Anytone AT-D868UV

Anytone AT-D868UV

My Review

Very versatile and all around great radio

This is a huge upgrade from the Radioditty GD-77. Now don't get me wrong, the GD-77 is a fantastic radio for the price. I picked mine up on a lightning deal for around $65 compared to the Anytone at around $170. However if you can afford the Anytone it is definitely worth the upgrade. 

Things I really like so far:

• Holds 160,000 contacts, that's the entire DMR-MARC database
• Six line color display
• Menu adjustable max volume for speaker and headset
• Adjustable mic gain
• Direct entry of private and group call IDs
• GPS
• Four power settings
• Call Recording

160,000 Contacts!

I think that's probably the largest memory you'll find in a Chinese radio. The current database only fills about half that so I don't think I'll have to worry about needing more contact space anytime soon. It stores them as full contacts in the CPS as well. You  can still keep more used contacts available under "Talkgroups" in the CPS. When you open your contact list on the radio it brings up all the talkgroups you have programmed as well as private contacts stored under talkgroups in the CPS. 

The database dump from DMR-MARC would not load directly into the CPS, this may change in the future. In the meantime Ty Weaver has created a cvs file compatible with the Anytone here.

Color Display

With the entire database loaded in the radio you get a lot of information on the screen. While in a call it will display ID, Callsign, Name, City, State, Country and Talkgroup. When not in a call the bottom of the screen shows the last heard caller and talkgroup. Of course brightness and timeout settings can be found in the menu.

Speaker and Mic

The speaker sounds fantastic on this radio and is plenty loud. There are settings in the menu to adjust max volume as well. I keep the headset volume set to the minimum "Indoor" setting. I change the speaker max volume level depending on if I'm in the car, at work or sitting at home.

The mic gain is also adjustable in the menu. I've left mine at the default setting and gotten excellent audio reports. I talked to a gentleman yesterday who had it turned up one notch and it was a bit loud. he changed it back to the default setting and it sounded great.

Dialing and Calling

One of my favorite parts of this radio is the field programming abilities. I have an extra channel programmed to my hotspot frequency labeled "Field". I can go to this channel, open contacts, and select contact to assign it to that channel. Now I can use one channel to connect with any talkgroup I have stored in the radio. When entering a new contact in the menu if you press the # key you can change between private and group call. If you direct dial a number you can also choose between private and group call. This means you can essentially use one channel to connect to any talkgroup you wish without having to reload your codeplug.

GPS

This is the first radio I've had with GPS capabilities. The only use I've found for this so far is to send your position in a text message. I'm not familiar with APRS but I don't think it's capable of it yet. Maybe it will be introduced in future firmware updates.

Call Recording

I'm not sure how much I'll use this but this radio is capable of recording calls or messages and either replaying or sending them. I believe if you click send you can broadcast a recorded message but I have not tried it yet. I recorded some short QSOs to test and it works good although I'm not sure how long of a recording you can make before you run out of memory.

All in all this is a fantastic radio and the price is very reasonable. I've had fantastic audio reports and great QSOs. It's analog and dual band capabilities are very nice as well.


UPDATE: July 21st 2018
I've been using this radio for a while now and for the most part it works fantastic. I have found one bug though. Occasionally it will have problems receiving a digital transmission. What happens is the audio will turn on for a second and off for a second. I have to do some more testing but I think this is only happening with a freshly charged battery. I don't know if the voltage gets too high and overloads something but that would be my guess. Hopefully it's nothing major because this is my favorite radio.