Oh, so you need a "reliable" radio?
Then cross off the Kaito's

"JS" wrote in message
. ..
I figured I'd ask before getting one.
Have been reading sw portable reveiws for about a week now.
Theres a site that has some good writeups.
Did start out by looking at the Sangeans, but
after reading about so many problems I started
looking at some others.
Figure if we get alot of storms this year(south Florida)
it'll be nice to have something to listen to other than the local stations
covering just storm news !




wrote in message
ups.com...

JS wrote:
Have looked at reviews on sub $100 portables.
This one has analog styledigital tuning and fine tuning.
Plus it has ssb.
Anyone have one, comments?

I have one and like it quite a bit. It feels like a solid radio, it
sounds better and receives better than my dx-402, and the ergonomics
aren't nearly as bad as people make it out to be. The analog display is
"digitized", so it seems like a gimick.You can do direct entry tune, or
use the tuning knob on the side...it doesn't chuff! the tuning knob
doubles as the volume control; just press vol, the turn the knob, then
wait half a sec. before tuning. It handles a random wire clipped to the
telescopic without overloading, and you could use something like a Sony
AN_LP1 with it easily. I live in a very (electrically)noisy town in NH
so it's hard to test out the true DX capabilities....on a quiet
day,though, I've been able to pull in Iceland, RVI via Irkutsk(when
they still b'cast in English) channel africa in the afternoon (EST) as
well as the majors all over. I wake up to R. Lider from Colombia or R.
Nacional from Paraguay in the early morning, and they come in just
fine! I haven't tried out a Grundig 400PE, but I suspect the 1103 is
every bit as good. I even found the perfect case for it.....a Gameboy
Advance case ; )

"JS" wrote
It's nice to have had the http://www.radiointel.com/reviews.htm
site to look at.
I found the reviews easy to read.

And heavily biased!

Is there such a thing as an unbiased review? Or said another isn't a
review nothing more than an opinion?

That's how I take reviews, no matter the source. It's one guys opinion
and nothing more.

And I gave you mine.

"John S." wrote in message
ups.com...
Is there such a thing as an unbiased review? Or said another isn't a
review nothing more than an opinion?

That's how I take reviews, no matter the source. It's one guys opinion
and nothing more.

Well, differences aside.
Got it last night, didn't get to try it yet.
Still has to be better than what I'm using now.


"Li,Chanchun" wrote in message
...
And I gave you mine.

"John S." wrote in message
ups.com...
Is there such a thing as an unbiased review? Or said another isn't a
review nothing more than an opinion?

That's how I take reviews, no matter the source. It's one guys opinion
and nothing more.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised at both the number of stations
that radio will catch on just the whip antenna as well as the quality
of the sound. Degen really packed a lot of performance into a nice
looking radio that is priced very reasonably.

Well, in spite of China's plans to take over the US.
I am enjoying the little radio.
It is real easy to use.
Haven't used the single sideband feature yet.
Listened to it last night in bed, and woke up this morning with the radio
still going, with the backlight on,
and nothing but static.
The fm stereo sounds pretty good, not like a Sony but still nice.
AM reception is not bad, I went through all the bands, not hard to remember
the
button locations, and I like the dial, just feels better than a push button
to me.
Didn't use the whip antenna, but maybe will try it tonight.




"John S." wrote in message
oups.com...
I think you will be pleasantly surprised at both the number of stations
that radio will catch on just the whip antenna as well as the quality
of the sound. Degen really packed a lot of performance into a nice
looking radio that is priced very reasonably.

I just got one yesterday for CDN$90 from Durham Radio (that's about US$72).
Good, accurate review by John S. I would add:

- the PLL is rather squishy meaning that, when you are tuning in SSB mode
and can hear the heterodynes caused by the BFO, they don't snap in 1 kHz
steps but sort of fast swoop with a tiny warble until locked
- scanning speed is slow
- it's a little annoying that when you start scanning outside one of the
'meter' bands, the scan ultimately gets captured by the first meter band it
encounters. It would be nice to be able to set two frequencies for scanning
to run between.
- I'd like a bit more range on the Fine Tuning control than the +/-1.5kHz
(estimated). +/-2.5 kHz would probably be optimal with the 'narrow' 4kHz
filter. To shift the filter to favour the lower or upper sideband, you tune
the radio higher or lower in frequency and shift the Fine Tuning control to
restore the pitch. This provides modest 'single signal discrimination'.
- the sharp filter is surprisingly good at suppressing adjacent channel
interference; if interference is on one side only, tuning to the other side
by 2kHz knocks it down quickly.
- images and intermod interference abound, even with the telescoping
antenna. I have not checked everywhere but the 26-30MHz range has
combinations of many SW and probably MW stations.
- I was pleased to see its automatic memory remembers not only the last
frequency tuned in each meter band but also the mode - if it was SSB, it
recalls SSB; the user stored memories also recall the mode.
- there is no autoscan of memories, seems to default to the band that the
current memory frequency is in.
- tuning seems accurate - in SSB mode, tuning to reliably accurate stations
such as WWV on 15MHz and local MW broadcasters, set the Fine Tune to zero
beat or a low pitch audible tone on one and then switch to the other (memory
tuning is great for this). The beat note should be the same. It was for
mine.
- I wish it would not revert back to AM mode every time you key in a new
frequency. Of course, it stays in SSB when jog tuning. I guess I'll have to
program in one frequency in SSB for each one of the ham bands to be able to
jump between them and stay in SSB mode.
- I agree that the retro analog dial is a waste of space that could have
been used for better button layout.
- I'm impressed with the 'fit and finish'.
- great value for the money!

Tom

"John S." wrote in message
oups.com...
I've used one since December of 2004.

For the price I cannot think of a radio that comes even close.
Positive points:
-Very sensitive on all bands.
-Dual filters do a good job of minimizing splatter on AM.
-A tuning knob makes band scanning a breeze.
-Does a good job on ssb signals and stable enough to allow tuning
around without retuning.
-Lots of memory channels.
-Stereo FM through headphones sounds good on this set.
-Direct frequency entry.
-Audio from the speaker is amazingly good considering it's size.

Negative points:

-Images abound as you would expect on a radio at this price. Not a big
deal, just be aware that Radio Havana doesn't broadcast on 5100 khz.

-S Meter is disabled on FM for some reason...not a big deal.

-An unfortunate method of numbering memory channels restricts the
usefulness of 268 memories. For some reason Degen chose to use
hexadecimal (base 16) numbering which adds several levels of complexity
to organizing and using memories. Compounding that is a bug in the
firmware that retunes the AM frequency when an FM frequency is
retrieved from memory.

Analog shortwave dial has some retro visual appeal but the space could
have been used for something else.

TH - Nice Informative Review ~ RHF
. . . . .

Nice rundown, I'm kind of new at the terminology ,
but interesting.
I like the dial, had one on the old Sony analog radio
which I haven't been using since getting the Kaito.
The scan is a little slow, tried it but haven't used it much.


"Tom Holden" wrote in message
.. .
I just got one yesterday for CDN$90 from Durham Radio (that's about US$72).
Good, accurate review by John S. I would add:

- the PLL is rather squishy meaning that, when you are tuning in SSB mode
and can hear the heterodynes caused by the BFO, they don't snap in 1 kHz
steps but sort of fast swoop with a tiny warble until locked
- scanning speed is slow
- it's a little annoying that when you start scanning outside one of the
'meter' bands, the scan ultimately gets captured by the first meter band
it encounters. It would be nice to be able to set two frequencies for
scanning to run between.
- I'd like a bit more range on the Fine Tuning control than the +/-1.5kHz
(estimated). +/-2.5 kHz would probably be optimal with the 'narrow' 4kHz
filter. To shift the filter to favour the lower or upper sideband, you
tune the radio higher or lower in frequency and shift the Fine Tuning
control to restore the pitch. This provides modest 'single signal
discrimination'.
- the sharp filter is surprisingly good at suppressing adjacent channel
interference; if interference is on one side only, tuning to the other
side by 2kHz knocks it down quickly.
- images and intermod interference abound, even with the telescoping
antenna. I have not checked everywhere but the 26-30MHz range has
combinations of many SW and probably MW stations.
- I was pleased to see its automatic memory remembers not only the last
frequency tuned in each meter band but also the mode - if it was SSB, it
recalls SSB; the user stored memories also recall the mode.
- there is no autoscan of memories, seems to default to the band that the
current memory frequency is in.
- tuning seems accurate - in SSB mode, tuning to reliably accurate
stations such as WWV on 15MHz and local MW broadcasters, set the Fine Tune
to zero beat or a low pitch audible tone on one and then switch to the
other (memory tuning is great for this). The beat note should be the same.
It was for mine.
- I wish it would not revert back to AM mode every time you key in a new
frequency. Of course, it stays in SSB when jog tuning. I guess I'll have
to program in one frequency in SSB for each one of the ham bands to be
able to jump between them and stay in SSB mode.
- I agree that the retro analog dial is a waste of space that could have
been used for better button layout.
- I'm impressed with the 'fit and finish'.
- great value for the money!

Tom

"John S." wrote in message
oups.com...
I've used one since December of 2004.

For the price I cannot think of a radio that comes even close.
Positive points:
-Very sensitive on all bands.
-Dual filters do a good job of minimizing splatter on AM.
-A tuning knob makes band scanning a breeze.
-Does a good job on ssb signals and stable enough to allow tuning
around without retuning.
-Lots of memory channels.
-Stereo FM through headphones sounds good on this set.
-Direct frequency entry.
-Audio from the speaker is amazingly good considering it's size.

Negative points:

-Images abound as you would expect on a radio at this price. Not a big
deal, just be aware that Radio Havana doesn't broadcast on 5100 khz.

-S Meter is disabled on FM for some reason...not a big deal.

-An unfortunate method of numbering memory channels restricts the
usefulness of 268 memories. For some reason Degen chose to use
hexadecimal (base 16) numbering which adds several levels of complexity
to organizing and using memories. Compounding that is a bug in the
firmware that retunes the AM frequency when an FM frequency is
retrieved from memory.

Analog shortwave dial has some retro visual appeal but the space could
have been used for something else.