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Reviews For: Degen DE1126

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Degen DE1126
Reviews: 2MSRP: 45
Description:
Degen DE1126 Ultra-Thin AM/FM/SW Radio with 4GB MP3 Player, Voice Recorder & E-book Reader
Product is in production
More Info: http://degen.com.cn
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0024
KE8WO Rating: 2017-03-12
Good Performance & Features Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The other review here goes over the features very well .. so no need to repeat. I've had one for several years and it performs well for such a small package. I recently cleaned off the sticky finish with 91% alcohol with good results. But now the headphone jack is intermittent and failing. Taking the 1126 apart, it looks like there is no simple way to replace the jack. Since I use it mostly on my daily walk with headphones, I now don't use it much.
ZACH0000 Rating: 2012-07-12
A very good Swiss knife radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Report for DE1126



De1126 is my last and latest radio. I found it via ebay from a very respected seller I know since 2005 from other Degen radio forums. It has been bought for a total of 70 USd (45 for radio , 15 shipping and 2x5 for battery replacements )
This article here is a abridged article of a soon to be posted in my page on http://sites.google.com/site/zliangas/.

This is a DSP based radio . It operates also as removable disk ,mp3 player with 4 GB memory , voice and radio recorder and e-text reader !The radio is included in a book shaped box Unfolding the box the radio is pulled out from the left ‘page’. On the right ‘page’ there are the accessories (ears , adaptor with USB plug , battery BLC 5 type clone of Nokia , USB cable and instructions guide ). The seller adds a Cd with a complete instruction guide for all Degen and Tecsun models and several firmware updates

This is a menu driven radio , oprated by the right thumb button

Here are several results during my tests

MW has tuning step of 9 and 10 kHz adjustable from menu with range of 520 -1620/1710 kHz and less than 4 kHz bandwidth making of bad audio . Good sensitivity linear acvross te band,from 5S units comparable to 1103’s

SW with range of 2 to 23 MHz , 5 kHz tuning step and same bandwidth filter as in MW . Bands change by pressing the SW button repeatedly Also good sensitivity close to 1103’s but subject to overloading if external antenna is used (especially of nearby strong signals )

AM bands suffer from two factors : High circuitry self noise and ‘signal dropout’ (signals near to threshold can be zeroed out but still audible with lower audio ) Audio fidelity is quite bad due to high selectivity.

FM with range of 68/88-108 depending of the region set from menu and 100 kHz step . 5 types of ranges are available Word China Japan USA Campus . Clear audio. Low sensitivity compared to DE1102 and 1103

Tuning : 3 different types of tuning, manual scan memory ATS and can be made by buttons or by jog dialing , Jog dialing requires only slow tuning or no tuning is made

Recording : 3 different types of recordings :
128kb of WAV (ADPCM ) ,16 kHz nominal bandwidth -actual only 8 khz - suitable for recording from FM
40 kb MP3 (nominal 8kHz ) suitable for recording from SW, though actual bandwidth is only 1.5 kHZ
256 kb WAV with or without silence remover, used only from microphone
CON : Radio recording sets to high output volume (20 in my case )

MP3 :
WAV MP3 WMA supported with clear sound of higher audio level than radio (at least 10 db ) WMA is little bassier . Ability to stretch /enlarge playback (good for podcasts) More info on this mode's features in my full review page later

e-reader ; Supports only text files. Did not tested so far , but it is out of interest here.

Interfacing:using a USB D type socket can yeld to 7.5 mB upload speeds and ca 20 mB download speeds. in Windows 7. Not always communicating with computer (these special cases it just connects for charging or 'loses' connection )

Battery : BL5 C sized , clone of Nokia. About 10 hours of operation with playback in the 1/3th of volume. 3 hours required to charge fully the battery. Radio’s internal circuitry can drain the battery in about 3-4 weeks , without any radio usage.. .

System reset can happen also due to high moisture, once battery is replaced or if battery is drained.

As in result the radio is quite good for FM , quite good for journalistic work as voice recorder but not so good for AM modes