Tag Archives: Tecsun PL-880 Charger

Charging the Tecsun PL-880 with the C. Crane Witness AC Adapter

CCWitnessAdapterSWLing Post reader, John Case, comments:

“I bought a C. Crane Witness AC Adapter to try it out on the PL-880. It is rated at 900 mA, more than enough to handle the PL-880. I think it is more than reasonable at $14.95.

I am happy to say that it works very well on the PL-880 and does not introduce any noise in any mode , even when the PL-880 is recharging the internal Battery. I also ran the PL-880 in Shortwave without the battery with no problems off of this AC Adapter. All in all, it is very well filtered, and thus quiet.  I can highly recommend it for use with the PL-880.”

Update–John adds:

“I should add that the idea to use the C. Crane Witness AC Adapter for the Tecsun PL-880 came from Dave Zantow, of “Dave’s radio Receiver Page”. He had looked at the Skywave adapter, but it is rated at a maximum of 300 mA, while the PL-880 is rated at > 300 mA. Dave originally tested the Witness Adapter on the Degen DE 1128H, and was pleased with the results. Unfortunately he no longer had his PL-880 test sample, so he could not test the adapter with that radio.

He did add one cautionary note that it may be necessary to add bypass caps to the power regulators to avoid picking up low level switching hum on a whip or other indoor antenna. I did not experience any of this, but it sound like a good idea easily implemented. Dave’s review is at the bottom of this page: http://webpages.charter.net/n9ewo2/ats909x.html

Many thanks, John! I may pick up one of these myself–would be nice to have a regulated supply for many of my radios and digital devices. (Would come in handy if I ever decide to pull the trigger on the CC Witness, too!)

Click here to view the CC Witness Plus adapter at C. Crane.

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The Tecsun PL-880 charger and battery

The supplied Tecsun PL-880 charger/power supply (Click to enlarge)

The supplied Tecsun PL-880 charger/power supply (Click to enlarge)

I’ve had a lot of questions and comments about whether the Tecsun PL-880 is supplied with a power supply/battery charger.  I purchased my PL-880 from from Anon-Co on eBay and they sent a charger along with the radio.

The charger was not in the actual PL-880 (OEM) box, but wrapped up inside Anon’s FedEx shipping package. I found it instantly.

I mention this because I’m not sure if other vendors are supplying a charger as well–perhaps other PL-880 owners can comment?

The charger has two ports where the supplied USB cable can be plugged in–both 5 VDC, but one rated at 1000mA and the other at 2400 mA. Either would work to power the PL-880 as it only requires 300 mA. For charging, I would use the 2400 mA port–though the 1000 mA port may work as well.  You certainly can’t hurt the radio by using the higher mA port as the radio will only use the amount of amperage it requires.

Tecsun-PL-880-Charger-2-SWLingPost

I will also note that while I prefer portables having the more standard AA cells, the supplied PL-880 rechargeable battery (see below) has superb capacity.  With all of the listening time I’ve been logging, I still haven’t needed to recharge it yet. I suspect its capacity is superior to that of most AA rechargeables.

PL800-Battery

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