I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid. The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button. The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine. The AC adaptor is a 220v/50hz
but has a plug identical to the US 120v/60hz plug, which could be
dangerous if somebody in the US buys it and just plugs it in without the
supplied power converter. The manual is reasonably well translated,
although it tends to slip into incomprehensible "Engrish" (see
engrish.com) every so often. It came with a little card saying that it
was made on 1-10-04, which is an impressive turnaround time considering
that it was sent on March 19. It was sent from Hong Kong and acording to
the stamps it cost $121.10 in Hong Kong dollars to send-the stamps are
pretty, BTW. The return address was stamped on the envelope and the ink
is all smeared so I can't read it. All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light. It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

"tommyknocker" wrote...
I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid.
[snip]

Good review Tommy, but I don't think my DE1102 sounds too bad.
In fact, it sounds better than my old YB-300, which IMO fits your
description above.

I'd say the speaker sound is good for the radio's size... at least on mine
it is.

In article ,
tommyknocker wrote:

I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid.

Well, sort of. Actually mine sounds OK. Between the tone "Hi/Lo"
switch and wide/narrow bandwidth, you can get decent sound. Also, try
using headphones. Even the supplied earbuds sound good.

The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button.

Huh? This I don't understand at all. There is no "difficult button
pressing procedure to get it to come on". ANY button press will turn
it on if you are in the dark. I just spent about 6 hours using mine in
the dark - in the backyard with my telescope, checking out
Mercury/Venus/Mars/Jupiter/Saturn/The Moon. My 1102 was playing the
entire time, first listening to the OK State/St. Joe NCAA basketball
game, then scanning and listening to Holland, BBC and Australia. I
settled on hitting a volume button to turn the blue light on. I also
discovered that the light stays on while scanning!

The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine.

You should have been more patient. Mine were working right out of the
box. After 6 hours of using the 1102 in the dark, they are still on
"full".

All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light.

Huh? You just press "exit" after power on to turn off the 99 minute
sleep timer. This is "complicated"?

You want complicated, try a Grundig Satellit 650!

It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

For it's size, the speaker does fine. I have the silver Kaito version.
I'm about to order a black Degen version also. I'll leave one at work
and one at home, rather than taking the one I have back and forth!

Dan

Drake R8
Grundig Satellit 650
Radio Shack DX-440 (Sangean 803a)
Grundig YB400
Tecsun PL-230 (YB550PE)
Kaito KA1102
Hallicraters S-120 (1962)
Zenith black dial 5 tube Tombstone (1936)
E. H. Scott 23 tube Allwave in Tasman cabinet (1935)

tommyknocker ) escribió el Domingo 28 Marzo 2004 00:58 en
el grupo rec.radio.shortwave en el mensaje
las siguientes cosas:

I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, (...)

Where do you buyed it?

Thanks.

mine sounds like crap

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 15:58:05 -0800, tommyknocker
wrote:

I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid. The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button. The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine. The AC adaptor is a 220v/50hz
but has a plug identical to the US 120v/60hz plug, which could be
dangerous if somebody in the US buys it and just plugs it in without the
supplied power converter. The manual is reasonably well translated,
although it tends to slip into incomprehensible "Engrish" (see
engrish.com) every so often. It came with a little card saying that it
was made on 1-10-04, which is an impressive turnaround time considering
that it was sent on March 19. It was sent from Hong Kong and acording to
the stamps it cost $121.10 in Hong Kong dollars to send-the stamps are
pretty, BTW. The return address was stamped on the envelope and the ink
is all smeared so I can't read it. All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light. It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

Not a manual reader, are you Tommyknocker? Heh, me either -- but I did pick
this up...

The light comes on when a button is pressed and the light sensor senses
darkness. The light sensor is in one of the little holes in the top right
of the speaker grille.

It will stay on if you plug in your A/C adapter while the light is on.

-- Stinger

"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...
I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid. The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button. The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine. The AC adaptor is a 220v/50hz
but has a plug identical to the US 120v/60hz plug, which could be
dangerous if somebody in the US buys it and just plugs it in without the
supplied power converter. The manual is reasonably well translated,
although it tends to slip into incomprehensible "Engrish" (see
engrish.com) every so often. It came with a little card saying that it
was made on 1-10-04, which is an impressive turnaround time considering
that it was sent on March 19. It was sent from Hong Kong and acording to
the stamps it cost $121.10 in Hong Kong dollars to send-the stamps are
pretty, BTW. The return address was stamped on the envelope and the ink
is all smeared so I can't read it. All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light. It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

Okay.

Now, try plugging in a "good" pair of Walkman-style headphones. Turn on a
good FM station, and press FM again to get the "Bass" setting.

Nice, huh?

I think the speaker is basically there as a convienience, but the radio's
size (and the fact that the manual says not to use the Bass setting without
headphones) tell me that you've basically got a shortwave walkman.

-- Stinger

"Altawaowr" wrote in message
...
mine sounds like crap

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 15:58:05 -0800, tommyknocker
wrote:

I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid. The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button. The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine. The AC adaptor is a 220v/50hz
but has a plug identical to the US 120v/60hz plug, which could be
dangerous if somebody in the US buys it and just plugs it in without the
supplied power converter. The manual is reasonably well translated,
although it tends to slip into incomprehensible "Engrish" (see
engrish.com) every so often. It came with a little card saying that it
was made on 1-10-04, which is an impressive turnaround time considering
that it was sent on March 19. It was sent from Hong Kong and acording to
the stamps it cost $121.10 in Hong Kong dollars to send-the stamps are
pretty, BTW. The return address was stamped on the envelope and the ink
is all smeared so I can't read it. All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light. It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

In article ,
"Stinger" wrote:

Okay.

Now, try plugging in a "good" pair of Walkman-style headphones. Turn on a
good FM station, and press FM again to get the "Bass" setting.

Nice, huh?

I think the speaker is basically there as a convienience, but the radio's
size (and the fact that the manual says not to use the Bass setting without
headphones) tell me that you've basically got a shortwave walkman.

Exactly, and it absolutely excels in that application!

Although mine is still "good enough" thru the speaker for hour after
hour program listening. No, it's not as nice as my R8 with the Sync
Detector on playing thru my Satellit 650's AUX input, but then it
doesn't weigh a combined 20 pounds either!

Dan

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 06:59:10 -0800, Altawaowr
wrote:

mine sounds like crap

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 15:58:05 -0800, tommyknocker
wrote:

I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid. The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button. The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine. The AC adaptor is a 220v/50hz
but has a plug identical to the US 120v/60hz plug, which could be
dangerous if somebody in the US buys it and just plugs it in without the
supplied power converter. The manual is reasonably well translated,
although it tends to slip into incomprehensible "Engrish" (see
engrish.com) every so often. It came with a little card saying that it
was made on 1-10-04, which is an impressive turnaround time considering
that it was sent on March 19. It was sent from Hong Kong and acording to
the stamps it cost $121.10 in Hong Kong dollars to send-the stamps are
pretty, BTW. The return address was stamped on the envelope and the ink
is all smeared so I can't read it. All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light. It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

Mine does also. I just don't understand why this 1" speaker does not
sound as good as 10" speaker. I for one expect room filling sound from
a 1" speaker.

The WRX911 has a much better sounding speaker, it's a smaller speaker
and a cheaper radio.


On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 18:57:11 GMT, Overwelmed by Stupidity
wrote:

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 06:59:10 -0800, Altawaowr
wrote:

mine sounds like crap

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 15:58:05 -0800, tommyknocker
wrote:

I've been playing around with my Degen 1102 for a day or so, and here
are my opinions: It has good sensitivity but it has a tinny sounding
speaker. It sounds like the cheap transistor radio you had as a kid. The
blue backlight is cool looking, and it lights up the buttons too, but it
doesn't seem to come on reliably and it entails a rather difficult
button pressing procedure to get it to come on-there's no "light"
button. The batteries it comes with are rechargeable type, and it takes
five hours to charge them since they don't have any juice out of the
box, so I said the hell with them and went down to the grocery store and
bought regular alkalines, which work fine. The AC adaptor is a 220v/50hz
but has a plug identical to the US 120v/60hz plug, which could be
dangerous if somebody in the US buys it and just plugs it in without the
supplied power converter. The manual is reasonably well translated,
although it tends to slip into incomprehensible "Engrish" (see
engrish.com) every so often. It came with a little card saying that it
was made on 1-10-04, which is an impressive turnaround time considering
that it was sent on March 19. It was sent from Hong Kong and acording to
the stamps it cost $121.10 in Hong Kong dollars to send-the stamps are
pretty, BTW. The return address was stamped on the envelope and the ink
is all smeared so I can't read it. All in all, a rather nice radio but a
little too complicated to work-it has five different ways to tune it and
a complicated way to turn off the 99 minute sleep timer, in addition to
the aforementioned light. It also has a crappy speaker. But it's a good
value for $50.

Mine does also. I just don't understand why this 1" speaker does not
sound as good as 10" speaker. I for one expect room filling sound from
a 1" speaker.