| WINGNUTER |
Rating:     |
2008-09-07 | |
| DEGEN 1103 3.5 |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Purchased radio on eBay with additional case and he active magnetic indoor loop DE31 by Degen for about $100. Let me just say the two great qualities of the Radio are AM and FM bands. Very strong signals definitely come in here to PA I can pick up stations in NJ and most other stations in this state.
Yes ergonomics are a little strange, but really not a problem to get use to. NOW the negatives
The Shortwave bands do come in however they are muffed at times and as soon as I move away from the radio distortion set in. I have been able to get radio China, Netherlands Russian al the religious stations Alex Jones Coast to Coast Drudge all the Talk Radio showetc so that is some good news. So for me to give a rating on this radio I will have to break it down right here.
Cost I give it 4: $50 is a great price when Amazon charges at least 80.
Reception I give it: 3.5 why you ask? Well I have really been disappointed with the DE31 and I have tried everything to pull in clear signals and to me this has just been a waste of money so save your Money.
Antenna DE31: I give it 1 like I said FM and AM are great without it but this DE31 stinks
Overall rating would be 4+3.5+1 = 8.5/3 =2.8 so at this point I will give a rating of a 2.8 or 3.
If I had not purchased the DE31 I would give a 4.
To all newbie’s out there I recommend the book Passport to world band radio and especially listen to 41 meter’s after 8pm at night M-F to get all those international stations.
Bests,
KB3RPI
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|
| G0YAP |
Rating:      |
2008-08-31 | |
| Super Little Receiver |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I wanted a small radio to take on holiday and out in the garden mostly to listen to the football. I thought I,d go the whole hog and get one with shortwave SSB rx. The only sets I,d heard of were Sony and Grundig, but looking on E Bay I found it awash with this Degen make. I checked out the reviews on here and bought one. WOW!!! What a super little radio!! It sounds really good on FM (although a little tinny but still v good) but the rx is REALLY GOOD! On AM, my local station, BBC Radio Norfolk, comes through loud and clear whereas it sounds really distant on my car radio. The rx on the ham bands is very good too. I often go to bed about 9pm and read a book ( thats what 17 years of marriage does to you. ZZZZZZZ) and listen to 80mtrs. Everytime I do this, I end up hearing a station (this is just on the telescopic antenna) and tramping through to the shack and firing up my Yaesu FT450AT to work them. This litle baby even receives stuff on 80 using the telescopic antenna.. Amazing! It comes with a long wire and this just makes it work even better. The overall build quality is good, it does not feel cheap, it comes with good instructions and I bought the optional soft case for it (about £2.00). I would have no problem recommending this to anyone, shortwave listener or not. Superb! |
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| VICTROLA927 |
Rating:    |
2008-08-24 | |
| Great sound on FM, Good reception on AM, FM |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have used my Degen 1103 now for about 3 years and I cannot warm up to it at all. The functions are not intuitive and quick. The only three bands I can get good reception on are the FM, AM, and SSB. My SSB performance is excellent. 13 to 90 meters are very poor to say the least. My little Grundig World 100pe gets as good if not better performance on many bands. I do not care for the charging function on this radio, it should be automatic. Overall I like the size and shape of this unit. I like the sound on FM, but all other bands seem slightly muffled. I would like to buy another one to see if it is just my unit with poor reception, but I do not want to waste any more money. This units charging function has let me down more than once. If all you want it a tabletop AM, FM unit with great sound this it it. My unit does not perform well on other bands. My BCL-2000 reception blows the 1103 away, but the BCL-2000 is so big it is not as portable. I just may purchase another Degen to see if it gets better reception. Maybe I got a bad one. |
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| MSTAMPER |
Rating:     |
2008-08-17 | |
| A bargain |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| It's very good. I'd give it a 4.5 if I could. A more sensible user interface would have moved the review from 4 to 5. The layout of the buttons and knobs is not exactly intuitive. Reading the manual (and looking online for tips) is a must. I compared it with my Kaito solar/dynamo powered portable, and noted that the DE1103 consistently brought in more stations. The discontinuous bands are a nuisance - there are stations in the non-covered areas, and it's a pain to get to them. I bought higher-capacity rechargeable batteries - the ones that come with it are only 1350mah. The unit buzzes when running on AC, so it's best to use batteries. I paid $60 delivered on Ebay. For that price, these complaints can be easily overlooked. |
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| VECTAC |
Rating:      |
2008-06-17 | |
| An excellent receiver |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
An excellent receiver. Have it on my bedside table, can listen to VK5s talking amongst themselves from my QTH in VK2. SW rx is superb, as is SSB utilities; e.g. rxing SFO on 5634 USB, talking to aircraft over the Pacific. MW rx is great as well, able to rx Melbourne stations from north of Sydney. Went to Malaysia for two weeks on military exercises and used it as a rxer for HF freqs we were using, from my room at night. It came alive in Malaysia rxing all sorts of stations we can't receive in Australia.
It travels well and survived the return trip in a C130J quite well in my briefcase. Loved the 1102, but won't be giving the 1103 away. Back the AA cells up with more rechargables and a different charger and you won't go wrong.
A HIGHLY recommended item.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by VECTAC on 2008-06-17
An excellent receiver. Have it on my bedside table, can listen to VK5s talking amongst themselves from my QTH in VK2. SW rx is superb, as is SSB utilities; e.g. rxing SFO on 5634 USB, talking to aircraft over the Pacific. MW rx is great as well, able to rx Melbourne stations from north of Sydney. Went to Malaysia for two weeks on military exercises and used it as a rxer for HF freqs we were using, from my room at night. It came alive in Malaysia rxing all sorts of stations we can't receive in Australia.
It travels well and survived the return trip in a C130J quite well in my briefcase. Loved the 1102, but won't be giving the 1103 away. Back the AA cells up with more rechargables and a different charger and you won't go wrong.
A HIGHLY recommended item. |
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| WA4053SWL |
Rating:      |
2008-06-16 | |
| The best portable with whip antenna |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I want to correct my previous review.
I put this radio (new) side to side with several different portable like: Sangean 803A, Sony 2010, Sony 2001, Sony SW 7600G (all the second hand), all with the whip antenna, and the difference is clearly in favour of the Degen DE-1103, the Chinese did an excellent work with the sensibility, selectivity and sound with this radio.
73 to all
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Earlier 3-star review posted by WA4053SWL on 2008-04-04
This radio, comparing its performance with antenna telescopic, with the Sony 7600G, is mediocre, on SW and MW, and on MW the Sony without the synchronous detection, buy this radio to a salesperson in China (by ebay), and I have noted that the BFO cry in 20 meters and 15 meters, when I listen HAM, the Sony in the same frecuency not, i like the sound and the dial knob, these radios with antenna telescopic do not serve none for the DX, for DX (sign low, very low), the sign of the BBC, Radio Nederland or the DW, they are heard with any radio, but to the radios one must put them at least a long wire, telescopic antenna does not serve, and more with the conditions of propagation very bad, the best radio of this type, by far away, is the Sangean 909.
73 to all and god DX |
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| SWL177 |
Rating:      |
2008-04-24 | |
| Exellent |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I got mine a few days ago & used it every spare minute to the wife's demise . It is a very good piece of kit considering its size & price . In comparison to the realistic DX-394 and the sangean ATS909 the little degen wins hands down . Eg it will clearly pick up ham stations on its small whip antenna that the DX-394 will just barely copy with a long wire . To compare with the sangean on sensitivity on the lover bands (bellow 7mhz ) its a lot more sensitive , anything above its on par .
It is a very easy radio to use , even my 8 year old daughter can use it with ease !
As for the FM broadcast its just amazing , i have 8 FM broadcast radio's here & i never thought id be able to receive so many stations . From 88 - 108 it is just full whereas with the other radio's will receive 6-8 stations .
The only thing i would like to add to this little gem would be RDS on FM , other than that it's a keeper .
SWL177 |
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| JETPILOT |
Rating:      |
2008-04-05 | |
| Super value, performance is a very small package |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Purchased off of eBay, it took 3wks 3days to get. I bought the optional TG34 active loop antenna (review under KA31) and leatherette soft case, all for less than $100. My first impression was it's small, which is great, but with that is the only negative I can think of, buttons are small. Regardless, this thing rocks! I have no portables to compare but the analog ones I had as a kid. I do have a RX320D PC radio. I was impressed with the DE1103. Although the Ten Tec RX320D currently I work with its whip antenna (still working on a good antenna), the DE1103 was great with its whip (+3' long) or internal loop-stick, dwarfing the radio. I also tried the supplied 35' wire and the TG34 with it (see review of TG34 under KA31).
The small button issue is OK considering the size and performance. I travel a lot, so its very portable size is great and easy to carry, a worthy sacrifice for button size.
Some complain about the Volume control? Well I say it's not a big deal. You do not have to push the vol button to set vol (with the tune dial), but you DON'T have to hold the vol button; may be this is an update? With one hand push the set vol button; set volume and in a few seconds it goes back to freq mode automatically. The neg might be the second wait for the dial to go back into Freq mode.
Multi rotary function dial is large (for the size of the radio) with a nice feel; you can turn with two fingers or spin with one finger. The dial does several things:
set time
tunes freq
sets Volume
set dual alarms
set memory presets
set battery charge hours
cycles through memory presets
It works beautifully. To access some of the other functions the radio has to be off (battery charge time, alarms). It comes with a wall pwr supply and rechargeable NiMH 1300mAh batteries which can be charged in the radio. You have to tell it how many hours to charge from 1 to 20 hours. I was hesitant to over charge. All my NiMH chargers are auto, but I use 10 hours when the batt indicator first flashes. Full discharged may be 13 hours or about 1 hour per 100mAh bat capacity? The supplied ones where 1300mAh and gave several hours of heavy use with back light on. Back light is auto and goes off after a few seconds of inactivity. The back light is OK not spectacular. If in a dark room its good enough, but some of the writing is small. (all labels are english btw but there is some chinese on the back under the model info.)
Sitting down with the manual (which was on a disk not paper) I spend a delightful hour during the morning learning the functions. I pretty much got it the first time. The only one I had some stumbles learning was memory setting. You DO have to hold the memory button while dialing memory locations with the second hand, which is a pain. Than you dial through the mems, letting go of the button to land the freq (empty or not), but you have to hit the button a second time with-in a few seconds to set it (my mistake). If you let go of the button accidentally you can set it anywhere and overwrite, so the second push gives you a vote if that mem location is ok. If not ok wait, it goes out of mem set mode after a few seconds. Than start over.
There are lots of memories, 255. Once you store a lot of mems, you have to spin the dial a lot to scroll through them to get a blank location. That is why I took the approach of setting mem spots going up and down the dial (turn) from the default "00". Going "up is mem spots starting with a number, and going "down" are mem spots with letters first. The numbering is 0 through 9, than some odd number/alpha combos (A, b, C, d, E, F). Why b and d are lower case don't know. Why not all numbers, I don't know, but guessing they only had two place mem location label limit. Reading from top to bottom (as you dial up):
00 10
01 11
02 12
03 13
04 14
05 15
06 16
07 17
08 18
09 19
0A 1A
0b 1b
0C 1C
0d 1d
0E 0A
0F 1F and so on
Dial down, mems seq example (read top to bot)
EF dF
EE dE
Ed dd
EC dC
Eb db
EA dA
E9 d9
E8 d8
E7 d7
E6 d6
E5 d5
E4 d4
E3 d3
E2 d2
E1 d1
E0 d0 and so on
Weird and took a little getting use to. Each "group" is 15 or 16 numbers.
To set I skip the ODD BALL letter mem locations as "over flow" for new freqs. I try to group freqs in logical groups or bands. You can skip mem spots and set any of the 255 spots. I made a spread sheet to organize it. I recommend that. If you have to start over, its best to reset and start over. Trying to move them is a pain. However you can just overwrite with no problem. There is no mem overwrite protection.
Once mem locations are set, scanning memory is nice. It skips blanks, you can go up or down and it wraps around. There is no direct memory storing or retrieval I see. You have to scroll sequentially through them always. With 255 mem spots, I recommend some memory setting plan or organization scheme; that way you know which way to dial. I recommend the split up/down setting plan and group by bands. You can shotgun freqs into mem as you like but it gets ugly. Since memory setting starts at "00". You may want to leave "00" or the near mem spots (up) 01, 02, 03 or FE, Fd, FC open for setting temp freqs. You can store them later in a diff spot. It saves you from having to scroll through the mems to set it.
The only thing I predict, even with a strong build quality, solid, is the labeling might wear off the buttons or case with heavy use? Some are labels surface and some are etched in. With heavy use I can see markings or finish wearing off?
The Freq display has the electronic feq slide bar with 12 bands FM, MW and 90 through 13 meter. To be honest I hated the way it looked in pictures. Now I really like it.
It remembers last freq for each band as you scroll thru the bands with the -band or +band buttons. Its a great display. You also have digital freq display, modes, time, alarm, vol and bat info.
To access freqs below 3.1Mhz you need to direct enter the freq (which is easy). Once in that below 3100khz to 100khz range, you can tune with the dial or scan. Same above 21950, to get to the full range up to 29999khz, enter a number 21951 or above, than manually tune or scan. If you exceed the end band range, it pops back into one of the 11 canned MW or SW/HF bands, and the tune bar shows up again. The tune steps is 25khz for FM and 1khz for MW/SW. You can manually enter freqs. You can easily pick up audio as you dial. The auto scan has a pause and move on mode, unless you push a button to stop it.
I used the internal loop-stick and attached whip, as well as the supplied 35' wire that plugs in. I also used an optional TG34 active loop antenna I added on for $22 (see review under KA31 portable antennas). The TG34 tunes in WM with a loop-stick booster/repeater. The radio has a 1/8" plug in antenna jack for SW and FM. I got spectacular results (to me) with both external antennas.
SSB was good, stable (and yes the SSB fine tune dial is small and sensitive but workable). When you save a SSB freq to memory it saves SSB mode (but not the fine tune of course).
Sound quality is great and stereo FM is avaiable with the headset only, which is excellent. I tried a Sennheiser full cup pro280 and was very happy. With just the whip I got all lower FM 4 college radio stations, none are power houses stations. It has two IF selections 450 Khz and 55.845 Mhz. Filters are pretty good. MW AM BC DX'ing is ok but with the external loop repeater it was very good.
I can't say enough good stuff about it. Except for the two handed memory button-hold/dial deal, it is great at twice the price. For big hand folks I suggest you get a soft stylus and set it down or on its built in stand, verses holding it. It makes button pushing easier and a joy, especially for the few two handed operations. Cheers George, highly recommend |
|
| IK8VWA |
Rating:      |
2008-03-03 | |
| An excellent performer |
Time Owned: N.A. |
I purchased the DE1103 last summer, through eBay from a Chinese seller. Italian customs made me pay lots of taxes (that almost doubled what I paid for the radio itself) but I have been very satisfied since the very first moment I unwrapped it. The radio works great with its whip and the audio quality in the broadcasting bands (AM) outperforms my Yaesu FT 840. I took the little beast at 800 meters above sea level and connected it to a 8 meters vertical antenna. In this last case I noticed strong intermodulation in the 21 mhz band, but that's acceptable since the hill I was on was a nest of TV and FM radio repeaters with hi power. I would strongly recommend to buy this radio since you can listen to everything, from AM emissions to ssb utility stations or fax. It can be an excellent companion on a boat as backup receiver for meteo alerts via rtty (use it coupled to a pocket pc equipped with "Pocket Digi") or great and affordable second receiver, to be used as a monitor or countless situations.
I give a 5, but all things considered and having been given the possibility, I would assign a 6/6. |
|
| KC8TBY |
Rating:      |
2008-02-24 | |
| Great receiver for the price...! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I have owned numerous small and mid-sized "portable" general coverage receivers down through the years.
I recently purchased the DE1103 after reading many of the reviews posted here and on other sites regarding the performace of this little radio.
I paid less than $85 dollars for this rig and I wasn't expecting too much for my money. Wow...was I ever wrong!
First off, I was very impressed with the overall "build quality" of this little receiver. Unlike so many other similarly priced portables currently on the market, the '1103 has a heavier, "metalic" feel to it. In this sense it is very reminiscent of the more expensively priced Sony radios.
Secondly I was surprised at how well this little receiver "pulled in" those hard to hear signals and how well it "locked onto" those particular signals once I had tuned them in. Great sensitivity and great selectivity!
Now as for the ergonomics; not the best BUT not really such a BIG problem as some folks seem to make it out to be!
OK...there is no didcated volume knob. It takes (about) three minutes to get used to the idea of either using the numeric button in conjunction with the volume button OR to use the volume button in conjunction with the "jog wheel" in order to adjust the volume. In reality it IS different BUT kind of fun, once you get used to it!
The batteries can be charged internally BUT, on the average, it seems to take between ten and thirteen hours to fully charge the 1300 MilAmp batteries once they are depeleted. (You are better off using a higher rated set of batteries and to purchase an outboard battery charger for faster re-charge time!
Overall, although I want to emphasise that this radio is only a portable receiver and NOT a tabletop rig, it's performance is well above that which one could reasonably expect from such a reasonably priced radio!
I do feel a bit guilty having bought this radio, however. Keep in mind that Chinese factories are notorious for using forced prisoner labor to build their products. (Thus the cheap price!) Given that reality maybe we should all re-think how good a "buy" this radio really is? |
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