Abbree AR-518 6-Band Radio Review

Like a lot of radio dealers and/or manufacturers these days, Abbree has a lot of radios that look a lot like everyone elses. They also have some that look pretty unique. This Abbree AR-518 is the most unique, and has the largest battery capacity of any radio I found on their website, by far.

The Abbree AR-518 feels a lot like a UV-5R in the hand, except for the PTT button being at the top of the side instead of the second button down like the UV-5R. This actually fits my hand much better than the UV-5R, even thought they are about the same in all dimensions and are about the same weight.

Buttons on the front feel pretty nice and have a clear and tactile click when pressed, as do the side buttons. Even the PTT feels pretty good and responds well to presses, even on the edges. On top, the knob rotates smoothly with just enough resistance and a firm but not harsh click for power on and off.

On the back of the Abbree AR-518, the clip feels well-made and plenty sturdy enough. It even has a form of a hook on the bottom to ensure it doesn’t have an accidental slip off your belt.

The screen appears to be about 48mm or 1.77″ in diagonal, although with this design it is hard to get exact measurements. Indoors, this screen has amazing contrast with huge numbers which are easy to read at a glance even from halfway across the room. Outside, however, in bright sunlight, acts as a kind of magic eraser, turning the screen completely black again. I had to cup my hand around the screen and put the radio in my shadow to read it again. Fail.

This issue with the screen on the Abbree ar-518 is probably why you don’t see more radios with this type of screen. What good is a radio you can’t use outside in the daytime?

An interesting note is that when I went to find exactly what the 6-bands this radio worked on, I could not find that information in any literature, including on the Abbree website. It says 136-660MHz, which I guess can encompass 6-bands. I can verify that it will transmit on 2m, 1.25m, and 70cm. While I do not call myself an expert, those are the only three “bands” I know of, and that are listed on the ARRL Amateur Radio Bands chart. You can’t tune it to 6m or 33cm, so those are out.

Just for grins, I hooked the Abbree AR-518 to a dummy load, set it to minimum power, and tried keying up on some other frequencies that it absolutely should not be able to transmit on, including some aircraft, land mobile, TV, and military aircraft frequencies. It works. How this radio is sold in the US is beyond me. The only range I tried that was indeed locked out was the 108-136MHz air band.

The only way the Abbree AR-518 is 6-bands is if you include “bands” that are illegal as all getout to transmit on, and transmit it will. Just wow.

Charging the radio can be done either by the included drop-in charger, or by plugging a USB-C cable into the side of the radio. Unlike many other radios, the Abbree AR-518 does not put the USB-C charger in the battery, but in the side under a rubber cover, just under the headphone and microphone jacks. I have charged it both ways and it seems to charge pretty quickly either way.

Probably the biggest reason it charges so fast is that the battery misses the claimed, 8800mAh rating by just a little bit. I measured an average of 970mAh in three tests. That’s right, just a little over 10% of the claimed battery rating. Are you shocked?

Performance:

OK, enough with all this picking on battery power and screens you can’t read in daylight, how does the Abbree AR-518 perform? Power output is not bad at all, putting out 3.4 watts on 2m and 2.5 watts on 70cm. To be honest, that surprised me. I was expecting maybe a watt or so.

The antenna is trying to do everything at once, and while it really stinks at most of it, it too surprised me with an actually pretty good SWR and return loss on 2m. We won’t talk about the other frequencies.

Where the rubber meets the road is the transmitted signal that comes out of the Abbree AR-518, which is, to say the least, a hot mess. What isn’t wrong with the signal? It has some frequency drift after a few second of transmitting, it is spattering a signal over a huge swath of bandwidth, so much so I had to make sure the radio didn’t have narrow, wide, and super-wide bandwidth settings. It is also one of the most inconsistent signals I have ever seen. Most of the power is on the sides of the transmit frequency, not actually on the transmit frequency itself.

The audio transmitted is weak and quiet, no wonder, but only has a little sibilance, which I suppose is a good thing? I am thinking the fact that I can hear English is a miracle.

Images:

Radio Specifics:

Test Images:

• 6-bands
• 10W output
• Covers 136-660MHz
• Wireless copy function
• Frequency/CTCSS detection
• VOX function
• Emergency funtion
• Scan function
• PC programming
• 8800mAh battery

I have really only heard about two different radios from Abbree, the Abbree AR-518, and the AR-730, which I will review later. Their website shows a couple of intriguing models such as the AR-889G, AR-F8, and maybe their AR-F6, but after my experience here I will be hard-pressed to buy one to test. I don’t know why, because unless it bursts into flames when I turn it on, I am not sure if they could do any worse.

Conclusions

Would I recommend the Abbree AR-512? ROFLMAO! I can think of no situation where I would suggest doing anything with this radio except throwing it away, or perhaps setting it on fire to see what happens. Stay away.

Here are some reviews of the Abbree AR-518!