Degen 31MS MW/SW active loop antenna

Good for shortwave great little indoor antenna very-very sensitive I wish I'd of bought one year's ago, I live in the countryside so I'm not so troubled by interference say a person living in a city, but I do have to turn off all of our other devices in our home, computers, wall chargers, mobile phones ect ect, ive listened to many many new station's it works great on my Roberts Shortwave SSB, MW, LW, FM Radio.

I tried the 31MS on an Eton G3 (aka Grundig G3). To sum up the SW reception was improved, it's not a miracle worker however and the MW reception of my G3 was not enhanced.First some unpacking observations on the 31MS.The wire loop when hanging, is in the form of a square 44cm x 44cm hanging from a corner. This shape is maintained by a combination of a telescopic diagonal rod (rather like those found on any portable radio, extends from 12cm to 58cm) which locates on two knots on the wire forming two horizontal opposing corners of the square and the weight of the loop when hung from the middle of top wire (which forms forms a 3rd top corner) using either a supplied window sucker or alternative clip for other hanging possibilities.The remaining base corner of the square is a small plastic housing described in the instructions as the amplifier box, which has a small switch to select MW or SW and a socket to take the supplied 5m extension lead which allows you to be a reasonable distance from the hanging position. This loop is for indoor use only as none of the parts are weather proof. Fine perhaps if you are in dry conditions but don't leave outside hanging in a tree in case of an unexpected downpour. Battery power is being delivered to the box at the base of the loop.The extension has 3-conductor, 3.5mm jacks on both ends. This extension lead then plugs into the rectangular (7.5x2.5x1.5cm) battery powered tuning box which has an on-off switch with red power led and an antenna tuning thumbwheel. Actually on a quality check note, the on-off slide switch on mine was loose in the packaging and had to be clipped back on. The battery compartment could be tighter too. I also measured the current drawn at 13 mA, double that claimed in the instructions. Anyway, there is also a hole at one corner of this little box if you want to attach your own lanyard I guess but why? At the other end of the tuner box is a fixed wire about 40 cm long with another 3.5mm 3-conductor plug. From here the choice is yours.From here you can plug directly into your radio external antenna socket or use one of the two adapters supplied, both use a 3.5mm female socket to then give you either (a) two mini clips (white clip for attaching to the end of your radio antenna and black for earth) or (b) a short ferrite core for MW assistance.I want to comment on the ferrite adapter (with the loop switched to MW) because the ETON G3 has notoriously lacklustre MW performance. No detailed instructions are supplied with the 31ms antenna as to what you do with this core. The idea I believe is to move this core closely around your own radio and find both a position and an orientation that boosts the signal to your radios own internal ferrite core. Knowing where that is situated inside may help. I tried really hard with the ferrite core to find a position around all sides of the G3 to boost the MW reception to no avail. It made only a small improvement when the radio was rotated off optimum MW reception direction and none to worsen when rotated to its best orientation. The thumbwheel tuner made no difference. I should also say unsurprisingly it does nothing for air-band either. Just in case I tried the direct connection and using the clips to no effect for MW. But I did not buy either the G3 or this loop for MW so no worries just my results in case anyone was interested. The ferrite adapter may work better on other radios.SW is a different matter. Used the external 3.5mm antenna socket for direct connection to the tuner. After finding a signal or frequency of interest on the radio at night, carefully adjusting the tuning thumb wheel on the tuner box will effectively tune the square loop for the frequency you are on. Carefully hunt for the optimum wheel position. The signal meter will go full scale and the station becomes louder. This has to be redone as you move through the bands. This signal boost is very noticable, and when on a station often with an improvement in signal to noise. If off-station the noise is however also boosted. Unplugging the loop from the radio shows how poor the built in antenna on the radio is in comparison. With the loop more stations do come in to play with clearer speech which would not have been possible to listen to before. So I have to say this seems to work, probably not as much as a full external antenna set-up but this is for portable use after all.So from a SW point of view at least this kit is quite useful and easily outperforms a simple indoor long wire with a crocodile clip but you would expect that for the price. It's an indoor solution so compare with other indoor solutions. For MW users it may also prove useful but owing to the poor MW on my G3 I could not confirm that. The Degen 31MS is a neat bit of kit (compared to a DIY plain wire anyway) that packs away to a small size but some sort of drawstring bag would be a nice finishing touch to keep all the wires and other bits together.

Doesn't work for SW

I Have owned 2 of these and they both stopped working after a very short time.The light on the tuning unit came on but nothing worked.They worked OK for a week or 2So not a very good buy

In this review I give you the important facts that you need to know before deciding whether or not to buy this product. O.k. let’s get started:-First of all, let’s look at the cost of this product: I have come across two versions of this product on Amazon; they are both identical except for the logo brand: the Kaito costs £35 and the Degen costs £21.99. I bought the Degen version and saved myself £13. I think that £35 for the Kaito brand is over priced, the Degen represents far better value for money.Let’s now look at the construction and build quality: Although the build quality is good, the construction is somewhat flimsy, the wires / cables are really thin so care must be taken in handling this product, that they don’t get damaged during assembly, or in use. On the side of the controller there is the antenna tuning dial and the small size of this dial may be a problem for those with large hands; I have average sized hands and for me it was o.k.Batteries are not included: When one considers the price of this product, the manufacturer ought to have included a set a batteries; the controller takes two AAA batteries to power the active antenna.The performance: I tested the product on three receivers: Sangean ATS 909; Eton Mini 300 and Silver Crest SWED 250 A1 (Lidl’s own branded product); the results were similar for each of them:-- MW performance using the ferrite bar coupler: On medium wave, there was a small amount of improvement in reception, but as the radios were fairly sensitive on medium wave already, the improvement wasn’t worth the hassle of using the ferrite bar coupler and in any case most people like myself will buy this product to get the best out of shortwave reception, so the fact that there was little benefit on MW wasn't a real concern for me.- SW performance: The results were mixed, depending on frequency band that one was tuned to: On the lower frequency bands such as the 49m and 41m bands there was a worthwhile improvement in reception, compared to just using the receiver’s telescopic aerial. On the mid range bands of 31m and 25m, the improvement in reception was really quite good and often made a big difference, pulling the signal out of the noise and giving greater clarity. On the higher bands of 22m, 19m and 16m, there was little, or no real improvement in reception and although I would have liked to have seen more improvement in these bands, It wasn’t totally unexpected as the lower bands are the ones that normally need the most help due to the longer wavelength.- Noise and performance: The amplifier does boost the background noise as well as the signal (all amplifiers do, although some are better than others in minimising this unwanted affect) and where you locate the loop is all important if you want to get good results: The problem is that most electrical devices in the modern home produces electro-magnetic noise and this interference adversely affects LW, MW and SW reception. All your home electrical devices produces a cloud of noise that is really bad for shortwave reception; worst offenders are power adaptors / chargers, TVs, energy saving light bulbs and computers. Not only do they radiate noise, they also send it along the mains wiring; the mains wiring effectively becomes like an aerial, to create a cloud of noise around the home. If that’s not bad enough, if you live in a terrace, or semi-detach property, you are also getting interference from your neighbours electrical appliances next door and this can make finding a good spot for your loop aerial something of a challenge and it may not always be possible to find a quiet spot that is free from background noise.The final word: Under the right circumstances, this active loop antenna can give a much welcome improvement in reception; it won’t work for everyone because of noise interference from home electrical devices, but for others it should give them a real benefit and boost to their SW listening. For those who can put an aerial outside, away from the house, I would suggest that they do this rather than go for an indoor solution; outdoor antennas, such as a long wire with balun should give far better results than any indoor solution and being away from the house, should be less susceptible to the elector-magnetic cloud of interference emanating from within the home.

Very decent product, with very good performance for the price. Already tried with different bands and modulation and the results were quite consistent.

item much as described but I am unable, so far, to make any difference to reception of aircraft hf transmissions which remain unintelligible. the hf aircraft band was the sole reason for the purchase so I am disappointed but intend to persevere with changing locations within the house which is all, it seems, is the only way of tackling the problem. failing that, the item can only be classed as a[frustrating] waste of money.