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Reviews For: AOR AR-8200

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : AOR AR-8200
Reviews: 6MSRP: 799.95 US
Description:
Hand-held Receiver: 500Kz--2.042 Gz AM, FM, NFM, CW SSB
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.aorusa.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0064.2
N4VNV Rating: 2016-03-06
Not for impatient person Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have a review on here for this product under my old Call Sign of KD4ZD in 2001. Now it's 14 years later and the AR-8200 has quit working. The power switch won't turn it on anymore. I called the company and the repair cost quoted to me is way too high for my wallet. It was my favorite small receiver of all time, but I just don't feel the repair cost is fair. I used it almost every day for the 14 years. I really miss using it! The price for a new one is very high for us blue collar hams.
SWL377 Rating: 2008-03-12
Great looking, OK performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have the Yupiteru 7100 and the AOR AR 8200B, an early model. If you want looks, the AOR slaughters the dorky looking Yupi, but if you want performance and ease of use the Yupi wins hands down. The AOR manual is really hard to decipher, but if you have patience you will figure it out. The Yupi has an intutive user interface and you will be using it without a manual pretty quickly. The Yupi has better sensitivity and a tighter front end. The AOR is OK, and worth owning for alpha tags, band scope, better display, etc but if I could only chose one it would be the Yupi. HF SSB is pretty decent on the AOR although you really need to hook it to a long wire to get good reception. The Yupi can copy HF signals with its whip that the AOR cant hear on its whip. Front end overloading by pager xmtrs in UHF and VHF plagued the AOR in large metro downtown areas. If I could just get the Yupi radio in AORs body I'd be a happy camper.
AF4KK Rating: 2004-06-30
No overloading!! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
What can I say about the almost-perfect hand-held rx'er?!? It does it all and very well! It receives nearly everything with overload and bleed-over and even does well on the LF frequencies! If only it would do digital and/or trunking....
WB7NWH Rating: 2001-11-11
Small and Powerful, yet I have a few concerns. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I've been out of the HAM/SWL thing for about 10 years. I decided I wanted to get back into SWL with HF coverage.

I tried the Icom PCR-1000 and was less then impressed. I opted sight unseen for the 8200 MKII. I wish I'd tried this rig first!

My first reaction was the learning curve of the radio's operation. Once you get over the fact that the operation manual is a rather thick 140 pages deep, you figure it's rather amazing how much they packed into this radio!

I have one major problem with this very compact, high-end handheld. I've been getting major overloading problems. I have a clear channel AM station that bleeds into the 8200! So bad that without the attenuator on I can't hear anything else. I've tried the supplied telescoping antenna, I've tried various lenghs of zipcord, the baseboard in the house. In my opinion, for the price this should not happen. I can plug in my faithful Kenwood TS-120 and get very nice SSB reception, switch over to the 8200 and It's there but so is my clear channel AM station. So loud it's a major distraction.

I don't want to discourage anyone from this nicely built radio, however, I do urge a good listen and hands on demo before you drop the cash.

Also realize you need a special $100 cable and TTL level converter to get the radio to talk to your RS-232 port on your computer. At this point I'm not willing to try this.

My experience has been lukewarm. I love the size, the capabilities however, this ham needs to keep looking!




W8PFT Rating: 2001-02-02
Excellent portable utility receiver and ham rig diagnostic Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I received an AOR AR8200MkIIB Wide Band Receiver about 2 months ago. It is a replacement for my 25 year-old Sony 2002 (AM/FM + HF w/bfo) which just bit the dust. My use is as a portable radio around the house, a ham-rig monitor and an SWL receiver when traveling.

I am very impressed with the progress and miniaturization of such radios. It is half the size and weight of the Sony which was pretty small to begin with. So far, I have only mastered about 10% of it's capability.

It is not quite a shirt-pocket unit but is about the size of the typical HT. It appears to have a digital PPL and dual conversation IF's, coverage from 100Kz to 2.042 Gz for AM, FM, NFM, CW and true SSB reception. It has a noise blanker, an adjustable IF bandwidth and an RS-232 interface for optional computer control.

While its sensitivity is good, It does not compare with my fixed station quad-conversation HF transceiver for noise rejection and selectivity, but pound for pound, or I should say ounce for ounce, it's performance is really remarkable.

While AOR's target is the scanner market, it looks like an excellent utility receiver and diagnostic monitor to be used by the radio ham from LF to microwave.
BD9494 Rating: 2000-10-01
Excellant receiver that is compact with good battery life. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I like the AOR AR-8200 MKII receiver. It is small compact almost full band coverage from 500 hz-2.0ghz. It uses AA batteries which is important for emergencies. The AOR is a little tough to understand out of the box, but after reading the book I found it easy to use. The AOR has numerous search and scan banks for organizing a number of frequencies.

Receiver performance is great for a portable. Shortwave reception is good with a Radio Shack wire for portables. The HF reception is good using the wire. HF reception with the telescoping antenna is ok. My ICOM R-75 outperforms the AOR obviously, but I can hear most of the signals over S5 on the R-75 on my AOR! that is great since my R-75 has a long wire and the AOR is using the Radio Shack 23ft. wire. The AOR receiver will overload with the long wire.


Speaker is outstanding. Only negative I have is the earphone jack only plays on one ear when using headphones. I highly recommend the AOR AR8200 MKII.