Goodbye AOR AR-DV1, Hello Uniden SDS200E

I’ve been on a quest to find the best option for a “primary” digital scanner to go in the shack. I started off early last year with an AOR DV10 handheld scanner and while I liked the build quality I found the whole scanner to be built on very old technology that was “clunky” at best and the way you programmed the scanner from the computer was nothing short of a joke. Team that up with the scanner I bought having a number of faults I very quickly ended up taking it back and swapping it for a Uniden SDS100 handheld digital scanner.

Now, the Uniden was good but worked in a somewhat strange way. However, once you got your head around it, it works very well but being a handheld scanner it was a bit of an issue fitting it into my main shack setup. So last year when I saw a used and very clean AOR AR-DV1 for sale I jumped at the chance of trading in the SDS100.

I’ve always considered the AOR AR-DV1 at the top end of digital scanners and at around £1000 for a new unit it should be good. So I got in all plumed in and it looks nice but like the AOR DV10 it’s build on very old technology and with day to day usage I realised it really wasn’t anywhere near as good as it I was hoping.

So this week I removed the AOR AR-DV1 and replaced it with a used (very clean) Uniden SDS200E base station scanner. It works the same as the SDS100 but sits nicely on the desk. It’s taken me a good day to get my head around programming it up again but it’s now sat on my desk working away perfectly and looking very nice.

The only “issue” I have is sound qua;ity from the extension speaker. Normally I take the mono output over to my mixing desk and then up to my main station speakers. This setup has always worked perfectly for me. However, with this unit the sound quality is VERY poor so I will run it via the inbuilt speaker and just miss off connection it to the mixer.