I have had a 950 for almost a year and I would buy it again. I recently upgraded to another Yeasu and the new rig has a lot going for it in many ways, but I knew going in that it would not be 5X the value. I still have the 950 and I am not sure I want to sell. I probably will, but not because it had any big issues.
Big enough to look right in the shack but small enough so you can lift it yourself.
The DSP is very difficult to use as it is not progressive and each setting does something different.
The Notch and Shift, did not do much for eliminating close signals. At least I never could get them to work in a way I could see value.
I REALLY like analog meters. Missing with the 950 but for most people, a small detail.
In this price range, I never found anything even close.
Split works so easily, I wondered why I was so worried.
Uses a weird odd ball connector to attach to a linear, nearly $35 for a cable and then you have to solder your own connectors as well. Fortunately, Ebay has a ham who will make them for you.
Internal tuner works just fine and is simple. Very much worth it is you don't need an external amp.
Controls are well set up, they make sense right out of the box, and the knobs are large enough. Other than always bumping the clarifier, they work well.
I like the DMU-2000. Many don't. The 950 works perfectly with this and if you ever upgrade, the 2000 and 5000 series will also work.
I had no reason to upgrade to a newer radio, other than I knew in 3-5 years, I would want to and I would not want to pay the price increases then when I could just make the move now, especially as I have seen some big increases from Yeasu, and HRO mentioned to me that they were being alerted to stock up be fore the next wave of increases.
If you're on the fence, move before the price increases.....or buy mine
Added:
It does have two different inputs so you can connect a separate antenna if you want one to receive and one to transmit. The connection is not the issue, the 950 does not have two separate receiver that will allow you to listen to one station and transmit to another the way that the the higher level transceivers will.
I could be wrong here, but the illustrations of the uTune modules don't show an external antenna connection. Also, they will cost almost half the cost of the 950. Info here:
http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=102&encProdID=66EA91711DFB68C03DED4AD35153E12C&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0
