I must confess this was a bit of an impulse buy. I already owned theDC911 radio/charger, but had been driven crazy by the knob tuning, and really liked the idea of being able to keep my MP3 player with the unit.
When using the DC911, it's always been nice to just grab the radio, walk wherever you're going to work, and carry your music with you. There are plenty of times I know I don't need to recharge a battery, but just want to listen to my tunes while I work. The DC911 gave this to me, and would run seemingly forever before needing another charge. When I plugged it in, the battery charge was fast.
A worker friend had won the Milwaukee version of this product. The digital tuning was great. The presets were very convenient. The fact the Milwaukee product is not also a charger is brain dead. I looked forward to DeWalt catching up with the digital features, though. When the DC011 showed up, I gladly took the plunge.
What I have discovered after a month of use is that this radio is nothing short of frustrating from a feature standpoint. The digital tuning is convenient, but the presets have proven to be useless. Why? Because they are far too volatile. As another reviewer pointed out, the unit will exhaust a freshly charged DeWalt battery in 50 hours or less. What that means is that your radio will be dead if you leave it in your truck over Labor Day weekend, or even Monday morning if you were to unplug it early on Friday. To counter this, you find yourself consciously thinking about taking the NiCad battery out of the radio every time you put it away in your truck. Oh, but that it were that simple! After a week of doing just that, I found that the two AA batteries were now dead, safely taking my presets with them! I performed this test twice, not quite believing the first set of results. The silly thing is that the only thing the batteries are really trying to do while the unit is both turned off and unplugged is save the presets (why aren't they in a small chip of NVRAM?) and display the digital clock. Why that burns through a set of AA batteries in a week is beyond me.
What I find I have done is move from a nice unit (the DC911) that can be characterized as a portable radio that just happens to be a battery charger over to a frustrating unit (the DC011) that is a battery charger that just happens to be a radio. If you leave the unit plugged in at all - and I mean ALL - times, you have good functionality. If you unplug the unit for a short time, you have adequate functionality. If you unplug the unit for a weekend, you're going to be quite disappointed when you return to it on Monday.
My best recourse at this time is to just remove the AA batteries, forget the presets, totally ignore the clock (which most couldn't care less about, anyway), tune it manually when in use, and take the battery out of the unit when I turn it off and put it in the truck. I am now playing the role of power management for a product that has less power management complexities than laptops that have been managing this problem effectively for over a decade. Sadly, I expected better engineering from DeWalt than this. DEWALT DC011 Combination Work Site Radio and 7.2-Volt to 18-Volt Pod-Style Battery Charger
I have found out that if you leave the unit unplugged for more than fifty hours, with the radio off it will discharge the Dewalt battery. In my case I use an 18 Volt battery. I e-mailed Dewalt with no answer and finally called the 1-800 number and did talk to a customer service rep. Dewalt claims that it states in the directions the battery will discharge if left in the radio/charger due to supporting the memory and that they have been receiving calls on the issue. I find it amusing that two "AA" batteries will support the memory for an extended period of time but an 18-volt battery discharges after 50 hours. You do the math. I thought the reason you purchased a battery operated radio was to use it when no power was available or during a power outage in my case.
This radio does have great sound and enough range to handle most job sites. I do like gadgets and this is a simple but effective design. They use two search functions to find stations, one by the tune knob and the other by scan function of a push button. It has three modes of operation, FM, AM, and Aux for CD player or other device.
They also added a removable hard case holder, which could be used for a CD player to one of the handles, and it comes in handy for my MP3 player that I connect to the Aux function of the radio. Both the 20 gig player and cord fit into the case.
Yes there are a couple of features I wish they would of added, for instance only 4 memory buttons for FM and 4 for AM band is really not enough. A weather Band would have also been nice for contactors on the job site. I bought mine for the workshop but it is in the house and has to stay plugged in. Someone dropped the ball.
Dewalt, what were you thinking? This thing is way to expensive for a portable radio, and it's way too expensive for a charger, but maybe for the convenience of both together...... However it is severely limited as a portable radio. The batteries run down over the weekend when the thing is turned OFF. It's no good on a job site - at least not for very long. I'll put it in the shop and use it for a VERY expensive plug-in radio, but I have no Dewalt products in the shop so the charger is useless. Dewalt, I expected better from you. Don't get very far from your extension cord with this thing. Not recommended!
Let's say it again but make a truer statement, this is a Dewalt... "construction phase"... radio/charger. Just remeber that while reading this.
If you want a home stereo at the job site get the bosch it's got all that stuff on there. I've herd them before they are good, yeh it's a home stereo at the job. Now listen, this thing is really only truly more than a radio if you have dewalt tools (the bat charger in back). When I go to work I run a power cord, it's just something you do in construction. So I plug my radio and tune it to the station I want. If my bat goes dead I ether pull the charged one out (if I left it in there) and put the drained one in and go about my way. Anyone that doesn't do drugs should know if you need to do a lot of work you pull out the corded tool or make do with what you have. I've never really had a problem with reception (though I'm also never really that far from a city normally). The quality of the sound is actually pretty good (for what it is), there's not much deep bass, but probly as it dose not have a low Hz range. The sound is clear enough to enjoy and at the job (even at loud volumes) with the various sounds that happen there that's all you need. I don't do the kind of work where I have time to sit and enjoy music... It dose have an AUX for all your gizmo's to plug into so it's not like you can't bring songs with the F word to work ;)
I like it simple for the fact of the built in charger, it's convenient as heck plus you can unplug it and bring the tunes where ever you want. I've never played it long enough to drain the bat so I don't have a beef with that. Though when I bring it with me I don't play it loud. I've never really had a need for presets nor anything beyond that. It has stood up to dust (vary heavy at times), light ran, crap falling on it in the van and the general wear and tear you get in a construction environment.
Bottom line if you want a nice and tough stereo get the boch, if you have dewalt tools and have a nice system back at your house that you listen too, get the dewalt. - Cordless Tools - Dewalt - Chargers - Boombox'
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