Voyage of Discovery: Degen 1131

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Kevin

The radio arrived today from eBay seller Hisonic, costing me a paltry $19.99 plus tax. Here’s the stock photo again:

Degen DE1131 MW/FM/SW radio, MP3 Player

To tell the truth, I was contemplating sending it back as defective. Nothing worked. The radio came on and the buttons beeped when I pressed them, but nothing happened. I finally got “Radio” on the menu, but the SW, MW, FM buttons did nothing. It kept freezing up. I really thought I had a badly defective radio.

Second Impressions

I was wrong. The radio isn’t defective; it’s buggy and weird. I was prepared for some of the weirdness based on my experience with the Degen DE28 and the Kaito KA29, contemporary menu-driven radios from the same manufacturer. One important concept is delay. There is a delay sometimes between when you hit a button and when the radio responds to the button. This can result in the radio getting behind. You can hold down the tuning slider for a little and release — the radio will keep tuning until it catches up. Sometimes, the button just doesn’t work and it requires multiple presses. Sometimes it starts tuning in the opposite direction from the button pressed. It can be frustrating to use.

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Incoming radio: Degen DE23

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Kevin

I was surprised to learn that this radio is still for sale by Amazon in Mexico at a price equivalent to $117.25 USD. I was fortunate enough to find an unused one on eBay for $35.

Degen DE23 Stereo MW/FM Radio / MP3 player (manufacturer photo)

This unit, introduced on May 23, 2013, will, I hope match or exceed the sound quality of its contemporary Kaito KA29/Degen DE29, but in stereo. The two images above and below should be roughly to the same scale. I rather like the retro look of the DE23.

My intention is to use it as an external speaker for other radios rather than a radio itself. Nevertheless, when it comes, I’ll do the obligatory daytime AM/MW band scan.

The Amazon Mexico product description doesn’t mention that it has AUX input (panic), but the Tecsun product description does (relief).

The size is 160 x 65 x 40 mm (6.3 x 2.6 x 1.6 inches). It uses a BL-5C battery. Additional controls plus the input and output jacks are on the top. It’s supposed to arrive by May 14.

Update:

After a USPS misrouting, that May 14 date still looks likely.

Since placing the order my Degen DE1131 arrived. I hope this one is better. I’ve owned 4 of these 2012-2014 menu-driven radios/MP3 player-recorders. It would be interesting to compare their firmware and operation.

While we wait, you can chew on the Degen DE23 Operations Manual.

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Amazon Returns

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Kevin

This is my personal point of view.

I buy radios on Amazon. I review them here. Some I like and some I don’t like. If I don’t like the radio and I think it performs poorly, I don’t return it. I feel that if I buy something I don’t like, that means I did inadequate research before purchasing. If the radio is defective or is different from the product description, then it’s returned in a heartbeat. If I just don’t like it, I donate it to the local Goodwill store.

People have told me that that they pay for Amazon Prime, which gives them a liberal return policy, and that they are paying for the return. That may pay for the return shipping, but it doesn’t compensate the merchant. If you return something with the seal broken, Amazon will not resell it. The seller has the option of paying Amazon to ship it to them (prohibitive if the seller is in China) or have it destroyed. I’ve had the opportunity to handle about 35 radios returned to Amazon and only 3 of them had any defect whatever.

That reflects what I knew up until I watched the CNBC video below. I hope Amazon shoppers will watch it.

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Stumbling around with the SI4732 Pocket Mini: Updated again

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Kevin
SI4732 inside (click to expand)

What you see is a circuit board, a battery (lower left) and the speaker lower right.

The story starts with how weak the speaker sounds. I thought some earphones might help but they didn’t; in fact, I could barely hear anything on earphones. Perhaps an obvious flaw in the earphone jack could be found. Opening the radio proved an adventure. One can see a rather substantial screw pillar on the lower right; this is coming from the back of the radio. Three screws came out with some effort, but the 4th screw just spun around with no effort. It turns out that the screw head was broken off (not by me), leaving the rest of a very long screw holding both parts of the case firmly together. The only solution that worked was to use a fine-tipped soldering iron to heat the screw enough to melt the plastic to release it.

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Watching the Weather

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Kevin

This little trek started when I found an old weather sensor in a drawer. These come with weather stations to show what the temperature is remotely (or wind speed, humidity or rainfall).

The specific FCC ID for my sensor is RNERF100MTX, sold by Chaney Instrument Co. under the ACURITE brand. I found a manual and learned that the device transmits in the ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band that spans 433.05 – 434.79 MHz. Weather sensors typically operate around 433.92 MHz, but the exact frequency can vary depending on the manufacturer and device.

I also learned from my research that such devices use simple off/on encoding. That’s why my original title, “Listening to the Weather,” had to be changed. I have a few devices that can receive the ISM band frequencies, but I selected an RTL-SDR dongle since there wasn’t going to be anything to listen to.

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First Impressions: SI4732 Pocket Mini

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Kevin

The radio arrived today, a day early, from AliExpress. The box didn’t look too good, but the contents were fine.

The photo doesn’t carry the idea of how small this is. The radio is about 3 1/4″ wide and the outside diameter of that donut antenna is less than 4″.

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ATS25 Notes

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Kevin

I have an ATS25 max-Decoder that I’ve used some, and struggled with some. I keep plugging away trying to get some use from it. I’ve picked up some stations, gotten FT4 to work, listened to SSB, and decoded CW training transmissions. I currently have firmware version 4.2 AIR, 23 March 2025. The user manual is much improved with this release.

Wi-Fi

After installing the 3/23/2025 software, Wi-Fi wouldn’t connect to my home network. The entries indicated that they had been configured (blue) or a connection was being attempted (yellow). I found that I had to go into the Access Point selection, DELETE the existing credentials, and add them back before it would connect. It is possible that I lost some data due to problems I had with the last firmware installation and this was the reason for the failure.

Daylight Savings Time (Summer Time)

I wanted to set the clock for daylight savings time. Most of my radios are set to UTC and I didn’t know exactly how to set that either. I found the Si47XX for Radio Experimenters group on Facebook, and one of the commenters there explained the process: Press the RETRO button on the main screen, then SET, then CITY. When you select the city, click CHANGE, then EDIT and OK. Time offset will be flashing in the upper right corner of the screen and can be changed with the encoder knob. Click OK when done, then =>, EXIT, => and finally EXIT.

Antenna switch

Make sure the antenna switch is set correctly. On the max-Decoder, the AUTO setting is the way to go. You can waste a lot of time if the switch is set wrong.

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