I purchased an DJ-S11T for less than $70 at a hamfest in June. For that
price, its a great bargain. On the other hand, for not much more money,
there may be better alternatives in the "pocket-sized" or "pager-sized"
radio category. The DJ-S11T is a 340 mw output 2 meter HT that runs off
of 3 standard AA-sized batteries. And at the 340 mw power level, those
batteries will last practically forever! The radio has a small,
extendable whip antenna. You can decently use it for monitoring the
local repeater with the whip collapsed and folded over on the side of
the radio, snugly out of the way. In this configuration, its just like
having an alphanumeric pager on your hip. You can also fold the antenna
up for better performance, which is "okay" at only 3" long. To really
use it, though, you'll want to extend the radio to the full 10" whip
length. With this 10" antenna, you'll find that 340 mw (about 1/3 of a
watt) works about the same as a 1/2 watt or more HT with a standard,
short flexible antenna. There is no DTMF pad so don't expect to use for
repeater control functions. This is a basic, easy to carry 2-way radio.
Tuning is somewhat difficult - obviously the intended use is to program
your desired frequencies into the memories and just select from the
memories. The radio supports all standard PL tones, + and - offsets.
The only problem I have is that the radio is highly susceptible to
intermod. In many places that is not a problem but near paging
transmitters - yeccchhh! You'll hear a lot of junk!