded as well as just the memory channels, one specified memory bank, all search banks, one search bank or just the band scope data.
Of these cards I have and do use one that is the CT8200 slot card for CTCSS decode so I cannot comment on the others capabilities, now for anyone not using CTCSS on a scanner then it is well worth having, I wont go into the protocols of CTCSS here. I found the CTCSS card option on the 8200 to be very "Iffy" it works well in as much as when the correct tone is found and stored the audio has a much clearer crisp sound to it, which is hard to explain and I have only come across this on the 8200. Audio can still be heard when tracking down the tone unlike some amateur transceivers, and a nice touch is that you can program the CTCSS search into a memory bank or search bank so that you do not have to keep setting up the function every time you want to decode. Where I find it stumbles is it gives false readings I have found that the unit sometimes stops on another tone not the correct one forcing you to keep setting the CTCSS to search so that you are satisfied that the correct tone is being used even then the only way I can truly confirm it is to compare it to the Icom ICR2 which has a much more stable CTCSS function. This I found far from satisfactory from a unit of this calibre but nevertheless it is a function I would not do without as in a radio saturated environment using the CTCSS function in conjunction with alpha tags separates the users into a much better prospective.For example in my vicinity there are three users on the same frequency easily audible from my location each using a different CTCSS tone so that there is no confusion, with frequency programmed 3 times into memory all with their own respective ctcss tone and each user Alpha tagged then there is no confusion as to who I am receiving. A lot of people myself included wonder why it is not possible to supply this feature as standard and not have to pay the extra who knows maybe with all the other features built in it was just to much to squeeze in?
Out and about So how does it perform? Well I have heard plenty of people slating it's sensitivity saying that it is deaf, does not hear signals that others hear, well I can say that on UHF I have not got a scanner that can outperform it, it all comes down to some fine adjusting such as turning the squelch so that it is just above the threshold. Doing this I manage to bring in signals at a satisfactory level from a neighbouring town twenty miles away. On VHF it does lose out a touch to some other receivers but these are very distant signals, again you can do a few things to help your case here such as using the supplied "Rubber duck" will get you only the strongest of signals on VHF but stick a telescopic on top and things change rapidly, I found the Watson W889 Telescopic to be the best I tried .Unfortunately adjusting the squelch right down on VHF will bring in new problems such as internal noise that is very annoying for some unknown reason this appears to happen on random frequencies and forcing the scanner to halt on a search or scan. Whilst visiting a new town I found that setting up individual search banks to be searched a brilliant feature searching just the frequencies I expect to hear signals in a given band. This is where the Icom ICR2 failed poorly as with that you can only scan one band or all bands. Another stumbling point is the battery life this is very short sometimes giving about three to four hours worth of listening again this is very dissapointing.Using Ni-mh increased the life somewhat but not to a great deal. It is quite capable of taking the knocks I have dropped it a few times since I had it and by the look of the scars on it now it has had a few fights with the floor since but appears to work regardless, this is not a feature of the Yupiteru 7100 which I was always worried about dropping. Comparisons As stated at the beginning of this review this model has been superseded by the 8200MKII so lets see how the differences compare also take into consideration these are only assumptions as I have no access to the MKII model (No dealer/Importer etc.has donated any receivers to me for reviewing on this site hint hint!) Okay the first Change is obvious The mark II is black rather than green: well this is a matter of personal preference, Myself I am quite happy with the green so no real improvements there. Higher capacity batteries supplied: Well you could do the same for the earlier version just go and buy some higher capacity batteries and bingo just as good so once again no improvements there Better lighting: To be honest this was not a fault I found on the 8200 anyway and surely brighter lights means less battery life so once again no improvements there. Changing the position of the "0" key: Why? It was fine where it was. no improvements there. Telescopic aerial in place of the "rubber duck" type: As I stated earlier in the review this is easy enough to replace anyway and sometimes I prefer to use the rubber one so I think no improvements here. A Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) now forms the heart of the AR8200 SERIES-2, this ensures high stability with minimal internal spurii... the TCXO replaces a crystal reference as commonly employed in other receivers and is usually only seen in top of the range (more expensive) table-top models such as the AR5000 and AR7030.:Now this looks like a good improvement time will tell how well it works. Final opinion Yes there are a few negative points about the 8200 but I still think it is one of the best handheld's out there, I have owned Realistic's, Yupiteru's other AOR's etc. but they all had something lacking that made me get rid of them. I did sell my 8200 but that was due to financial situations and now I want it back! All the good features far outweigh the bad. Update After reading this review Richard from AOR asked me to point out some changes that were made to later models of the first generation 8200. " Just a couple of comments (the set you have The priority initially only sampled when the receiver was active, Internal noise was reduced by additional screening and by the slowing
Therefore with the above comments these matters must be taken into consideration
making for an improvement on a fine radio. Photographs User Manual Software
Specifications
100kHz - 2.04GHz receive
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reviewed.[ Aor 8200 ] New to scanning?Download our introduction to scanning guide . The new scanner user will have plenty of questions to ask hopefully this guide will answer most of your questions . |
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It was with a great
deal of "Should I or Shouldn't I" when I was trying to make up my
mind on whether to do the review on the AOR 8200 for a couple of reasons,One
being that the model I have to review is a "MarkI" (For want of a
better term) and this has been superseded by the the MKII version. After mailing
my thoughts to Richard Hillier from AOR and Jonathan Clough from Javiation
I decided that the changes were negligible enough to continue with doing a
review because after all If you like the sound of the first version then the
Mark II version will be a bonus...Wont it? Also you are more likely to see
more of these units for sale secondhand.
