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Reviews For: AOR ARD9000 DIGITAL VOICE

Category: Specialized Amateur Communication Products

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Review Summary For : AOR ARD9000 DIGITAL VOICE
Reviews: 1MSRP: 320.00
Description:
Digital Voice Modem
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0012
ZS6YI Rating: 2005-12-18
Very disappointing Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I tried on several occasions to purchase a few of these units from AOR USA. Despite numerous emails I didn’t even get an acknowledgement to any of my emails. So much for that. I then finally got 3 units from Universal Radio who in turn had to wait for about 3 weeks before their stocks arrived. We have used the units for just over a month now.
Discussing the actual units:
The instruction booklets were NOT included in the packages so we had to download a copy from the internet.
1. The microphone supplied with the unit should rather have been left out as the quality of the audio from this microphone is just terrible! The audio has far too much bass, very noticeable in the digital mode although a bit less noticeable while using the analogue mode. The microphone socket on the front panel is not typically used in ham radio equipment thus making it difficult to use an alternative microphone. AOR should rather have put a normal 8 pin mic socket on the front panel and made use of jumper cables to connect any microphone configuration to the unit.
2. The init is physically far too small and one battles to adjust the mode switch as it is too close to the volume control. It is also very difficult to see on what position the mode switch is switched to.
3. The audio from the unit is far too low. Additional amplification would help.
4. AOR could possibly have employed isolation transformers between the unit and the radio as it suffers badly from earth loops and hum. AOR even suggests using a separate power supply from the radio!
5. AOR should consider putting in a toggle switch to switch from analogue mode to digital mode and visa versa. One sometimes battles to switch between analogue and digital modes using the current method of quickly pressing your PTT twice to change over.
6. Once we got the hum sorted out and finally got the units to work they performed quite well. Only after changing microphones did the audio improve to the point where one could get excited about the quality of the audio.
7. Acknowledging that this is new technology there are still a few bugs with the system. Occasionally the audio gets scrambled or it starts to sound like ET.