"Cato" wrote in message
ps.com...
Not all of us can afford $300 - $500 for a new radio. Not everyone
can afford a brand new Cadillac or Maserati.
If you have more money then you know what to do with, that's fine.
Good for you. Have fun. But for the rest of us that have to slog three
shifts, and support a family and pay almost fifty percent of our income
to taxes, you really can't beat the Degen DE11/ Kaito KA 11 in it's
price range. Nothing wrong with a good Ford or GMC vehicle if you can't
afford an expensive exotic luxury vehicle. Among the cheaper radios,
the DE11/KA11 really stands out as a higher quality, better performing
radio. Sure, it will never have a chance of equaling your Sonys. Your
Sonys will outperform the DE11/KA. No question about that. But the
DE11/KA11 beats pretty well everything else in its price bracket.
The fact is the Degen DE11/Kaito KA11 delivers a lot more
performance then its price would suggest. Compared to many other cheap
radios (like the SN400, the Kaiwa KA-818, Eton Mini 300PE, Grundig
G110A, Sangean PT-50, etc. etc.), it is a good performer. It is also
built much better then its price would suggest. It's an excellent
bargain for those of us in in the bit lower income level that can't see
spending our hard earned money on a radio that's up in the exotic class
like the Sony SW100 & SW07. I could buy one of those Sonys, but then
maybe my kids would have to do without decent skates for playing hockey
in their leagues. So, instead, they get good skates, I go with nice
Kaito or Degen radios instead of the higher performance Sonys. I love
Sony, and if I could afford one, I would get one. I do own an older
Sony ICF 2002 ( ICF-7600D), and it a good radio, works like the day I
bought it back in '84. But I am more then pleased with my decision.
The kids are happy with their skates. I am happy with my radios.
For those of us that simply can't afford a radio like a SonySW100 or
SW07, there are several Kaito/Degen radios in the $50.00 - $100 range
that are well built and perform admirably.

Regards, Cato
Do you actually have one of these?

The whole problem is that people in the know have started to refer to Gegen
as an innovative company which produces BETTER radios than Sony, especially
after a bit of development. A company which goes against the grain of
development of Chinese companies which tend to produce amazing technological
achievements in prototype form to show to their corporate customers which
then become tinny bits of junk with all corners cut to save money when put
into production (see made-in-China versions of Sony VCRs which Sony tells
you to they will swap out or you can throw away if they ever go wrong)

I however have this radio and have noticed an alarming tendency towards 'the
Phillips effect', - putting features, knobs, mechanisms on it which don't
actually do anything.

It says it is dual conversion on Kaito's radios page but then on its own
page doesn't make any such claim. Which being the case it should have some
pretty advanced circuitry to compensate for this but it doesn't make any
such claim. It only sports those 'Phillips' features.

Mine doesn't actually pick up any stations and when I bought it for this
amazing auto-memorising of 1000 short wave stations [obviously UP TO 1000]
and asked why this feature didn't actually seem to work (it DOES tune in
some stations of pure interference), was told that this feature is only
really designed to tune in 1000 FM stations (cf. 'The Phillips Effect')
where on FM the stations are stronger; and that on SW, the stations have to
be tuned in manually. Indicating that it doesn't actually have any advanced
circuitry at all to support this feature!

Even worse, all the commentators seem to regard it as a toy and haven't ever
done any reviews, - or even comparative reviews, - on it?

Meanwhile it IS an adorable little thing in much the same way as the
Austrian-built AE3905 was and while I found that to be the worst SW radio
ever designed (it's batteries weren't even powerful enough to power its own
speaker!), I am left wondering whether I am doing something wrong with this
DE11 or whether in reality I just have an early version and Degen has still
to design those features into it. Or get them working properly?


BTW RHF, What WERE all those references to google searches dating back to
the year gimel on radios supposedly surpassed by time in 2006?

Proud Neo-con American Right-wing Zionist/Christian Imperialist wrote:
"Cato" wrote
Greetings: I am not sure exactly what you expect from a radio that
is just a bit bigger then a deck of cards. No one should expect the
performance of a average size portable or tabletop rig. I own several
radios, my Panasonic RF-2200, and a Sony ICF-2002, Eton E5, and others.

Can my Degen DE11 compete with them?? Not a chance. They outperform the
DE11/KA11 by miles. But read on. The DE11/KA11 is not intended to equal
their performance. I don't expect it to do so. I purchased a Degen DE11
on eBay, and I am very pleased with its performance and build. Is it
perfect? Not a chance. But I have yet to hear of a perfect radio. Does
it leave anything to be desired? Of course. I would love for it to have
syncronous detection, mutiple bandwidths, double conversion etc. But
HEY! Look at the size of this thing, and tell me you really expect that
in something this tiny.

Yes, I do! With my Sony SW100 and SW07.
You get what you pay for. A DE11? BWAHAHAHA!!!!