Degen DE108 radio review

The model is now [2019] nearly usseless . AM bands lost totaly their ensitivity while Fm audio i rather garbled..

Yet another radio I bought so many years ago when I had direct communication with the company (Tecsun , its international distributor from Hong Kong )on mid 2000's that is very rarely used .Just bought for its design and the low price

It is a slim , cassette sized PLL controlled compact radio with built in detachable antenna and speaker as is shown in the photos. Other features are shown in the end of this article , clock A ery nice design indeed and excellent for using it your pocket

Here are everal pictures of the ardio

Herw are the details

The LCD readout , ativng also as time .ON the right side are the alarm and the time/alarm setting the mamory store and memeory up

Here are the 3.8 cm speaker , the power button (quite small for my hands!) the stepbuttons , band (MW SW FM )and the memory buttons

Ye locke m, volume and mono stereo switch

Tthe power supply socket . The most wakward is the power supply voltage is 5 V with positive curent on the ground (still more awkward mimicing 6 yeass ago the today's tech with USB voltage )

and the opposite side showing the rear speaker and the 2 Aa battery compartement

Here is the results from what i tested

1 FM Poor selectivity

Poor to fair audio using the Sony MDR755 earphones.

2. MW: good selectivity and quite good sensitivity . A tested with the AN 200 antenna , it can handle inductive signals from abt 20 cm far when antenna is correctly tuned to a given frequency IN case for detuned antenna the signal is still receivable for a broad range of freqs at least 150 kHz

Audio is generally poor with <3kHz span

Radio produces its own noise and is heard

My business is on University. My office , full of fluorescent lamps, is 50 m from the antenna of the students station transmitted on 1431 kHz . The station is filtered to 2 9kHz steps inside the office. With air contact the range rises to 1390-1600!

3.SW : Poor to fair sensitivity and non properly filtered FM pass-through . In Thessaloniki and Retziki where FM antenna farm is abt 10 km far, with more than 40 FM and 25 TV channels , they produce a fair-level constant background noise. Fortunately MW band is quite well filtered so that no spurs are detected from the nearby transmitter . . SW Signals can be heard only with the detachable antenna and only fair and strong signals can be herd.

Earphone cable does not act as antenna

Buttons : 0.3-0.4 secs required to change a frequency

Memories : 30 total

Speaker: the speaker is 3.7 cm of diameter but sound is not good.

Alarm , dual clock and sleep timer are included

Update: regarding sensitivity I tested also in Litohoron (My Olymp) of ca 80 km direct distance (and side-lobed signal ??)and found no hisses / noises on FM neither on SW . That means , Thessaloniki’s very close distance to the transmission point of high signal powers overloads the radio

As for sound it compares to the PL550 in fidelity (tested with Carrefour ear buds )

Update2:

After 6-7 years from buying, the radio has shown two problems

Sensitivity loss:

On MW band (on which is more apparent ) nearly loses all its sensitivity but retains it after i push the case towards the middle . that possibly means a soldering inside the circuit has been broken .

Nearly the same has been shown on SW though lesser. (due to antenna )

I have opened the case to inspect the problem but most components are SMD . The first to help for that time was to unscrew the screws . but later the problem appeared back.

I found that the problem is temporarily retained if the area near to potentiometer is pressed by he thumb.

No problem has been found in FM

Memory loss

All memories are reset especially in the cold weather. and need to re-enter them .