Ordered several DTR700 radios to replace some DTR650's in our fleet that went missing. There is a lot to like about these radios, the audio quality is great, the dedicated Private Button is nice, the small & light factor of the radio itself is great, but there are a couple of complaints that I have so far:
1) The antenna is too darn tall!! We always used the stock stubby antennas with the DTR650's and they were great. Now the antenna is double the height! Coupled with the new holster design, makes it really awkward to carry the radio on a front pocket or back pocket...or even on the hip for that matter. Really becoming an issue. I've tried contacting Motorola to see if there is any other antenna option and I'm getting a flat "NO" answer. Anyone else have an option for a stubby antenna for these radios? If not, I seriously might just return them, our users will do nothing but complain about these antennas, or they will flat out destroy them or the radio trying to work around it. When you look at the Motorola
WAVE radios and they can have antennas that are 1" tall, it makes me wonder if they are trying to frustrate users with these tall antennas so they go to something like the WAVE radios instead.
2) The radio does not show the current user when the talkgroup is active anymore like the DTR650's did. It only shows "Public G. Call <TALKGROUP NAME>" Really liked that feature on the DTR650's where you could see who was dead keying or had an open mic...now I can't.
3) Sounds stupid, but there is no clock on the screen any longer. Some of our users really liked that feature.
4) NO TALKGROUP SCANNING!! This really surprises me! You can't scan all of your talkgroups any longer. We have users that routinely forget to change talkgroups when getting back to the office and this was a really great feature to have...now we don't.
5) Programming via the CPS. I've run into the radio not accepting programming via the CPS. I've had to try to Write to Radio a number of times in a row before it will finally take it.
I'm beginning to wonder if I should return these now and wait for the DTR720 (I saw that out there at some point, but now I don't.) Maybe that radio will have the rest of the "good" features.