Degen again…

Oops… I dropped my Degen the other day, out of my jacket pocket and onto the tarmac. Btteries came loose but otherwise fine… I thought.

I was just outside the house, and when I got in I realised the audio was muted even when cans weren't plugged in.

So I took a deep breath and opened it up, eventually smoothing out the lower contact on the
headphone jack, to allow the audio to the speaker when there wasn't a plug in there.

Put it back together, it was working again. Except for some distortion when the volume was a little bit loud – not too loud mind! It sounded like something loose on the speaker. I opened it up again but couldn't access the front of the speaker, without removing it. I don't have the gear or confidence to do that.

After a while the distortion got too bad, so I thumped the radio on my knee. Well it works with some machines.

This time, it didn't.

But it did make the aluminium face plate start to peel off.

Straight in there, I peeled it back enough to see the speaker, under its little gauze veil. I gently touched the centre paper with a small screwdriver, and the distortion went away.

Cool!

Super-glued it back down. Looks kinda bumpy. Let's call it character.

Degen D1105 in NZ

My Degen 1105 finally arrived by post from Ireland on Saturday. Hurray!

It works a treat here. FM reception of Radio National in central Auckland is absolutely fine – no more of that hiss that came with the Pure PocketDAB 2000 (which, incidentally, has failed the exact same way the first one did, but after an even shorter time).

My 1105 has lost it's telescopic antenna, but still gets all the local FMs fine. On the move is also fine, as it uses the headphone wire as antenna when it's there.

Shortwave hasn't done much for me so far – a bit of Radio Australia, some China, and a couple of unidentified, maybe Russian language.

Mediumwave… it's like I expected, and my it's odd. Nothing, certainly during the day, from any other country.

All in all, rather happy to have it here.

Spectrum

Most of the best radio I've heard so far in New Zealand has been on Radio New Zealand National. I have a particular fondness for Spectrum. I am proud to tell people of the training I received from Spectrum's Jack Perkins, back in CRI.

Here are a sample of two of their good recent shows.

Migrant workers from Roratonga in the second world war.

The Silver Fern Tape Recorders Club.

All available as podcasts too, so you can have mp3s rather than the mwa I've linked to above.

Dannistava

Had a thought about Danny Baker this morning while I was brushing my teeth.

We all call him a radio genius, some call him a radio god.

But given he's tubby short and bald, shouldn't we call him a radio Buddha?

But this evening while I was walking back from the kebab shop, with the kebab inside my jacket keeping one side of my belly toasty, I realised why not: were does re-incarnation fit in? It doesn't, cos he's so much in the 1970s and what not.

So radio god he is then!

Chris Watson & Sarah Blunt collaboration coming up

[UPDATE: 3.10.2007: Only just noticed I had the title wrong on this post, corrected it today. Slow-poke.]

Really looking forward to this, it looks fab:

BBC Radio 4
NATURE – The Sounds of Britain 1. Wicken Fen
Date / Time: Monday 10 September at 21.02 – 21.30
repeat Tuesday 11 September at 11.02-11.30

Producer : Sarah Blunt
BBC Natural History Radio Unit
SYNOPSIS

In the first of a short series of richly evocative sound portraits, writer and naturalist
Paul Evans and wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, capture the spirit and sounds
of wild Britain.

In the first programme, a wonderfully lively, lyrical and entertaining narration written
and read by Paul Evans, and illustrated with sounds of the wildlife and habitat
recorded by Chris Watson, offers a very personal and fascinating exploration of the
reed beds, ditches and dykes of Britain’s oldest nature reserve, Wicken Fen.