Alinco or Anytone??

Recently I bought an Anytone AT-588 70Mhz radio, now these radios have been on the market for a while now and are very popular.

Having 50 watts out on high power and a bigger brighter display than it's older brother the Anytone AT-5189,which I owned since December 2010 and served me well.

The new one has a signal meter which I have been missing out in the shack.

I know that there are many ex-pmr radios out there which have signal meters such as the Philips FM-1000 range, the Simoco SRM with the 9030 head,have one in my car!!! and I even got a digital signal meter to operate on the Simoco PRM-8030's, this shows digits "00" to "99" and 00 being the lowest and 99 being full scale!!!

Some local hams who are not familiar with the new Anytone AT-588 4m radio I bought and have been asking me how best to describe it and I always say it resembles an Alinco in it's layout and menu.

I had a look online and came across some Alinco photos (as I do not own an Alinco), below you will see comparative pictures of the Alinco and the Anytone.

I cannot compare the technical differences between them but just the physical similarities:

ALINCO DR-438 Front Panel (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

ANYTONE AT-588 Front Panel (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

Above you can see the Alinco and the Anytone, the button layout IS different but the chassis is the same, right down to the yellow sticker on the top!!

ALINCO DR-438 Circuit (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

ANYTONE AT-588 Circuit (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

ALINCO (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

ANYTONE (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

Above you will see the internal circuit boards of the two radios, I kid you not!!!! The top one is from the Alinco and the bottom one is from the Anytone. Also there is a "code" etched on to the circuit boards of both radios, these codes are on the boards at the back of the radios to the left of the antenna socket.
I have also enlarged the pictures of the codes and as you can see they are very similar indeed!!

Below are two pictures of the rear of the radios, again identical, right down to the threaded hole in the middle of the heatsink....

ALINCO DR-438 Heatsink (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

ANYTONE AT-588 Heatsink (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

So there you have it, make your own mind up on them, but I think that the Anytone company must have purchased a batch of chassis and circuit boards to use on their own radios from Alinco...