Wife's Tecsun PL200 radio review

 

Wife's Tecsun PL200 radio review

Here is an more detailed  review from my posting as zach0000 in http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/3691

I am happy user of a PL 200 which has been repaired and enhanced by Degen /Tecsun team after a claim of nearly defunct operation in the MW band if I remember correctly (it is about 6 years ago! ). It is one of a broad series of products of Degen and Tecsun I bought the older times (2005 -2007)

This radio has been severely used the older times for several years it was used as alarm  radio(!!!) till recently then again (after  August 11 ) used  as replacement of the 1102 and the  new 600  and now is my favourite and easier to take in my pocket .The latest  period it has been used more for listening  the news due to highly  political situation here in Greece 

This is a  tiny small radio cassette sized  radio , though quite  thicker with buttons the size of a child’s fingers which is a a little   difficult to be used in relatively thick   fingers as mine !I have to use my nails …  Most buttons are abt 4x2 mm .

Here are  several pictures  from the radio:

The keyboard , including the frequency and band change. the up and down offer the  sleep time as refred later in this page

Frm the left: Lock switch , tone switch (good audio with the Sony  ears ), tuning knob  and volume on the lower layer

 

Ears socket , mains pwer socket , 3 step attenuator .Dont forget as the  radio  has a tremendous preampifiaction  to overload  easily , therefore use the  H setting sparingly 

and a reset button on the bottom should any thing  happen

and the LCd display. With the radio off , battery level is shown . two clocks ,one for ral time and the upper right for alarm

==

Here are several  feature of the radio:

Power on :

-Pressing  once , the  radio enters in the  sleep mode that  can be adjusted by the up down buttons (same  is used for 500 and 600 models ) with  times of 15 30 45 60 90 120 minutes

-Pressing for 3 secs   the radio operates  continuously

Memories:

-It uses 200 Memories  splitted to a base of 20 or 25 per bank . A new memory is added using the <mem & edit> button at the left bottom

-Changing memories  is made with the up down buttons

Bands : bands are changed  using the FM MW SW band button above the 200 logo . Changing Sw bands is made by the left  button

Freq dialing:

-Using the keyboard it requires the typical old style of pressing the <enter>  freq <enter>sequence

-Freq steps is 0.05 MHz  in FM  and 1 kHz in Am bands using the  rotary knob .  The up down buttons are used for fast scanning with steps of 0.1 MHz and 5 kHz respectively

-There is some mismatch to the  freq and the tuned signal . I find an offset by +0.5 to +1 kHz  from the tuned freq in AM and up to +0.2 mHz  in FM

 

Band sensitivity and selectivity

-With  the  adjustment from Tecsun  its MW reception outperforms al other radios I used  so far . I kept the  original 500-1700 kHz   bandwidth  in order to receive  the Greek radio pirates  . Signals from the pirates  can be received with full  signal (indication ) level !

-IN AM  the selectivity is  abt 4 kHz

-Comparing to  PL 600 FM  selectivity  is  broader in FM but in most cases it has quite good reception . Its sensitivity in FM is also quite good

 

Audio quality:

-In Am audio is relatively harsh Notice that I always use the best audio MDR 755 Sony ears  to listen

-In FM audio is  not as good as  1102  though sounds pretty well with the 929 or the SONY MDR  earphones. They are  more ‘bassy’ with some less treble 

 And a  diversity /comparison test with 1102

Here is a mini test with DE 1102 .  I used my older technique  with the parallel listening using two out used 919  earphones , from my ear collection as shown in the picture above. 

 

I used the same  audio channel  for testing  and found these :

FM: Even this way  there is some audio spatiality , first in between bass and trebles . It sounded still as stereo  sensitivity could not be tested  as all signals here are very strong

MW : First  I  did a  made a ears ‘midpoint’  sound  using same level in both earphones using  at first a strong signal say from 1044 kHz   then tested in all band . MY 1102 has some burn in problem on all Am  bands  as it requires  for unknown reason  about 1 hour to restore its sensitivity. For this reason  I used my in –laws other copies of 1102   to make the test  by using the same technique .  I found that PL200  lacks some sensitivity in the lower MW band, IN higher MW band there is a  higher amplification level than 1102  with nearly similar  sensitivity   for both .

SW: the burn in found to be more prone  to the sensitivity problem . The technique with a strong signal to establish a midpoint sound was not  working IN SW properly  and required different settings for  higher band surveys . ie spanning by at least two band zones   is necessary to readjust the ‘mid point’ . Anyway  I found that in several unnoticed bands PL200  has some more sensitivity than 1102 (ie signal is above radio’s  threshold )