I have never owned an AOR receiver before and just bought an AOR AR-8000. Here are a few of my first impressions below. Please note: As its still new to me, how I feel may change the longer I own this scanner. But as of right now, I don’t think its very good. The AOR AR8000 has one of the worst squelches I have ever come across in a hand held scanner. It constantly needs to be adjusted. The squelch levels between different channels that have different modes attached to them [NFM, AM, USB etc] are so different, some very high and some normal that the scanner is constantly stopping on channels that have no transmission and need a very high squelch setting to scan past.

This leaves the channels that need a fairly low squelch to scan past unobtainable. I could always lockout [called pass on the AOR] the channels that require a high squelch setting, but I don’t want to do that because I am scanning those channels to see what transmissions come through, not lock them out so its like they were never saved to a channel. I’ll have to arrange them into separate channel banks. Sad really, because I quite liked how the channel banks can all be linked and scanned together. I guess that’s a no-go.

AUTO mode. Yes, it can be changed, but it’s default AUTO mode is the worst I have ever seen. Also, the scanner keeps reverting back to auto mode in 2VFO mode from changing just one setting, such as the step rate. This scanner is very hands-on.

I have been comparing this radio against a Quansheng signal for signal, same antenna, everything. I honestly thought the AOR AR8000 would be miles better in every department. But it isn’t at all. They are very evenly matched when it comes to receive strength. Close to no difference at all.

And, to be honest, the Quansheng, while it doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles that the 8000 has, is the better, easier to use radio in my opinion so far. I never thought I would say that. Even though the Quansheng looks a bit like a toy in comparison. The squelch on the Quansheng, while slightly high at its lowest setting of 1 [with Egzumer firmware], is much more well behaved.

The AOR AR8000 also very fussy with antennas. And even modes. Modes seem the worst. On the Quansheng the same frequency can be heard on either WFM or NFM. On the AR-8000 it can’t be heard at all on WFM, but can be heard on NFM. Problem is, it was working fine on WFM to begin with and was saved as a channel in WFM mode. But then I noticed that it wasn’t picking up the frequency at all when the Quansheng was.

Signals can’t be skipped through. On some scanners if a frequency range is problematic the user can keep their finger pressed on an up / down arrow button and it will power through the problem area. On the AOR AR8000 it has to be pressed each time separately, either one the keypad or using the top dial. This can take a long time and is very annoying.

I know its an old radio and turning the squelch up all the way can do the job, but it seems really outdated when comparing it to the Quansheng. Or even the GRE PSR 255 in some ways. Well, I suppose it is outdated. 30 years outdated. The AOR is from 1994! Don’t get me wrong I love older scanners, and usually actually prefer them over the newer models. But this one is annoying.

Batteries don’t last very long at all. I’ve tried both normal batteries and rechargeable Duracell’s, and both never lasted longer than a few days with not even that much use. Very disappointing. I’ll have to try and get a compatible 12 Volt DC adapter. I won’t give up on it just yet. Sometimes the thing I hate the most at the beginning ends up becoming my favourite thing over time. I hope my views on this scanner change. It does have tons of features and a great frequency range. Some of the lower frequencies are very busy and quite interesting.