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Supplied battery charger is a bit noisy on medium wave and shortwave if listening while charging. (Not a problem for me, as I’m a batteries-only listener.) Another piece of advice, do not connect a Ham radio style wire antenna to this or most portable radios, they overload badly unless you use some serious attenuation.
The new Flagship portable radio from prestigious radio manufacturer Tecsun fitted with analogue Hi-IF circuit, multi conversion , & DSP decoding technology, which greatly enhances the sensitivity, selectivity and reduces interference from close by stations. I have owned a host of small portable radios and this beats all. It is sensitive and selective, plus offers great audio for FM. I am seriously considering building a small TR switch and mating it with a QRP transmitter it is that good.
Zippered Leather(ette?) slip cover provided along with long-wire SW Antenna, USB charge cable, and stereo earphones. Also included was a dual USB wall adaptor plug for charging the radio. To begin with, please note that my impressions of performance band-by-band, below, is based on a little over one week of listening. I typically spend longer with radios before publishing a review, but with the holiday season fast approaching, readers have asked for a more rapid response. [That being said, I will of course update and adapt this review over time; but be assured that any significant updates will be noted as such]. The first test was in AM, and I chose Radio Exterior de España on 9,605 kHz, which was moderately weak compared to other broadcasters on the 31 meter band. I recorded one minute clips. Halfway through the PL-660 and ICF-SW7600GR clips, I turned on the sync detector. On the PL-880, I simply turned on SSB, as I did not feel that its sync detector added to intelligibility. hidden features (see list at review’s end), some of which have major relevance in operation, such as changing the muting threshold; Tecsun, why hide these? Every radio has its pros and cons, of course. When I begin a review of a radio, I take notes from the very beginning so that I don’t forget my initial impressions. Following is the list I formed over the time I’ve been evaluating the Tecsun PL-880:
Update: Jan 1, 2013] PL-880 owners living in urban areas with strong AM (MW) stations are hearing multiple images from those stations across the MW band, making it difficult for medium wave DXing. If your goal is to listen to SSB broadcasts (pirate radio, utility stations, ham radio traffic, so forth) both radios will do a fine job, but the PL-880 is more versatile and, again, has better selectivity. A great portable radio for worldwide reception as well as local broadcast coverage on AM and FM. The short wave section offers superb performance on SSB and CW as well as AM. Even with the short telescopic antenna performance is great. and you get a great kit of parts and a smart travel case.Receive FM mono/stereo, medium wave, long wave, short wave, short wave single side-band signals with this portable world band radio. Though I haven’t tried FM DXing with the PL-880, like other recent Tecsuns, it seems outstanding in this regard. (Herein lies the extent of my FM test…More to come.) Also, I have to point out that the PL-880’s AGC (auto gain) circuit, as with many other Tecsun models, is just too fast for optimal weak-signal DX on medium wave or shortwave. Tecsun, if you’re listening, please slow it down a bit, or at least provide an AGC control… Thanks! Do not submit a product review critiquing another review or reviewer. Reviewers should be able to share their product opinion without being publicly criticized.
If your new review has not been Approved after several days you can assume that it was found to not be within the product review T's&C's shown below during screening.When I turned on the PL-880 for the first time and (ironically) tuned to a local AM station on 880 kHz, I was most impressed by the audio fidelity of the 880’s built-in speaker. I believe the PL-880 uses a speaker system similar to the Melson portables: a small mylar speaker cone with some sort of acoustic chamber that produces great bass tones and treble highlights. The sound is room-filling…and delightful. Performance: First impressions With all of its features and functions, hidden or not, I’ve found the PL-880 to be a challenging, but thoroughly enjoyable, portable to evaluate. Indeed, I’m still not done yet: I plan to take my new PL-880 traveling in the future. So, stay tuned: there’s more to come! I have never seen such a eager response and extraordinary anticipation over the announcement of a new portable radio as with the new Tecsun PL-880. And I’m not surprised. You see, it has been a couple years since a really good portable radio has been introduced to the market. Plus,Tecsun has proven itself a competent radio manufacturer; the predecessors to the PL-880–i.e., the PL-660 and PL-600–are both excellent portables (I own both). Their smaller DSP radios are favorites of travelers and ultralight enthusiasts. First of all, what truly sets the PL-880 apart from any other shortwave portable currently on the market is its selection of bandwidth filters. On AM, for example, the listener can choose between the following bandwidth settings: Am I just suffering the effects of bad karma, or is everyone’s experience of the ATS-909X the same.
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