I found myself in the same mindset and ventured out to a nearby peaceful fishing and yacht harbor to try out my new Tecsun PL-380. I have had it about 10 days and I have figured out that I have about all the urban power line and electrical noise I can stand at my home location, so I was headed out to give the 380 a chance to exercise its ears.

I have seen few online videos by now & it seems this radio is doing well for its price & also i don’t think will get hard judges in the case something is wrong/bug with it due to suppose expected low price I’d like to share my operating experience of the PL-330 and throughout I will now and then compare this radio to similar radios in my collection: Eton Satellit, XHDATA D-808 and CountyComm GP5-SSB (AKA Tecsun PL-365).

Tecsun PL-660

In fact, in my testing it’s impossible to thumb tune the radio more than 10 kHz at a time. The same applies to using the lower knob which controls volume. When in FM mode, this issue make tuning just as frustrating almost forcing one to use rapid scan mode. When in LW and MW holding button 3 apparently use of the whip antenna can be switched on or off. When the whip is switched on the display will show SW in addition to MW or LW. (I thought that was a bug, but it clearly is not.) Switching on the whip while in the park made no difference. But switching on the whip on the 30th floor of the apartment increased the signal strength by a couple of dB. Maybe the building works as an antenna? The 330 is basically a PL-990x in miniature: smaller speaker obviously, shorter antenna, no bluetooth capability or card slot. But as many people who frequent the Facebook groups have observed, pretty much anything the 990x can do, so can the 330. The triple advantage of superior FSL sensitivity, sharp DSP selectivity and exceptional nulling capability provide this breakthrough model with unprecedented weak-signal performance for a portable—to the extent that after a few DXing sessions the operator may have the impression that the realm of science fiction has been approached.

I should mention that just like on the 990x, the re-calibration process doesn’t mean the receiver is then zeroed up and down the shortwave bands. You will likely have to repeat the process from, say 25 meters, to 19 meters, to 49 meters, etc. Paging through Passport to Worldband Radio from 1990 (wow, that’s 30 years ago!) you see others such as the SONY SW-1, Panasonic RF-B65, and of course, the SONY ICF-2001D/2010 which introduced killer synchronous tuning technology in the 1980s and remains popular today decades after it first appeared.

Conclusion

You can add to or update/edit your existing review's content including the Rating and Time Owned with the Edit button on the right side of the review text body. Edits will go thru the review Approval process. It had MW, longwave and 3 shortwave bands. The two features I fondly remember were the dial light button and the concentric tuning control with the outside control knob for coarse tuning and the central knob for fine tuning. It worked quite well. The American or Rest of World MW-band plan can be toggled by long press the 3 button when powered off. When the radio is powered on you can select between MW by short press of the MW/LW button. Cons: Two-second delay when changing modes (AM/SSB/AM sync), some audio splatter on peaks in weak signal DX, sync detector (hidden feature) delivers mediocre performance and substantially reduced audio fidelity, AM (medium wave) prone to imaging if strong AM broadcasters are nearby, supplied rechargeable battery is not as common as AA batteries This particular trip afforded me a bit of time to test these wonderful little portables in a relatively scenic environment, on balcony overlooking the Atlantic. And even though propagation has been somewhat dismal this week, I had so much fun recording these samples, I recorded several for comparison.

What I don’t like about the PL-380 and the PL-330 is that it’s obvious that they use synthesized tuning as there is a chuffing sound between each frequency tuned. The PL-660 doesn’t have that unpleasantness.The PL-380 also has an indented tuning knob where the PL-310(ET) has a proper tuning knob, I also prefer the PL-310/ET tuning. The PL-380 is probably better for travelling as the knob will not catch on anything in a suitcase. To enable or disable the LW-band you must long press the 2 button when the radio is powered off. When the radio is powered on and LW has been enabled you can select between LW and MW by short press of the MW/LW button. The Grundig Satellit 800 was close in competition with the E-1 (though the earlier Sat 600/650 series also had multiple bandwidths) but was bulky. The AM bandwidth choices are useful but basic (down to 2.5) but when put in SYNC (even on MW) the SSB bandwidths of 0.5 1.2 2.2 3 & 4 become available along with tuning to the sideband – surely enough to single out a station? I like the control up and down the bandwidth choices with the volume control where on the PL-380 one had to press the BW button repeatedly to go through the options the volume control enables retrying two or three until satisfied.

you are right, if some one can wait is better …. how ever if we need a new radio, some times most of us, do not wait … i was one of the 40-50 persons testing for cable operator in UK their new modem (at time) & we did find few bugs, but when cable company release it (free) for all, the thousands other customers find few other bugs we did not & 3 of them was major issue (ok modem is more complicated but still rely on firmware, i just want to say, you are correct waiting some time later) Tecsun has made what was a marginally handy portable much better by finally adding a keyboard and other features to the PL-368. As noted by other reviewers, the SYNC mode on Tecsun receivers is still not what it could be, but Tecsun has enabled multi-bandwidth option in multiple modes, including SSB, AM, and SW. I’ve written another article comparing the Zhiwhis ZWS-603 and the Kaito KA29. Zhiwhis ZWS-603 vs Kaito KA29, These two radios occupy one niche and probably one of them will be retired or reclassified somehow. That leaves one slot open In the LW and MW bands for AM demodulation the step size can be toggled between 1 kHz and 10/9 kHz by short press of the STEP button.What is an unfortunate design problem, in my view, involves the simple question of tuning the receiver.