TRRS

[@BobLewen]

Tom, the adapter plug for the external antenna is a BNC-Female to 1/8" Mono Phono Plug Coaxial Adapter. I have a later version and it’s noisy indoors from computers, bricks, etc, but excellent SSB outdoors away from household electrical noise. Here in NJ, 3330khz (Canadian CHU time station is available practically around the clock.

[@hamrad88]

Thanks for the info! I have the adapter. Somewhere!?? Used on mine about 6 years ago. Have a great day.

[@357bullfrog2]

The last few days ive been picking up a lot if HAm signals. Really enjoy listening to them guys.

[@Greg-et2dp]

Tom's radio room Jeff's tecsun pl-880 mw lw fm sw ssb 5band portable receiver is cool 😎 👌 👍

[@ditto1958]

I don’t have a dog in this race, but when I watch and read reviews on this, I just don’t know. This radio and the PL-990 are expensive, but when you really listen to what people are saying, they seem to be not as good as you’d think they should be for the price. People who have the older analog PL-660 and PL-680 seem to like them a lot. Also, the relatively inexpensive PL-330 generally gets really positive reviews and seems to be a really good value for the price.

[@Greg-et2dp]

Tom's radio room show I learn lot from you about shortwave receivers and antenna for shortwave receivers 📡 ♥️

[@wesfoulds47]

I just got mine can’t tell date . It has usb-c and works very good

[@solidaudioTV]

Hi Tom - Sorry to echo some of the other comments but you won't hear anything on 40 meters USB as all the voice activity is on LSB. I'd also try later in the day. But thanks for reviewing the 880 again. I'm still interested in buying this radio - I was just waiting for them to smoothe out the SSB. Otherwise, the feature set & sound quality seem like a real winner. Have a great day!

[@hamrad88]

Thanks for the info. I tried LSB later in the day and still nothing heard. Have a great day.

[@solidaudioTV]

@@hamrad88 That's too bad....say when are we gonna start getting some good HF conditions?

[@garys.7846]

@@solidaudioTV We're at the bottom of the Sunspot cycle, things should start to pick up within the next year. KQ2N

[@o00scorpion00o]

@@garys.7846 we may be but there's still great activity on many bands, I've been making great DX from Ireland to South America on 20m with just the FT-891 and a Chameleon MPAS 2.0 since May :-) Got to Chile On 40 M a couple of weeks ago one night on the 7300 and my myantennas.com EFHW. So the bands might be up and down but there's is always activity, if more people got off FT8 and started talking things would be better.

[@peteradely885]

Hi Tom. If you open the rear cover case. On the circuit board there is a date stamped on manufactures build date. I have a 2012 pl880. It has a tuning optical interrupter and they were troublesome. Newer upgrades better on my newest 12-19 built and etched on circuit board. Pete w2hp

[@hamrad88]

Thanks

[@dieselten01]

Plus, at 9;30 am you should try 20 meters (14000khz) which is Upper Sideband

[@hamrad88]

Thanks. I had tried that before doing this show and nothing there either. Thanks for the suggestion.

[@twohandsandaradio]

Way too early in the Summer for 20m. that's more of an afternoon band. At least here in the USA.

[@JoanEA-SWL]

Hello dear friend Tom, I've seen your morning video, now I see the new one. Stay safe, see you next time. 73

[@hamrad88]

Many thanks

[@jeffking291]

Joan Amigó And thanks for watching. 📻🙂

[@Greg-et2dp]

Tom's radio room show your Tecsun pl-880 Mw lw fm sw ssb 5band portable receiver is cool 😎 👌 👍

[@leyland9999]

Hi, always a good idea to compare two identical radio's. Inevetably, there will be differences due to all kinds of possible reaons. However, these differences should all be within tight tolerances. So tight, that the end users won't notice the differences unless perhaps in very critical situations. Such as very weak stations, barely audible on one receiver, absent on the other. These Tecsun radio's are consumer electronics, not professional devices. And given that fact, I think they perform amazingly well, certainly for the money they ask you for it. I own two and as I sayd, there are minor differences. On my two units the read out for db and sn are not the same on both radio's. Other than that, I can't find any more differences. So, for me, absolutely acceptable. I have two, the older one dating back to 2018, a black one with serial# 42620180400909. The second unit dates back to 2019, having serial# 42620180500151 so they are 99242 units apart from each other. Granted, the sync reception is terrible, maybe the reason Tecsun has hidden this feature well away. Other than that, I think these radio's are amazing value for money, maybe even the best portable available today. Now as for testing usb performances, why don't you try the so called volmet stations? These stations provide info on weather and transmit continuously, so much easier to compare radio's. Go to: Worldwide Volmet Broadcasts HF Aeronautical Stations www.dxinfocentre.com Maybe VFG Gander Canada on resp. 3485kHz, 6604kHz, 10051kHz, 13270kHz can be received at your location, keeping in mind the propagation situations during the day, 3485 during the dark hours etc. Also, according to the list on the web site, CHR also from Canada might come in on 15034kHz. All ssb and continuous, so easy to tune in and compare. And, turn off your computer......Kind regards, Willem from Holland.

[@hamrad88]

Thanks for the info and have a great day.

[@garyjellen8039]

Hey Tom, interesting video, but I believe 40 meters is lower side band. I have an 880 and I use it on side band all the time, with an external long wire. My main complaint with the radio is no manual rf gain control which gives you a really nasty noise floor, especially in this day and age. Take care and stay well...

[@hamrad88]

I tried both USB and LSB later in the day with no luck. Have a great day.

[@garyjellen8039]

@Sean Kelly I appreciate your idea and it has some merrit but my objection with the PL880 is the high noise floor between transmissions because the agc is so prevelant. I'm very spoiled because my favorite radio is an R392 with an external product detector. If you pull the antenna of that radio its dead quiet. The 880 is pretty noisey with no antenna. I hope this makes some kind of sense. Thank you and take care...

[@garyjellen8039]

@Sean Kelly The R390a is a great receiver but I could never afford one. I spent 6 years in the Navy as a CTM and worked on literally hundreds of them. We had to do total PMs every 90 days. Yes the oil and grease did dry out in them. The RF gain on the 390a and the 392 isn't just on the input , it adjusts the rf and if stage gain and is independant of the agc. That's why it works so well. The PL880 and radios like it are max gain all the time, which is why they are so noisey. Any way that's how I see it. Take care...

[@ambush1sg]

@@hamrad88 160M, 80M, 40M - LSB. All higher ham bands - USB.

[@dxace1]

I may have missed it but the real interesting thing here would have been to check performance on the hidden SYNC feature, between the two builds of the radio. I currently have one of the first PL-990x models and will be putting a review up soon...

[@lovetheblue6659]

My three year old PL-880 just *broke*!! The internal charger stopped working. I swapped out batteries and everything. I ran over to Universal Radio and was shocked to see that the Grundig 750 is coming back as the Eton Elite 750. So I just pre-ordered one of those. It costs about $400 now. I certainly hope that means that QC has improved. That was about the only thing wrong with the old 750.

[@hamrad88]

Thanks for the report.

[@lovetheblue6659]

@ Sean Kelly - Ha! No, I purchased some rechargeable batteries and a charger from Amazon for it. It’s now my “portable” SW radio. Also, if I ever decide to jump on a Tecsun S-8800 I’ll be “good to go” since it uses the same batteries. I have now received my Eton Elite 750 and it’s everything that I had hoped, but I’m using it exclusively as a desktop SW receiver. Which it is. It’s a very good performer but really doesn’t “come alive” with excellent S/N ratios until you feed it an external antenna. I’m really impressed with the overall construction of it compared to the early Grundig 750’s. The knobs are all silky smooth as is the operation of the rotatable ferrite rod. My only complaint is the display and S-meter lighting should be brighter. I don’t know why they haven’t gone to LED lighting after all this time. And it needs a front “bail” to get it up to convenient eye level. Other than that I *love* it! Performance is outstanding throughout the entire tuning range. Glad they brought it back!

[@lovetheblue6659]

@ Sean Kelly - I think you may be right about the LEDs possibly creating noise. I placed a LED desktop lamp next to it and turned it on. The MW (with the external rotatable ferrite rod antenna still active) was swamped. FM, SW and Air bands seemed unaffected. Oh well: “No Radio is Perfect”. (Speaking of the Air band: My external antenna is not optimized for it and the nearest airport is 30 miles from me. Still the pilots and tower come booming in on the approach frequency. Really impressive.). Now we need someone to make an under $500 hybrid SDR (with frequencies under VHF handled in a traditional fashion) complete with the “waterfall” display. Probably still a couple of years away from that.

[@jeffking291]

So many great comments. Thanks to everyone for watching and ideas in the comments. More testing needs to be done, as suggested. Again, thank you all. 📻🙂

[@hamrad88]

Thanks again!

[@sigint99]

I just received a second PL-880 and was shocked how stable this one is on SSB. No obvious distortion and the AGC is more balanced. Might be an improved revision or just the luck of the draw ? Who knows, I find the PL-880 to be a better performer than the PL-990 which is too overpriced and offers minimal gains over the PL-880.

[@hamrad88]

Thanks for the report and have a great day.

[@sigint99]

@@hamrad88 Thanks Tom. I hope all is well where you are. Here downunder the governments have gone mad.

[@Night_Tim]

I picked up a used PL880 on ebay and it was like new but must be an older unit because SSB has the leading edge distortion. However, no way to tell the build date. I like the design but was thinking about the 680 now because I listen to a lot of SSB.

[@hamrad88]

I really like my 680. See my reviews.

[@o00scorpion00o]

The PL-880 is a disaster, I use external antennas and the SSB distortion is many times worse, why use the telescopic antenna when a good external antenna works so much better ? The PL-880 and S-8800 are a joke and shame on Tecsun for releasing these radios at such high prices, it's actually a disgrace they released the radios with this issue in the first place because they are not fit for purpose. I use the Bonito MA305 whip antenna mounted about 7 meters up in a tree, I use H155 coax and it's well grounded at the base of the tree, grounding this antenna is essential as with most antennas. The Antenna is just superb and works great with these radios, a radio is only as good as it's Antenna. In noisy areas in apartments etc a loop antenna such as the Bonito Megaloop FX might work better. Anyway, I sold my S-8800 and PL-880 and got the PL-680 and the difference is night and day, the 680 doesn't have the filtering on SSB that the 880 has but the 4 Khz filter on the 8800 and 880 didn't work anyway and they sounded so bad on SSB that the filters didn't matter much. One major difference with the 680 is that you can zero-beat it, Zero-beating for those who don't know works like this, you are listening to a SW broadcast station and there's a stronger interfering station close by, switch to USB or LSB whichever eliminates or reduces the interfering station or source, then use the BFO to make it sound natural, this works amazingly well on the 680 but not on the 8800 or 880 due to the poor SSB performance and bad audio, the sound is warbly and it will wreck your ears and head. The PL-680 is a joy to use, has a wonderfully quiet receiver, great audio, pure analogue design that hasn't been destroyed by dodgy DSP chip that has a bug. Get the pl-680 here www.anon-co.com/ 95 USD can't go wrong it's one of the best sounding best performing portable radios you will find today. A lot of the DSP radios have similar issues and harsh sounding audio, the XHDATA D808 is the same and some of the Grundigs, they probably all use the same DSP chip.

[@o00scorpion00o]

@@hamrad88 Yes the PL-680 is a vastly superior radio in every way compared to the PL-880 and S-8800, the Pure analogue design is the key difference, great sounding audio and a very quiet receiver, excellent performance too. Most DSP radios I've had or reviewed have issues either with harsh audio or distortion on SSB, the XHDATA being another, not as bad on SSB on the tecsuns but still not great and you can't zero-beat it either because the audio sounds crap.

[@hamrad88]

@@o00scorpion00o Thanks for your inputs.

[@DXPedro]

@@o00scorpion00o so if I was to start DXing and picking up a new radio, should I get the pl680 or the XHDATA 808? I’m on fence between these too after seeing a few reviews. To add up: I know a guy who’s selling a 880 purchased a month a go fo 90usd. So many choices!!! :/

[@realstreetuk]

Hi I am torn between the pl990x and pl880... if I'm not bothered about the Bluetooth, sd card for audio and the speaker( as I believe the audio on both are not that dissimilar) would you tell me to go for the pl880? I do like the look of the 880 but can afford the pl990x. Any advice would be appreciated thanks

[@hamrad88]

I have both and the 990 is much better overall. I am not an expert.

[@g.s.3074]

Mine has a sticker with a build date that’s located under the battery in it’s compartment. But.. the build month was off by four months on the display screen.

[@hamrad88]

They have had lots of revisions and stopped updating the build info for fear people would ask for updates.

[@daz.r1994]

can you help. I ones had a Grundig YP-P 2000 it was a great radio but it died about 3 years ago. I have just started looking at getting a new one. been looking at the Tecsun pl 990x / pl 880 / pl 680. what would you say out of these ones should i get.

[@hamrad88]

I like my 680.

[@daz.r1994]

@@hamrad88 Thank you for getting back to me. I will pick up the 680.

[@davidprovost1981]

I too have an 880. Given the fact that there are no real improvements, and the cost of the 990, I am passing.

[@hamrad88]

Thanks for your comments and have a great day.

[@pu2xbt74]

If you buy a Tecsun PL 880, how will I know that I am receiving the radio with updated firwmare?

[@hamrad88]

There is no way to know. The manufacture is no longer updating the revision numbers. The last revision which was soon after the release was 8820. That did not fix all the problems so they stopped updating the version number.

[@7sonero7]

@@hamrad88 Sounds like sneaky sales tactics ... Why buy it then ?

[@ecstrat100]

Why are you using upper sideband on 40 ham band? Below 10Mhz is lower (LSB) and above 10Mhz is upper (USB) on the ham bands and military uses mostly upper on all bands. Also WWV is on 2.5Mhz! Also why do you need a SSB signal when an AM station will use SSB just fine as it tunes just like a sideband station but just has a carrier and just tune till the voice is natural sounding. I listen to AM broadcast all the time on SSB when there is interference or a heterodyne from other stations(you know the little annoying squeal). Give it a try...

[@hamrad88]

You are correct. Thanks for the suggestions.

[@dieselten01]

Your resolution is not hi enough to read the screen. But you said you were using Upper Sideband on 40 meters. It is supposed to be Lower Sideband

[@hamrad88]

I tried both and just nothing to be found at that time on any of the bands either upper or lower. Thanks for your comments and have a great day.

[@ambush1sg]

@@hamrad88 Lower sideband is traditionally used on 160 M, 80 M & 40 M. From 20 M & higher upper sideband is used. CBers have settled on LSB. Glenn, KB9IN.

[@hamrad88]

@@ambush1sg Thanks. My memory she not so good anymore.

[@bretwayne8302]

40m is lsb not usb

[@hamrad88]

I tried lsb too. Thanks

[@anthonycosta1776]

Was there any discernable difference in either radio?

[@hamrad88]

With this short tests, could not find much. With my first one, the SSB could not be tuned in at all. The second one was better but not much. Was hoping to see if Jeff's worked much better on SSB. Will have to do more testing.

[@musicman195959]

Brother Stair is always on. Lol!

[@hamrad88]

I know. That was a bad sign that I could not find him on any band.

[@jeffking291]

There used to be a cartoon: “ Klondike Kat “, He was always chasing a mouse who was always saying: “ Savoir-Faire ees everywhere “. “Brother Stair is everywhere “.(😁). 📻🙂

[@joestokesbary7343]

Try lower side band

[@hamrad88]

Thanks, I tried both with no luck. Will have to try at a different time of the day. Have a great day.

[@thedude4395]

You need a real antenna.

[@waynedavis2507]

You won't hear many amateurs without an antenna. Try a higher frequency with a real antenna.

[@hamrad88]

I tried that but nothing heard.

[@jeffking291]

📻🙂

[@o00scorpion00o]

The PL-880 is a disaster, I use external antennas and the SSB distortion is many times worse, why use the telescopic antenna when a good external antenna works so much better ? The PL-880 and S-8800 are a joke and shame on Tecsun for releasing these radios at such high prices, it's actually a disgrace they released the radios with this issue in the first place because they are not fit for purpose. I use the Bonito MA305 whip antenna mounted about 7 meters up in a tree, I use H155 coax and it's well grounded at the base of the tree, grounding this antenna is essential as with most antennas. The Antenna is just superb and works great with these radios, a radio is only as good as it's Antenna. In noisy areas in apartments etc a loop antenna such as the Bonito Megaloop FX might work better. Anyway, I sold my S-8800 and PL-880 and got the PL-680 and the difference is night and day, the 680 doesn't have the filtering on SSB that the 880 has but the 4 Khz filter on the 8800 and 880 didn't work anyway and they sounded so bad on SSB that the filters didn't matter much. One major difference with the 680 is that you can zero-beat it, Zero-beating for those who don't know works like this, you are listening to a SW broadcast station and there's a stronger interfering station close by, switch to USB or LSB whichever eliminates or reduces the interfering station or source, then use the BFO to make it sound natural, this works amazingly well on the 680 but not on the 8800 or 880 due to the poor SSB performance and bad audio, the sound is warbly and it will wreck your ears and head. The PL-680 is a joy to use, has a wonderfully quiet receiver, great audio, pure analogue design that hasn't been destroyed by dodgy DSP chip that has a bug. Get the pl-680 here www.anon-co.com/ 95 USD can't go wrong it's one of the best sounding best performing portable radios you will find today. A lot of the DSP radios have similar issues and harsh sounding audio, the XHDATA D808 is the same and some of the Grundigs, they probably all use the same DSP chip.