Abbree AR-8118 GMRS radio

[hear]

Bought this thing and so far I'm really impressed. It's plug and play, and the $79 version comes with everything you *need* although the antenna is probably not optimized for max range/power/etc.

But what I am already annoyed with is that the firmware allows for an Auto On feature, but the radio itself doesn't support such a thing. So If you power it off the supplied cig lighter plug, and your cig lighter is switched 12V, then you have to remember to turn the thing on every time you fire up the jeep. 2 others in my crew also just bought this radio, and they WILL forget to power it up after a stop. One of them is a stickshift sami so he's constantly re-starting his rig. This is going to be a pain for him.

For about $6 I can cobble together a fused plug & play harness that uses an low voltage disconnect to run directly off the battery. I guess these are the pains you suffer through when you find a stupid cheap radio.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQMGCF98?tag=wranglerorg-20

 

[lBasket]

Bought this thing and so far I'm really impressed. It's plug and play, and the $79 version comes with everything you *need* although the antenna is probably not optimized for max range/power/etc.

But what I am already annoyed with is that the firmware allows for an Auto On feature, but the radio itself doesn't support such a thing. So If you power it off the supplied cig lighter plug, and your cig lighter is switched 12V, then you have to remember to turn the thing on every time you fire up the jeep. 2 others in my crew also just bought this radio, and they WILL forget to power it up after a stop. One of them is a stickshift sami so he's constantly re-starting his rig. This is going to be a pain for him.

For about $6 I can cobble together a fused plug & play harness that uses an low voltage disconnect to run directly off the battery. I guess these are the pains you suffer through when you find a stupid cheap radio.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQMGCF98?tag=wranglerorg-20

View attachment 710296

Have you used the baofeng handhelds. How does this compare

 

[hear]

I have several UV5Rs. From an overall ease of use, how quickly can an idiot get going with the radio? I would rate the UV5R around a 0/10, and this radio is a 10/10. Plug it in, channel up/down to match your buddies, and you're off to the races. Has all the GMRS & NOAA weather channels already programmed in, and as it sits, this radio is completely unlocked.

Range, even with the cheap antenna, is going to be many more fars simply as a result of this thing allegedly outputting 25W vs the 5W handheld. They honestly compliment each other well; mobile while you're in the jeep, and then if you're out spotting or whatever the handheld will be perfect. Sound quality is fine. I've never had a NICE radio so maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but what I hear from my UV5R is roughly the same as what I hear out of the Abbree.

 

[hear]

And not for nothing, I've had it for a few days now and decided to open up the chassis to see if there was a way to make it do auto power on. It turns out it does not react well to removing the ribbon cable and pulling off the faceplate. So that's on me.

But having had the chance to buy a different unit to refund/replace, I still think this is hands down the best value out there. I'm replacing with the same exact thing.

 

[WVJeep304]

And not for nothing, I've had it for a few days now and decided to open up the chassis to see if there was a way to make it do auto power on. It turns out it does not react well to removing the ribbon cable and pulling off the faceplate. So that's on me.

But having had the chance to buy a different unit to refund/replace, I still think this is hands down the best value out there. I'm replacing with the same exact thing.

Do yourself a favor... Get an amplified external speaker. (assuming this has a jack in the back for such). At trail speeds unit volume alone is mostly ok on mobile units. But at highway speeds (or sometimes less) I can't hear (well, can't make out what I'm hearing) anything.

I mounted a speaker in the center of the rollbar and it's a game changer. My buddies have since done the same. We can actually hear someone call across the radio over road noise and/or music now.

 

[John Cooper]

Bought this thing and so far I'm really impressed. It's plug and play, and the $79 version comes with everything you *need* although the antenna is probably not optimized for max range/power/etc.

But what I am already annoyed with is that the firmware allows for an Auto On feature, but the radio itself doesn't support such a thing. So If you power it off the supplied cig lighter plug, and your cig lighter is switched 12V, then you have to remember to turn the thing on every time you fire up the jeep. 2 others in my crew also just bought this radio, and they WILL forget to power it up after a stop. One of them is a stickshift sami so he's constantly re-starting his rig. This is going to be a pain for him.

For about $6 I can cobble together a fused plug & play harness that uses an low voltage disconnect to run directly off the battery. I guess these are the pains you suffer through when you find a stupid cheap radio.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQMGCF98?tag=wranglerorg-20

View attachment 710296

Got it in my cart.... dang it, I need another bonus from work......

You guys are bad influences..

 

[hear]

It does have a pretty loud speaker which should be fine on the trails. It's RARE I would use it on the highway, but it does have an external speaker jack. I assume it's passive, so the speaker would need it's own power supply.

 

[WVJeep304]

It does have a pretty loud speaker which should be fine on the trails. It's RARE I would use it on the highway, but it does have an external speaker jack. I assume it's passive, so the speaker would need it's own power supply.

I ran a non amplified speaker on one of mine once. Just relocating the speaker by itself was beneficial, but i prefer amplified. If you only use it on trails and don't run your stereo, it's probably not worth the trouble and money.

That does remind me, however, that I used a male-male aux cord in one of my vehicles to play the GMRS audio over my stereo speakers when the speaker in the mobile radio failed. That was actually pretty awesome, but i didn't want it to be my ONLY way to hear on that radio, so I replaced it.

I'm definitely intrigued by this unit just because of its small footprint. But I keep getting hung up on the lack of alpha tags.

 

[hear]

I'm definitely intrigued by this unit just because of its small footprint. But I keep getting hung up on the lack of alpha tags.

Just get over your bad self.

The size is fantastic for sure. But like I said, having never had a GOOD radio I have no idea how this actually stacks up. I'm completely relying on Notarubicon to not steer me wrong.

ps. if you try to leverage that physics degree by opening up the chassis, removing the ribbon cable from the board, and prying the face plate off, you may find that Amazon's return policy works very much in your favor.

pps. I'm not smart enough to jumper the power wire to the correct location to enable the auto power on function.

ppps. new radio will be here tomorrow.

 

[Harold&Cat]

Bought this thing and so far I'm really impressed. It's plug and play, and the $79 version comes with everything you *need* although the antenna is probably not optimized for max range/power/etc.

But what I am already annoyed with is that the firmware allows for an Auto On feature, but the radio itself doesn't support such a thing. So If you power it off the supplied cig lighter plug, and your cig lighter is switched 12V, then you have to remember to turn the thing on every time you fire up the jeep. 2 others in my crew also just bought this radio, and they WILL forget to power it up after a stop. One of them is a stickshift sami so he's constantly re-starting his rig. This is going to be a pain for him.

For about $6 I can cobble together a fused plug & play harness that uses an low voltage disconnect to run directly off the battery. I guess these are the pains you suffer through when you find a stupid cheap radio.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQMGCF98?tag=wranglerorg-20

View attachment 710296

Planning to install one of these in a friend's TJ , He's tired of trying to hear a portable on the trail .
I have a Motorola speaker mounted on the rool bar in ours , works great

 

[WVJeep304]

Just get over your bad self.

If only it were that simple bub... Ya see, aside from my personal hangups about it, most of my friends are dumber than a bag of hammers. I can NOT rely on them to understand or remember frequencies or channel numbers. It needs words. What it really needs for that issue is everything to be drawn out for them in crayon, but to my knowledge, that tech doesn't exist yet-- it's up to the user.

 

[hear]

If only it were that simple bub... Ya see, aside from my personal hangups about it, most of my friends are dumber than a bag of hammers. I can NOT rely on them to understand or remember frequencies or channel numbers. It needs words. What it really needs for that issue is everything to be drawn out for them in crayon, but to my knowledge, that tech doesn't exist yet-- it's up to the user.

I fully get that. Thankfully we genererally operate on a single channel and if necessary I know how to set the CTCSS on all the radios my crew carries.

But it would be handy if they would be self sufficient.

 

[hear]

Well I thought I was gonna be clever. I don't really want to use the cigarette lighter because (a) it's kinda in the way of the shifter or at least my hand on the shifter and (b) it means when I turn off the jeep my radio goes off too. Two options: first is wire into the battery and rely on the auto-off feature to not kill my battery. Second is to use some sort of low voltage disconnect to keep the radio on while the jeep is off.

Wiring to the battery
First, this relies on the auto power off feature working. I tested it, and the 10 minute APO turned off the radio around the 18 minute mark. So at least it worked. But (and this requires testing), the APO likely only resets the timer on TX, not RX. Otherwise a busy channel would never let your radio turn off. But maybe that's how it's supposed to work. Assuming it only stays alive if you transmit every so often, that means everybody in the group needs to transmit every so often or else their radio will quietly turn off. My prediction is that we will have people in our group who unwittingly have their radios off for long periods of time.

Wiring through an LVD
This works in principle, but has (at least) 2 issues. The first is that to achieve my goal of constant power, you have to set the turn-off voltage down low enough so that when you crank the jeep it won't turn off. In practice, this means that your radio could accidentally run your battery way down before the LVD killed the radio, but you would have discharged your battery. The fix there is that you can use the LVD to keep the radio ON during a power-off event, but you'd likely have to manually turn the radio back on when you start up. The only thing you gain is that your radio stays on for a while after you power your jeep down. That's maybe a good compromise except.... The device I got has a 3 digit 7 segment display, which apparently draws something like a constant 30mA. So by trying to keep my radio from running my battery down, I will end up running my battery down. So that's a non-starter. Which sucks because this was about $3.50 and I was already prototyping a 3d printed enclosure. Oh balls.

IDK what GMRS pros do for this, but it seems like this radio is really missing the auto-on feature. I really need it to automatically turn on when I fire up the jeep.

 

[Zorba]

Well I thought I was gonna be clever. I don't really want to use the cigarette lighter because (a) it's kinda in the way of the shifter or at least my hand on the shifter and (b) it means when I turn off the jeep my radio goes off too. Two options: first is wire into the battery and rely on the auto-off feature to not kill my battery. Second is to use some sort of low voltage disconnect to keep the radio on while the jeep is off.

Wiring to the battery
First, this relies on the auto power off feature working. I tested it, and the 10 minute APO turned off the radio around the 18 minute mark. So at least it worked. But (and this requires testing), the APO likely only resets the timer on TX, not RX. Otherwise a busy channel would never let your radio turn off. But maybe that's how it's supposed to work. Assuming it only stays alive if you transmit every so often, that means everybody in the group needs to transmit every so often or else their radio will quietly turn off. My prediction is that we will have people in our group who unwittingly have their radios off for long periods of time.

Wiring through an LVD
This works in principle, but has (at least) 2 issues. The first is that to achieve my goal of constant power, you have to set the turn-off voltage down low enough so that when you crank the jeep it won't turn off. In practice, this means that your radio could accidentally run your battery way down before the LVD killed the radio, but you would have discharged your battery. The fix there is that you can use the LVD to keep the radio ON during a power-off event, but you'd likely have to manually turn the radio back on when you start up. The only thing you gain is that your radio stays on for a while after you power your jeep down. That's maybe a good compromise except.... The device I got has a 3 digit 7 segment display, which apparently draws something like a constant 30mA. So by trying to keep my radio from running my battery down, I will end up running my battery down. So that's a non-starter. Which sucks because this was about $3.50 and I was already prototyping a 3d printed enclosure. Oh balls.

View attachment 710548


IDK what GMRS pros do for this, but it seems like this radio is really missing the auto-on feature. I really need it to automatically turn on when I fire up the jeep.

"Voltage Display Nixie Tube"?!?

Uh, no. That definitely is NOT a Nixie tube!

 

[hear]

yeah, I had a good lol at that.

 

[WVJeep304]

Well I thought I was gonna be clever. I don't really want to use the cigarette lighter because (a) it's kinda in the way of the shifter or at least my hand on the shifter and (b) it means when I turn off the jeep my radio goes off too. Two options: first is wire into the battery and rely on the auto-off feature to not kill my battery. Second is to use some sort of low voltage disconnect to keep the radio on while the jeep is off.

Wiring to the battery
First, this relies on the auto power off feature working. I tested it, and the 10 minute APO turned off the radio around the 18 minute mark. So at least it worked. But (and this requires testing), the APO likely only resets the timer on TX, not RX. Otherwise a busy channel would never let your radio turn off. But maybe that's how it's supposed to work. Assuming it only stays alive if you transmit every so often, that means everybody in the group needs to transmit every so often or else their radio will quietly turn off. My prediction is that we will have people in our group who unwittingly have their radios off for long periods of time.

Wiring through an LVD
This works in principle, but has (at least) 2 issues. The first is that to achieve my goal of constant power, you have to set the turn-off voltage down low enough so that when you crank the jeep it won't turn off. In practice, this means that your radio could accidentally run your battery way down before the LVD killed the radio, but you would have discharged your battery. The fix there is that you can use the LVD to keep the radio ON during a power-off event, but you'd likely have to manually turn the radio back on when you start up. The only thing you gain is that your radio stays on for a while after you power your jeep down. That's maybe a good compromise except.... The device I got has a 3 digit 7 segment display, which apparently draws something like a constant 30mA. So by trying to keep my radio from running my battery down, I will end up running my battery down. So that's a non-starter. Which sucks because this was about $3.50 and I was already prototyping a 3d printed enclosure. Oh balls.

View attachment 710548


IDK what GMRS pros do for this, but it seems like this radio is really missing the auto-on feature. I really need it to automatically turn on when I fire up the jeep.

I just have mine wired straight to the battery. This is how I've always wired all of my radios, as some specifically require this method.

The only time I've ever had a radio kill my battery was when I left a 100w vhf radio on by accident for 2 or 3 days on my truck that had an already kind of weak battery. The radio was on County Fire Dispatch, so a very busy channel. When I went to get in the truck, it was extremely dead.

As long as you remember to turn it off when not in use (as in parked for the night or whatever) I wouldn't think you have much to worry about. When using the one in my jeep, I'll turn it on as I leave the house and it stays on literally all day while we work on my buddy's property or whatever task we have for the day. Never left me with a dead battery yet

 

[macleanflood]

Yeah. Wire it straight to the battery and quit overthinking things.

-Mac

 

[hear]

Yeah, I reached that conclusion some time tonight. I have what I need arriving on Friday. We do this every time. Wait until the week before a trip to start doing all this stuff to our jeeps that we've been meaning to do for the past year.