DeWalt Jobsite Radio DC010-xe
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 9:21 am
A bit frivolous, but an essential part of our workday.
Over the years we've pretty much used garage sale garbage. It's a fact of life that most radios on a work site will die painfully. I had one that lasted two hours. Someone pulled a lead and it flew off a pallet of tiles and burst into a thousand pieces.
This, however is a decent radio. Loud enough to be heard over a generator and sturdy enough to take the occasional blow from a rogue batten at two meters.
It can run from mains power or dewalt cordless batteries. It doesn't charge batteries, but it takes all dewalt batteries up to 18v.
One problem is that it doesn't quite fit 18v XRP batteries. The battery door is noticeably strained when using these, and renders the rubber weather seal useless.
However, two years with this radio has proved it an enormous gain over random garage sale radios.
It is truly durable, taking batten hits, and small drops without blinking.
The flexible antenna is great, as we normally lose an antenna within weeks, if not days.
You can get up to three eight hour days of cordless operation out of one 18v battery, depending on your volume.
The worst problem I've had with this is that rain rusted the ball-bearing that holds the aerial in place (in one day). Moving it wrecked the divets it's meant to fit into, so the antenna is pretty loose now.
Another problem is that the rubber cord holder is rubbish. I can almost guarantee that every time you pick up this radio, the cord will fall out of the holder and drag behind you.
Ductape fixes this 
I could have spent another hundred bucks on a radio-charger with a digital tuner, but this was pretty much what I wanted, since we don't use any other dewalt tools that need regular charging.
Over the years we've pretty much used garage sale garbage. It's a fact of life that most radios on a work site will die painfully. I had one that lasted two hours. Someone pulled a lead and it flew off a pallet of tiles and burst into a thousand pieces.
This, however is a decent radio. Loud enough to be heard over a generator and sturdy enough to take the occasional blow from a rogue batten at two meters.
It can run from mains power or dewalt cordless batteries. It doesn't charge batteries, but it takes all dewalt batteries up to 18v.
One problem is that it doesn't quite fit 18v XRP batteries. The battery door is noticeably strained when using these, and renders the rubber weather seal useless.
However, two years with this radio has proved it an enormous gain over random garage sale radios.
It is truly durable, taking batten hits, and small drops without blinking.
The flexible antenna is great, as we normally lose an antenna within weeks, if not days.
You can get up to three eight hour days of cordless operation out of one 18v battery, depending on your volume.
The worst problem I've had with this is that rain rusted the ball-bearing that holds the aerial in place (in one day). Moving it wrecked the divets it's meant to fit into, so the antenna is pretty loose now.
Another problem is that the rubber cord holder is rubbish. I can almost guarantee that every time you pick up this radio, the cord will fall out of the holder and drag behind you.
Ductape fixes this I could have spent another hundred bucks on a radio-charger with a digital tuner, but this was pretty much what I wanted, since we don't use any other dewalt tools that need regular charging.