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I don't know if it has to do with the holiday season or something else, but YT is acting strangely, on one PC your post about the PL-660 with new software is immediately visible, but on the tablet it's not, and one have to tap twice in the sorting - the newest first. It's possible that the PL-660 isn't selling very well and the manufacturer is implementing to it the PL-680 software to lure buyers using a crypto-slogan; we now offer a cheaper PL-680 variant in a PL-660 housing. After all, these models did not originally differ only in housing and software. It's a strange thing and I wonder how the operator of this channel will react to it. If at all.

That's good to hear Caroline! I was wondering how your DXing was going in Yorkshire. Is it better than in London?

Welcome to the wonderful world of shortwave radio listening! You are most welcome to ask your questions here. For shortwave frequencies you just punch in the entire frequency, after selecting the SW band. To select the SW band you press either the up or down arrows just below the AM and FM buttons. When you are in the shortwave band, punch in the full frequency, for example 15770. For AM listening do the same. Press the AM button to go to the AM band, then punch in the full frequency, for example 610. For FM you do not need to enter decimal points. So if you are in the FM band and you want to listen to 102.7, you punch in 1027. The radio will read the last number as the decimal point. So for 94.0, for example, you need to punch in 940.

Thank you and Frohe Weihnachten to you also!

Thank you so much for the translation! I am pinning your comment so that viewers will see it first, it is really interesting to see what they are talking about. This is really nice, thanks! There are quite a number of words in Afrikaans that are similar to German words, so I am able to catch a few words here and there and understand a little bit, but not in full. You might know it already, but before WW1 Germany also had several African colonies. My neighbour to the north, Namibia, was a German colony. To this day there are some towns in Namibia where people still speak German, and the German colonial architecture has been maintained and is very popular among tourists. You can see one example here, the small coastal village of Luderitz in the south of Namibia. I have been there, it is a very interesting place, all these German-style buildings surrounded by desert! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCderitz#/media/File:Lutheran_Church_Luderotz.jpg

@@swlistening I hope I didn't insult any German speaking viewer, as that translation was done in the wee hours of the morning and the app relies on the device's microphone input. 🤭 If the source audio was from an FM station I'm sure C3P0 would have translated the German announcer more accurately. Thank you for the link to the article about the town in Namibia. I enjoyed looking at the strange coastal landscape. I wish I could sail along the coast of the African continent to see how the beaches vary with the latitude. It seems that the east coast of Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia) has sandy beaches while the south western part appear to have a rocky coastline. What's fascinating to me is that South Africa sits mostly on the Highveld plateau which tapers all the way to Cape Town. I'm going to have a look at Namibia's topology on Google Earth in my spare time! 🌍🇳🇦

Merry Christmas to you too! Interesting about 15770 kHz at your location. How are the other WRMI frequencies there? They seem to have quite a number of frequencies in various directions. Are some of them very clear catches in Tucson? If I hear WRMI, it is 15770, but never very clearly. They have one targeted broadcast to West Africa on 17790 kHz, Radio Africa Network, which is quite clear here on some days, but not always.

@@swlistening Andre I receive 5050 Khz weakly but they broadcast the Legends of WRMI on there so I live with it. They used to switch to 9455KHZ but one of the hurricanes damaged the antenna or Xmitter. 5850 and 5950 KHZ are usually good except when occupied by old BS. 7730 and 7780 KHZ occasionally. plus 9395 KHZ in the Tucson area. 73!

Actually I should have, on Christmas day, to see what they do. Next year :-)

@@swlistening I heard WMLK last week and heard some music.

Hi there Arnie, thanks for the wishes and I hope you had a good Christmas! Mine was good, just some family and a few friends came over, a small gathering, but it was very nice. It will be interesting to see what they do next year with Gruss an Bord for the Indian Ocean, my guess is that they might use Woofferton. Always reliable here at my location. It is as you say, the clarity of 11650 shows that SW can work really well. The clear NHK signal from Yamata here at my location on an almost daily basis is another example of SW that works really well. By the way, I monitored NHK from Issoudun last night on 15130 kHz at 19:10 UTC. It was clear. Good and strong signal. Sinpo 45444. Not as crystal clear as the one from Yamata, but still very good.

This NHK signal is one that I can always rely on, most of the time it is as clear as in this video. It is amazingly strong at my location.

Thank you Brian, and thank you for the kind comments about my channel. Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and your family also! The Rocky Mountains must be beautiful at this time of the year, covered in snow?

Thank you for your comment. This sounds like an interesting broadcast. I have actually tried to catch it in the past, but I haven't been able to hear it yet. I keep trying!

Dankie Albert! Hierdie was 'n baie spesiale uitsending, dit is vanjaar die eerste keer dat ek dit hoor. Beste wense vir die feestyd!

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you also!

Thank you Duane, and Merry Christmas to you also. All is well here, thanks 😀 I sometimes talk about events like these on my channel, in my podcasts. I think you might have missed the podcast where I spoke about this. But next year it will happened again! The pirates you caught sound interesting, where are you located?

@swlistening They are some where in the mid US or the eastern US because people in the east US are picking then up. People in the western states don't copy them .

@@duanetrivett750 It is fun to chase these pirate stations. I know there are some in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe also. I once caught one from Brazil, called Radio Araucaria. But that has been the only pirate station I have heard so far. There are none here in South Africa.

A pirate called - Free Radio Service Holland was broadcasting a few days ago on 9.300khz A mix of Dutch & English, clips of old pirate jingles etc.

@@lew9223 Nice one!

Happy holidays to you too! Glad you enjoyed the video.

Glad you enjoyed it Anthony! Berlin is a really fascinating place, I visited last year for the first time.

Happy holidays to you also! It was a great show to listen to, even though I did not understand much. I caught a few words here and there 😀

Merry Christmas Andrew!

For most of the signals I was outside the target area. I am in South Africa, so the two signals to the Indian Ocean and to the Atlantic near South Africa were in my direction. All the others were not.

Merry Christmas to you too James!

No worries!

Happy holidays, Deniz! Pet Daphne for me, ok? ☺️👋🏼🐈

It seems that YT blocks the connection from these given links. After selecting the link, the screen goes black and "about:blank#blocked" is the only information. Copying the links individually and opening it in another tab makes sense - on the "ERcomER" website there is indeed information (via Google Translate) about the modified PL-660 and the "refreshed" PL-680 as it stated in the original post. It's really interesting how these changes affect the reception, whether is at all better than it's in older receivers. BTW December ends in 5 days, so are there any farther good news concerning PL-680, will it remains PLL ?

Hi there Arnie, Merry Christmas to you also! To my ears the only difference between the Sony and the PL-680 is that the Sony seems to be slightly less noisy, which seems to be one of the main advantages of the Sony over the PL-680. But the difference in this video is not huge, as most of the signals are very good quality. I am always surprised by the quality of NHK signals here in South Africa. I hear the Yamata signal as clearly as in this video almost on a daily basis. I also hear the Issoudun signal well, but it is never as clear as Yamata. I will check Issoudun tonight at 19:00, I am sure I have heard it often, but I will just make sure tonight and let you know here. Good luck with your Christmas lights problem! 🤣 I guess your neighbour might remove the lights after new year, so a few more days of noise to live with...

Thank you Lew, and best wishes to you also!

Hi there Joseph. No, I did not do anything special. I know about the antenna jack that provides some voltage to power a Sony antenna. I searched for information online and found various forum posts and articles. The consensus seems to be that you can use other external antennas as well. Here is one article with some comments: swling.com/blog/2017/04/using-the-sony-icf-sw7600gr-with-external-antennas/

@@swlistening thanks for the info and article.

Thanks Robert! I think it was the Qodosen, and the quiet rural location that helped me catch this one, finally 😃

Hi Mustafa, good point. I will make some videos in the new year without the loop, with just the whip antennas.

Thanks Andrew and Merry Christmas to you too!

Thanks for your comment Edward. I think the PL-680 and the DX-286 make a winning combination! Merry Christmas to you also!

Thank you so much Kurt, Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you too!

Thank you Goran and Merry Christmas to you too!

Thanks for your comment! Yes, I am not using synchronous detection on the Sony here (and also not on the PL-680). This is just a regular SW comparison, the signals were clear enough that there was no need for the sync detection.

Hi David, yes, the Tecsun AN-200 loop is only for MW. It works very well for MW, I recommend it highly.

You are right, I think I will like the Eton Mini, I have seen it on Amazon and I have always thought that it looked like a great little radio. I do own the Eton Traveler, and I am very happy with it.

@ yes, I have the Eton Elite Traveller III and the Executive. Very satisfied with Eton radios.

@@racinchef I would like to get the Executive also one day. A bit expensive to ship to South Africa though. Because it is a higher priced radio, the import duties are very high here.

Hi David, no I don't own a Baofeng. The little Raddy RF886 has VHF, but it is not a band that I use often, so I haven't really tested it on that band.

@@swlistening Many thanks

Hi Stephen, no, I haven't been able to pick up the Canadian time signal yet. As far as time signals go, I have heard BPM on 10000 kHz, WWVH on 10000 and 15000 kHz, and the Russian one, RWM, on 9996 kHz. None of the others yet.

@@swlistening Hi Andre, wishing you a Happy Christmas and a healthy new year this year has flown past my TECSUN- 880 has developed a fault already when you turn up the volume over half way it cuts out not a happy bunny but these things happen, I've been in touch with the shop and sending it back after Christmas at least I'm not short of radios lol don't know if I mentioned it in the past I live 10 miles from Chelmsford that is known as the birthplace of radio in the county of Essex with its connection with Guglielmo Marconi who opened the first wireless factory here in 1899 including the first official radio broadcast in the UK in 1920 there is a great Marconi Museum here as well...

@@stephenwright8103 Hi there Stephen, thank you for the Christmas greetings. Merry Christmas to you also! I am sorry to hear about the PL-880 fault, but luckily you are able to return it. You have not mentioned that you live near the birthplace of radio in Essex! That Marconi museum sounds like a very interesting place, I guess you have been there several times already? Do they show different kinds of radios there? It must be fascinating to see.

@@swlistening Hi there Andre yes Essex is on the Radio map as you say, I've not been to the museum for some time so I don't know the latest layout I guess its on google as for the T 880 perhaps it wasn't such a good idea knowing its History but hopefully they will exchange it and not mend it I've been tuning around the frequencies this afternoon lots seem to be coming in moderate to strong anyhow Andre enjoy the Christmas break and look forward to the new year and your new videos speak soon...👍

@@stephenwright8103 Thanks Stephen, enjoy your break also!

I think the Guardian Angel of SWL feels sorry for me because I pay such hefty import duties and VAT on new radios, so as a consolation prize I get second-hand radios at good prices 🤣

@@swlistening Yes, duty is a pain same here, We we get 10% or so duty plus 11% vat. That would be acceptable I suppose. Big problem here is we have to pay duty on the full value and that includes postage. That hurts.

@@sentul5558 Here the import duties are a bit unpredictable. Mostly I pay about 30% (including VAT) of the product price (luckily not on the postage also). But on high-value items (usually above $120) I pay 50% duty (VAT included). I think it works on a sliding scale, the more expensive the product, the higher the duties.

@@swlistening It becomes a problem, we used to get 50 USD duty free, then it became 100 USD. Then overnight almost it dropped to 3 USD. I have stopped importing now, the shipping and duty charges can be well over the actual item initial cost. A 30 USD radio suddenly becomes a 75 USD radio.

@@sentul5558 Indeed, the same here. I do like to buy new radios, but I focus on radios that are less expensive, so that the duties will not be so high. I would love to buy something like the Eton Elite Executive, but with duties and VAT my real price will be unjustifiably high.

If I ever find the ICF-2001D for sale here, it will be the find of the century! I will be very happy when that day comes :-)

Hi Anthony, it is quite expensive at 199 euros, have you looked at the anon-co website? It is 155 euros from anon-co, taxes included. It is a very trustworthy company. Have a look here: www.anon-co-eu.com/product/tecsun-pl680-ssb-radio Definitely worth it at 155 euros.

Thanks Anthony, glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks Anthony, I agree. I think the Sony is just a bit less noisy than the Tecsun.

Hi John, SSB capable radios from Qodosen and Choyong willl be very interesting indeed! Happy holidays to you also!

Vielen Dank und ich wünsche Ihnen auch frohe Weihnachten!

Hi Arnie! I did not forget about the D-808. The reason it was not in the running this year, is because the fine-tuning wheel on mine broke, making SSB listening on it by far the worst of all my radios with SSB. Some viewers commented that it also happened to them. So the D-808 fell out because of quality issues. But if the SSB on my D-808 were still working, I would still have picked the Pl-680, because of the analogue tuning and the fact that the PL-680 does not mute. It makes a world of difference for me. The muting on the D-808 is quite strong. Interesting what you say about MW. Are conditions not good in Europe this winter for MW? You may recall, I had a very short winter this year, but there were some great catches from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, many new ones for me. But the "MW season" here was very, very short. There were only about three or four weeks where I felt that conditions were great.

I agree, it's all about finding the right balance between bandwidth and noise levels, for me 3 kHz works well for weak and difficult signals, and 4 kHz for stronger signals.

@@swlistening I usually say + - certain kilohertz because newer models don't specify + - certain amounts in kilohertz. They just say 6 kHz, but they don't say + - 6 kHz which would mean 12 kHz. I have found that + - 3 kHz (6 kHz at -6 dB) is excellent; shortwave is limited to + - 2.5 kHz, 5 kHz total.