Thomas Dickens wrote in
:

All,

I recently saw the review of the Degen 1103 and am interested in
buying one. I already have a DX-440. I'm just getting back into the
hobby after a long absence. Has anyone compared these two receivers?
Could I expect similar performance, or possibly somewhat better in the
Degen? The DX-440 seems to suffer somewhat from spurious signals on
some bands.

Thanks in advance,
Tom


Note: I use ATS-803a and DX-440 here interchangeably since they are
practically the same radio.

I have the ATS-803a and the DE1103 so I can speak to this somewhat. For
shortwave listening, they are comparable. If I can receive something on
one, I can receive it on the other. Sound quality is similar, the bass
is slightly deeper on the ATS-803a. The speaker on the DE-1103 is quite
powerful for its size. I should note that my antenna is a single 20
foot horizontal wire in a detached garage away from my house, fed
through a transformer on an FT-43 torroid. Thus, I have no idea if
either would overload or not with a "real" antenna.

On MW, they both are comparable as well, but the small size of the DE-
1103 allows for easier rotation (on my desk, anyways) for optimal
reception. The ATS-803a/DX-440 has the benefit of turning off the MW
ferrite antenna when you plug in an antenna wire--on my desk, next to my
noisy computer, this allows me to silence the high RF interference
inside the house, and receive the signal from my (coax fed) wire antenna
instead.

The ATS-803a has a quirk where the tuning knob behaves strangly--at
least mine does--jumping 100 khz at a time sometimes, so the DE-1103 is
easier for me to use for manual bandscanning. I found some stations in
the day (22,19,16 m etc) that I missed before with autoscan. However,
it does get stuck in band segments (by design) and you have to hit the
band + button to jump to the next. To scan between "bands", you must
enter a frequency in the segment, and then use the knob to scan.

I don't know about the BFO's, they both seem to fine-tune as easily and
zero beat as easily, but except for a few HAMS, most SSB signals here
are so weak that I can't tell if either is any good. AFRTS, for
example, is tunable but too weak to hear.

As to FM, I have no idea, except that they both "work." They both
receive weak FM stations equally as far as I can tell.

Overall, the main advantage of the DE-1103 over the ATS-803a is its size
and portability. Also, the faux-analog display can help people like me
who don't have the bands memorized. The main advantage of the ATS-803a
is that a full service manual is available with full schematics, and
with the exception of a few components, if it breaks, you can probably
fix it, or someone else can. Also, the ATS-803a has massive batteries
that last for ages.

One final note, the Degen 1103 behaved very strangely when I received
it--it would only receive on even frequencies (i.e. 5000 not 5001), and
would lock-up a lot. I was almost ready to send it back when I tried
different batteries, in this case Energizer 2100 mAh NiCad's. Now,
everything works fine. I compared the batteries that came with it with
others, even with the AA's that came with my Degen 1102, and the 1103's
batteries they are about 0.6 mm shorter each. I suspect a weak battery
compartment spring and the shorter length was causing poor contact.

Oh, the Degen batteries? They are happily in my digital camera and
working fine.

Hope this helps.