homepc wrote:
Be careful about charging batteries within the radio. It has a dumb charger
only regulated by time. After a few charge cycles your batteries will
probably not perform to their potential. That can be a problem because this
model radio goes through batteries in a hurry. After a while there will
probably be one battery that will not fully charge and maybe another that
will over charge. It's recommended to get a good battery charger.

I use this battery charger:

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/mhc401fs.htm

It's slow charge option is a good match for the Degen 1300mAh batteries that
came with my radio. The batteries won't fry, and each one gets monitored
separately so that all four get a full charge.

I charged my batteries with a dumb charger a few times before getting the
Powerex charger. On the first use with the Powerex charger, I found that
one battery took much longer to charge than the rest. After a few cycles
the charge time evened out amongst the four batteries and I now get longer
playtime.

I actually have the MAHA MH-C204W Battery Charger, also bought from
Thomas Dist, for use with a digital camera I got last year. It only
charges NiMH batteries and only has 2 charging circuits, but I assume
the technology is similar to the newer 401fs. I'll probably end up
charging the 1103's batteries in it as well, but wanted to at least
give it a chance to charge its own betteries since it has that feature.