Couple of comments . I realize this show is long and suggest you use the speed option to play the video faster. 1.5x should work fine. Also, shortwave band conditions are really bad right now with the solar flux index in the 70's, so receiving shortwave distance stations is almost impossible. I will repeat this test with other conditions such as a different outside antenna. Thanks for watching and please subscribe to my channel. Have a great day.
I also did an empirical test here with my PL-330 set to BW 2.5 khz hooked up to the W6LVP loop and the SW ETM picked up 86 channels at 14.45 UTC (15.45 at my QTH) on the south coast of Ireland...I would take it with a grain of salt on this radio as it is prone to overloading/mixing and some of these are just noise but most seem to be genuine. One good thing about my location is there are no longer any MW stations in the entire country so no breakthrough from the MW band.
I enjoy these reviews especially the classic vintage radios. My first shortwave receiver is the PL-398BT & it's awesome. Now I can't decide between the D-808 or the PL-330... I live in Chicago so the air band might tip the scales. Yes, spanish will help you alot 😄. The frequency 2.310 is the same station as 7.335 its sports talk radio Great channel👍 keep those reviews going strong... thanks
Hi there, José... the D-808 offers VHF AM "Air band", so if Air band is your priority, you'll be happier with the XHDATA/Sihuadon D-808. The Tecsun PL-330 on the other hand can fine tune in 10 Hz steps - if you like listening to SSB ham and utility transmissions the PL-330 would be the better option. The D-808 tunes in 1 kHz steps and you'll have to use the BFO function to clarify SSB transmissions. I have a PL-660 which offers the VHF AM Air band, plus an older Wouxsun KG-UV9D Plus ham transceiver which can scan the Air band too. The PL-660's Air band performance is mediocre compared to the Wouxsun. Personally I didn't find listening to air traffic control and overhead aircraft particularly interesting. Pilots and ATC controllers usually speak very briefly to one another with long pauses between transmissions. 95% of the time I don't understand their aeronautical lingo as I'm not a pilot. Having a radio with Air band mode sounded cool in the beginning but after a while it became a passing novelty for me. 🤔 On the other hand, I find tuning into ham radio operators more engaging as they usually converse usually up to 60 seconds at a time. It's almost like broadcast listening to an interview and it's easier to follow their conversations! 😁
@@joseg3259 Glad to be of some assistance. 😀 If you have watched enough RUclips videos on multiband portable receivers, you'll note that very few reviewers do band scanning on the VHF Air band. This is because inclusion of the Air band is more of an afterthought by the radio manufacturer - the receiver may have VHF Air band, but Air band is not really the radio's selling point. Serious air traffic radio listeners generally use one of those dedicated scanners for air band, police band etc as those devices can scan the channels a lot faster than shortwave radios with the VHF Air band capability. The Tecsun PL-660 for example, cannot even scan the Air band frequencies for activity although it can store frequencies manually. So if listening to aircraft communication is your thing, get a dedicated air band scanner instead. If you can own just ONE shortwave receiver to listen to FM, AM, SW and ham radio operators on SSB, I would recommend the PL-660 or the PL-680. They are not that large or heavy for traveling, but unfortunately neither will fit into your pants pocket. Their audio quality is a lot much better than than the PL-330 or the D-808. You can listen for hours without getting ear fatigue and manual band scanning with the tuning knob is a joy. If your budget allows a little over $100, get a PL-660 instead. On the other hand if you want a pocketable SW receiver and don't mind the tinny audio or harsh background hiss on weak stations, the PL-330 is a terrific buy. It's also equipped with the ETM+ (Easy Tuning Memory) that scans and memorizes active stations for any given time of the day or night. ETM+ works separately from the PL-330's main ATS memory storage. On top of that Tecsun PL-330 can recalibrate the station frequency if it's off by a few kHz. The D-808 lacks frequency calibration, so if the station you're tuned to is 9470 kHz but sounds perfectly centered if tuned to 9473 kHz, you'll have to live with that. The D-808 also doesn't have Sync Detection feature - the PL-330 does. The bitter truth that there is no single perfect receiver in the market that checks all the boxes. Some excel at AM or FM reception, others are superb at pulling in faint shortwave stations but suck at AM. This is why RUclips channel authors own many shortwave receivers (plus even vintage radios), because there's no such thing as one size fits all! 😁📻📻📻 Bottom line: if you intend to travel everywhere with a personal SW receiver like how your smartphone goes along with you: PL-330 (best listened using high quality earbuds, not the internal speaker). If you intend to have a SW receiver by your bedside or living room and occasionally take along the radio with you: PL-660 or PL-680. BTW, make sure you're getting a Tecsun radio with the latest firmware version. For the PL-330 it's 3306 while the PL-660 it's 6622 (for 2021). Cheers and happy buying, mi amigo! 😀👍🏼
I am wondering if that 2310KHz freq is an actual harmonic of something lower in freq. If that's the case both radios as well as all radios would receive it. Do you have a high end shortwave receiver or a ham receiver to confirm this?
Tom, have you ever needed to reset any of your tecsun s. My 680 stopped responding to any input. Wouldn't even shut off. Everything did come back after pushing the reset.
I have reset the Pl680 and the 990 with no adverse effects. I just it to clear the memory. Still learning the memory stuff. This video is exactly what what I did today. Once with MLA 30, then with a long wire. I enjoy your long videos.
No but can limit to scan only the band your in by use the > button instead of the < which scans all international broadcast bands. Hopes that helps and have a great day.
Tecsun let themselves down with no baclit keypads, knobs and text. so dificult to use in a dark bedroom also the backlit screens let them down being on a stupid timmer.
Agreed. I thought Tecsun could not illuminate keypad and buttons on their products for technical reasons until I noticed their PL-398BT actually has button backlighting and it looks gorgeous in the dark! If Tecsun deliberately omitted keypad backlighting from their more expensive models like the S-8800, S-2000, PL-990/880 and H-501x the company is clearly cutting corners. Premium models should have button illumination to match their price tags.
Couple of comments . I realize this show is long and suggest you use the speed option to play the video faster. 1.5x should work fine. Also, shortwave band conditions are really bad right now with the solar flux index in the 70's, so receiving shortwave distance stations is almost impossible. I will repeat this test with other conditions such as a different outside antenna. Thanks for watching and please subscribe to my channel. Have a great day.
I also did an empirical test here with my PL-330 set to BW 2.5 khz hooked up to the W6LVP loop and the SW ETM picked up 86 channels at 14.45 UTC (15.45 at my QTH) on the south coast of Ireland...I would take it with a grain of salt on this radio as it is prone to overloading/mixing and some of these are just noise but most seem to be genuine. One good thing about my location is there are no longer any MW stations in the entire country so no breakthrough from the MW band.
Interesting. Thanks for the report and have a great day, Tony.
@@hamrad88 you too, Tom, thanks for these interesting videos.
just did another scan at 16.35 UTC and this time 144 channels @ 2.5khz getting into the evening here so that might explain it.
@@tonymagnier9846 You have a big advantage living in Ireland. :)
I enjoy these reviews especially the classic vintage radios. My first shortwave receiver is the PL-398BT & it's awesome. Now I can't decide between the D-808 or the PL-330...
I live in Chicago so the air band might tip the scales. Yes, spanish will help you alot 😄. The frequency 2.310 is the same station as 7.335 its sports talk radio
Great channel👍 keep those reviews going strong... thanks
Thanks for the info and have a great day.
Hi there, José... the D-808 offers VHF AM "Air band", so if Air band is your priority, you'll be happier with the XHDATA/Sihuadon D-808.
The Tecsun PL-330 on the other hand can fine tune in 10 Hz steps - if you like listening to SSB ham and utility transmissions the PL-330 would be the better option. The D-808 tunes in 1 kHz steps and you'll have to use the BFO function to clarify SSB transmissions.
I have a PL-660 which offers the VHF AM Air band, plus an older Wouxsun KG-UV9D Plus ham transceiver which can scan the Air band too. The PL-660's Air band performance is mediocre compared to the Wouxsun. Personally I didn't find listening to air traffic control and overhead aircraft particularly interesting. Pilots and ATC controllers usually speak very briefly to one another with long pauses between transmissions. 95% of the time I don't understand their aeronautical lingo as I'm not a pilot. Having a radio with Air band mode sounded cool in the beginning but after a while it became a passing novelty for me. 🤔
On the other hand, I find tuning into ham radio operators more engaging as they usually converse usually up to 60 seconds at a time. It's almost like broadcast listening to an interview and it's easier to follow their conversations! 😁
@@StratmanII you have defenatly giving me the info I needed to make my decision... the PL-330 is in my sights , Thanls for the help
@@joseg3259 Glad to be of some assistance. 😀 If you have watched enough RUclips videos on multiband portable receivers, you'll note that very few reviewers do band scanning on the VHF Air band. This is because inclusion of the Air band is more of an afterthought by the radio manufacturer - the receiver may have VHF Air band, but Air band is not really the radio's selling point.
Serious air traffic radio listeners generally use one of those dedicated scanners for air band, police band etc as those devices can scan the channels a lot faster than shortwave radios with the VHF Air band capability.
The Tecsun PL-660 for example, cannot even scan the Air band frequencies for activity although it can store frequencies manually. So if listening to aircraft communication is your thing, get a dedicated air band scanner instead.
If you can own just ONE shortwave receiver to listen to FM, AM, SW and ham radio operators on SSB, I would recommend the PL-660 or the PL-680. They are not that large or heavy for traveling, but unfortunately neither will fit into your pants pocket. Their audio quality is a lot much better than than the PL-330 or the D-808. You can listen for hours without getting ear fatigue and manual band scanning with the tuning knob is a joy. If your budget allows a little over $100, get a PL-660 instead.
On the other hand if you want a pocketable SW receiver and don't mind the tinny audio or harsh background hiss on weak stations, the PL-330 is a terrific buy. It's also equipped with the ETM+ (Easy Tuning Memory) that scans and memorizes active stations for any given time of the day or night. ETM+ works separately from the PL-330's main ATS memory storage.
On top of that Tecsun PL-330 can recalibrate the station frequency if it's off by a few kHz. The D-808 lacks frequency calibration, so if the station you're tuned to is 9470 kHz but sounds perfectly centered if tuned to 9473 kHz, you'll have to live with that. The D-808 also doesn't have Sync Detection feature - the PL-330 does.
The bitter truth that there is no single perfect receiver in the market that checks all the boxes. Some excel at AM or FM reception, others are superb at pulling in faint shortwave stations but suck at AM. This is why RUclips channel authors own many shortwave receivers (plus even vintage radios), because there's no such thing as one size fits all! 😁📻📻📻
Bottom line: if you intend to travel everywhere with a personal SW receiver like how your smartphone goes along with you: PL-330 (best listened using high quality earbuds, not the internal speaker).
If you intend to have a SW receiver by your bedside or living room and occasionally take along the radio with you: PL-660 or PL-680.
BTW, make sure you're getting a Tecsun radio with the latest firmware version. For the PL-330 it's 3306 while the PL-660 it's 6622 (for 2021).
Cheers and happy buying, mi amigo! 😀👍🏼
I am wondering if that 2310KHz freq is an actual harmonic of something lower in freq.
If that's the case both radios as well as all radios would receive it. Do you have a high end shortwave receiver or a ham receiver to confirm this?
Yes, I will try that.
Tom, have you ever needed to reset any of your tecsun s. My 680 stopped responding to any input. Wouldn't even shut off. Everything did come back after pushing the reset.
Good to hear you got it working again. The answer is no, I have not done a reset on a Tecsun radio.
I have reset the Pl680 and the 990 with no adverse effects. I just it to clear the memory. Still learning the memory stuff. This video is exactly what what I did today. Once with MLA 30, then with a long wire. I enjoy your long videos.
can you set a low and high freq range for scanning to limit what it finds.
No but can limit to scan only the band your in by use the > button instead of the < which scans all international broadcast bands. Hopes that helps and have a great day.
Tecsun let themselves down with no baclit keypads, knobs and text.
so dificult to use in a dark bedroom also the backlit screens let them down being on a stupid timmer.
Agreed. I thought Tecsun could not illuminate keypad and buttons on their products for technical reasons until I noticed their PL-398BT actually has button backlighting and it looks gorgeous in the dark!
If Tecsun deliberately omitted keypad backlighting from their more expensive models like the S-8800, S-2000, PL-990/880 and H-501x the company is clearly cutting corners. Premium models should have button illumination to match their price tags.