Skip Navigation
Mechanica

 

Alinco DJX-7

 

The last time I used an Alinco scanner was about 5 Years ago when I reviewed the Alinco DJX-2000. That was a superb scanner with many features at that time. Coming from that same stable I had high expectations fro the DJ-X7. I had not long finished reviewing the Uniden BCT15 Scanner when Nick from Radio scan contacted me and asked if I would be interested in road testing the DJX-7.I had very little info about this scanner except that I knew it was very very slim.

When the package arrived it was indeed small. Taking the scanner from the box it was very light and very very slim. This is the first scanner I have had that can truly fit in your shirt pocket with no ill effects.

In the box You get A user manual Li-ion battery pack. Yes I know some of you don't like battery packs but there is no way you will fit ordinary cells into this little baby. UK 3 pin power supply (If you are in UK) SMA whip antenna and a curly earphone. Everything to get you up and going. I don't know if the unit I was sent for review was used as a display model or not but it came with plenty of charge in the battery to get ample useage, which suited me because my pet hate is having a new scanner and having to wait for it to charge before I can use it.

Features

The Alinco DJX7 is a tiny, credit card size wide band scanner. It receives 100kHz to 1.3 GHz and has 1000 memory channels. It features five Scan Modes including preset frequencies, VFO, memory scan, programmed scan or tone scan (CTCSS). Three different antenna modes - earphone antenna, internal bar-antenna & external SMA antenna. Selectable Attenuator and voice scrambling decoding.

Review

So on with the review.

Appearance wise the first thing that will hit you is the size of it it really is amazing how they get all that technology into such a tiny space. I would advise caution here you could easily lose this little scanner. In all seriousness though I would advise where you leave it, as it is so slim and there are provisions for standing it upright on a table or similar surface it only takes the slightest of movements for this little scanner to topple over and if this is on a table edge it could cause damage as it hits the ground. Compared to my sony Eriksson W800i mobile phone which is easily carried in my shirt pocket the DJX7 is even smaller than that. Definitely slimmer by a long shot and smaller in stature too. I would have liked to include a side by side comparison shot but as I use the w800i for my photos on my reviews and I really can't be bothered to get out my Canon 350D you will have to take my word for it. You really could take this scanner anywhere without drawing attention to yourself. The front consists of the display and 5 buttons and a speaker grill and that's it! The rear has the battery housing and that's that! Talking of the battery pack, this is very slim it has to be to keep the slimness of this receiver. To charge does not take long either a couple of hours and away you go (The charge light goes out when ready) and the charge seems to last forever especially with the battery saver circuit on.

The left side (as you face to face the scanner) has two multi function buttons one mainly being for Functions and the other a monitor button for hearing those weak signals. the other side has a powers socket.

Taking any scanner out of the box I try to see how smart I am by trying to program a few frequencies and other actions without referring to the user manual. With the DJX7 I did not get very far. Yes I managed to search and find frequencies but that was about it. I needed to program a few frequencies to see how it performs so please excuse me whilst I study the manual.

Ok that's enough of the manual reading, I have enough to know how to get up and running now. First of all there is no direct entry frequency programming with this scanner due to the total lack of numerical buttons. Your programming will be done by tuning to required frequencies via the rotary knob on the top of the unit. This isn't the first time I have come across this way of programming, the Icom R2/R5 uses a very similar set up. This does at first seem daunting but trust me i's not as bas as it sounds. Luckily Alinco have thought of a quick way of tuning between various bands by adding a "Band" button. Pressing this continuously will switch you between the various frequency bands that the DJX-7 covers and is far quicker than doing a manual knob turn or search to reach the frequencies you require.

The first thing I tried was to see how good a receiver the DJX-7 was by searching the various bands. with the squelch set at the first setting it soon became obvious this scanner was not a very good receiver. That was until I removed the stock supplied antenna and replaced it with a more efficient telescopic it soon became clear that this was a very sensitive receiver especially on VHF. VHF Airband was on a par with my BCD396T which I rate high as an airband receiver. Vhf PMR and I thought there was a lift on! This scanner really does pull in the signals. With a telescopic attached it was pulling in more than my other scanners do attached to an external antenna! However this sensitivity comes at a price. On VHF you are prone to lots of internally (Most probably externally too) generated interference. I find this a lot on extremely sensitive scanners such as the Yupi 7100/Yupi 3300. Fortunately you have something that will help you combat these problems that you did not have with the Yupi's. The Alinco comes complete with CTCSS. Which in this day and age should be standard in my opinion and with a scanner with this sensitivity and the inherent problems that being so sensitive bring then ctcss is a must. Once you have added a memory and have found the ctcss tone in use then once you program it into memory the noise through the speaker from all the interference should now be gone.

Scanning

With a few frequencies programmed into memory I tried scanning. The main thing you will notice is the speed... Or Lack of it! the DJX-7 is no Ferrari when it comes to scanning speeds. I reckon about 6 ch's per second which definitely isn't fast when some scanners can achieve 100 per second. You have a few options with scanning on the DJX-7.

Busy scan.

Which is how it should be, when in scan mode the channel will hold on an active frequency until a couple of seconds after transmissions have ceased.

Timer scan.

Where after a period of 5 seconds after stopping on an active frequency the channel will be dropped and scanning will resume. Personally I would never use this feature. It was nice on the Uniden UBC780 where it could be done on a per channel basis but not universally.

VFO Scan

Or direct search as it is called with other scanners. Scanner will search up or down a frequency range until you halt it.

Programmed Scan

Sometimes called a Limit scan or search range, where you define two frequency ranges to search between to look for active frequencies. The latter two are not really scans as we know them but searches.

Memory scan

Memory scan will scan memory banks you have assigned to be scanned. You can have it scan a bank a few banks or all banks of memories. You can also lockout any channels in memory so they are not scanned again until you unlock them. There is a priority feature but I rarely ever use that as it interrupts signals as it samples for activity on prioritised channels. I also did not dabble with this feature on the DJX-7 as it looks a very similar to the set up on the Icom IC-R5 in other words useless. Come to think of it this scanner has a lot in common with the Icom-R5 in the way the programming works.

Step sizes

Include 5, 6.25, 8.33, 10, 12.5, 15, 20, 25, 30, 50, 100, 125, and 200 KHz steps so everyone should be catered for there.

Memory skip

Or lock out as some of us are used to calling it is good for skipping/locking out unwanted ch's from a scan. Again this seems similar to set up as the Icom ICR-5 if my memory serves me well.

CTCSS

As I have already mentioned this is an important necessity for any dedicated scannerist in this day and age and I am pleased to see that the Djx-7 has this feature. However I have a couple of gripes here. First of all from what I can tell and I'm hoping someone will email me and say "No you have got it all wrong" You can't really set the scanner to search for an active tone. You have to set the tone feature and scroll through all the tones until the matching tone number opens the squelch and then you know you have it. You then add into memory. Now I know I have been spoiled here when it comes to tone searches as my Uniden's decode ctcss/dcs tones automatically and more or less instantly. But this is the first scanner I have used that requires you to do it manually. I won't give the DJX-7 too hard a time here, it has the ctcss feature so I am happy. My next gripe is you gave us ctcss why not go that extra mile and give dcs? OK "We wanted to keep the price down" would probably be the answer here and "Hey look at the Yupiteru 7100 that has sold so well over the years for a much higher price and that did not even have ctcss" Fair comment I suppose.

Shift function

Now when I saw a budget priced scanner like this had this feature I was very happy. What this feature allows you to do is tune into both sides of the conversation on a duplex type transmission where two frequencies are being used. One by base and one by the mobile unit's. I have loved this feature on previous scanners I have owned such as the Icom R-5 and found it great when talkthrough is switched off and you only hear one side of a conversation. Well with this feature if in range you can hear both sides with the touch of a button. This is also useful for checking how near the transmitting mobile unit is to you. I tried this feature on the Alinco and found when set correctly it works very efficiently. Lovely well done Alinco!

All the usual features are here such as Attenuator for times when nearby strong channels are bleeding over into the frequency you are monitoring. This is only good if your chosen channel has a good strong signal as setting the Attenuator could actually flatten the signal you were wanting to hear. The Alinco DJX2000 had two different Attenuator settings that varied in db so as to combat this problem the one on the DJX-7 is set at 20db.

 

The timing of this review could not have come at a better time, a new frequency had appeared in my area that was undecipherable due to the employment of inversion scrambling. Audio sample here . Now I was intrigued to find out just who this was and no way could I do it with any of my current scanners. Luckily the Alinco came with an inversion descrambler and in no time using this feature I was tuned into the action and had identified the mystery user. Inversion scrambling is used by mixing the high and low points of the human voice and turning them upside down (I read this somewhere else please do not ask me to explain in full) which makes speech undecipherable to the human ear. These signals are then inverted to a particular point. The Inversion feature on the DJX-7 allows you to select an inversion point that matches the one used by your target user and turns it into audible speech again. Apparently on the Alinco DJX2000 this function is not available on a per ch basis but with the DJX-7 I am pleased to say it is. For me this is a selling point for this scanner. The only drawback I see is that you can't have descramble mode and a CTCSS tone in use at the same time it's one or the other. Note this feature is only available on the "E" Version of this scanner.

Computer programmable

Alinco have a free download on their site where you can download software to program the DJX-7 that's very nice of them. Pity they did not supply the required P. C. cable with it too. Uniden do! In all fairness having computer programming is another added bonus and a surprise for me to be honest. It makes the hard work of programming no longer a chore but a joy. Well done again Alinco.

Backlight

The backlight for the display is very very poor. When I first charged the unit up and put on the backlight I thought the batteries had failed to charge due to the dimness of the light. I found out that they were in a perfectly charged state and the light was always this poor.

Conclusion.

I feel I did not give the Alinco the full run out it deserved. I have had a lot on these last couple of months and feel that maybe the Alinco had some more surprises for me. However it showed right away that it was indeed a very good performer, second to none on VHF pmr bands and vhf air was every bit as good as my BCD396t covering the mil airband too and all for £120 I can imagine this starting to look very tempting to many people. A battery pack that holds a charge for many hours and the ease of portability all add up to a nice little receiver.

Thank You for Nick at Radioscan for the loan of this scanner and also for his patience as this review has been slow due to other commitments. Price at the time of writing is £118.95 From Radioscan website

12/06