Testing a friend's PL880

The  previous days I had a discussion with a friend in a nearby place in the village and gave it to  me for making a review . He  bought it recently and used it for a short time but had no problem to give it to me for a some further testing for publication to return it after a short time .

The box was with full material: the   radio inside a leather box , the earphones a  wound antenna  and a cable to be connected for a supposedly ubiquitous as it is called  (?)USB  charger . Also there was  the documentation a big paper of ca 80x60  cm with all specs in a blitz with the rear side  showing the codes  of the world in a big map,seebelow for more

In this picture there are  all documentation including the  sheet with the  special adjustments from the keypad

The is included  a  very largre  shhet  with all operations of the  radio in the one side , with the amateur radio map that includes also codes ertc

The radio  has a very nice though quite narrow  designed  leather box for transferring

The radio has a nice design nearly same dimensions with oterh PL radios  but quite heavier . Its weight is 555 grams  measured with a kitchen scale

A close up of the panl at right . there is a tuning knob at the right , a fine tuning in middle and the volume control .ALso a tone switch an a light switch

on the left side there are a USB charging socket , line out , Headphones , attenuator and  antenna in.

here the  presentation ends and yo can read more about it in otehr sites as the purpopse of this page is to provide some important  i hope personal observations and comparisons to other radio i use mainly  comparative test with 1103 and 380

What I liked with this radio, it  has a 'analogue' volume control that behaves differently than the 380 and is close to 360

I didnt like that the  antenna  used has quite thin elements  that once fully  unfolded , the last withch is less than 1 mm think can easily break

AM Filters & tuning  :  there is a series of filters of 2.3 /3.5 / 5 and 9 kHz   which are close to the  PL380  of 1 /2 3 and 6 kHz respectively in terms if audio fidelity

• Bandwidths can be changed in htse 3 ways :  
• Using the b/w switch The   filters are changed in a up and down style ie  start from low  to hi then high to low and vice versa !
• Using the freq switch
• Using the fine tune switch
• Fine tuning is to 1 kHz
  
• Notice that  changing the freq in either tuning knob there is some 0.1-0.3  sec latency (blank audio )

SSB:

• In SSB  the filters use nearly the half  of the  bandwidth e 0.5 /1,2 /2.3/3.0/4 kHz
• The manner to change the bandwidths ar the same with AM
• Fine tuning is to 0.01 kHz
• Here is a ‘but’ in the situation : the filters  of 3 and 4 kHz  don’t   have any significant difference in audio fidelity and are close if not lower to 2 kHz !!
• Though  not easily recognized  there is a shift  from the exact freq by 130 HZ in both sidebands . ECSS  (fine tuning) to an Am signal )seems  to operate properly .There is a  technique to adjust it via the table provided  n he separate sheet
  

SYNCHRO :

• Synch  is a special  feature thought not operating properly in cases that the  signals have strong fading and a buzzer is quite apparent but locks quite well to the  signal (even with more than 200 Hz   there is no shift to audio )
• Once I tested  the synchro feature in a  SSB signal : ther result was a totally garbled sound
• I prefer to use  the ECSS technique (using the SSB totune ). It works much better for listening to signals more stable  

FM reception and  usage :

• The FM tune knob has a 0.1 MHZ  step  and the fine tune  knob uses  10 kHz
• The BW filter is the standard of all Silicon based radios  , I think it is ca 200 kHz
• The audio is pretty good but is a little less than  the 380’s fidelity if using earphones
  
• Reception  is ca the same with PL380 . But there is a  very nice advantage :the  audio level of the very poor signals  is the same with the strong signals , in contrast to the  PL3x0 series
• Attenuator  operates also in this band
• This is  the only Filter.  I could prefer to see a narrower filter !
• Earphone cable can affect reception . IN several cases  also the  hand over the radio can enhance reception of low  signals . But detaching  the  antenna to its  ful length can restore to better reception

MW reception and usage :

• Slightly better sensitivity over PL380 : tested in various frequencies (1503 810 and 567 )
• There are no  problems with self images as in PL380 that occur in several important Greek freqs as 1404 or 729  but still there are some carriers in other frequencies
• Attenuator operates in this bands too
• Synch also works in this band
  

LW

• IN contrast to PL600 ,and PL380  the 880 excels in reception on nights with clear signals even if the band is attenuated for more than 20 db in between 160-200. One of the nicest operations of this radio
• Attenuator  does affect the band a bit but not so much as in other bands
  
• Seen a fall of sensitivity in the range of 160-200 kHz. Just a few kHz  and the  radio's sensitivity restores
  

Shortwaves :

• NO overloads even using the 16 H antenna connected to the radio of the antenna on local nights
• Operates properly with the mag loop via the  3.9mm antenna plug
• Once you change a band the last  freqs remain of the band 
• I found several carriers
  

Speaker : The 880 is bassier than the 380 (380 is heard very sharp comparing to 380 , as the DE17  is heard comparing to PL380)

Earphone : The earphone included  tested with mine's AKG 909 loses trebles and has little more bass . Didn't  made any parallel listening for it btu just changed earphones  during listening  the same song

Result and verdict : 3.5-4 /5

The reasons (downs):

• could prefer the filters to be exact (unless  the  filters on the 380 ar more wide than the displayed!!)
• the SSB  modes have correct filtering eg 4kHz  to operate as 4khz (and better audio correspondingly)
• a second narrower FM filter could be a nice addition esp fr the FM DXers
  
• as for the synch is quite known  problem also mentioned in the yahoo group quite much (?)
• the high internal noise herd in all the bands (possibly problem from the internal analog  circuitry this happens also to the MW reception  of the PL380  )
  

The ups of this  radio:

• No SW overloads even the radio's antenna  is connected to the external antenna
  
• Nice FM audio normalization on all stations from the soft tune (something the very cheap De 17 has also for the SW) 
• Good LW reception better comparing to the vacancy of PL 600 and 380 

If you are member of the yahoo group https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Tecsun_PL-880  you can search some interesting material on the files including spectrum analysis for SSB and ECSS reception . I will not include any photos here It also includes the sheet with  the hidden  operations

BTW   the hidden features are  as follows:

• Adjustable FM De-emphasis  (no audio difference )
  
• Adjustable Line-Out Level
• Adjusting Muting Threshold
• Battery low voltage shutdown
• Digital Noise Reduction
• Force Receiver to accept LW/MW antennas into the external SW antenna jack (a complex 7-step process)
• MW and SSB Calibration
• Radio Run time
• Seconds on/off for clock