Kublakhan,
I would try to stay away from portable DAT recorders if you can. The major manufacturers have discontinued all their portables and will stop making replacement parts in the near future. I have three portable DAT decks that I use for recording jam band concerts and I am looking for replacement recorders myself. I suggest that you look at a solid state recorder that uses compact flash or micro hard drives for recording media. Edirol makes a compact flash recorder the R1 that has built in stereo mics and can record 24 bit wav files and fits in the palm of your hand. Look at these two web pages:
http://www.oade.com The Oade Brothers are very helpful and know everything about portable digital recording.
http://www.sonicsense.com Also very knowledgeable about field recording.
I have purchased equipment from both these venders and have been pleased with the service from both. They have a good reputation in the taper community.
Sorry for your loss
Jim