The Tecsun PL-880 (Photo: bbs.tecsun.com.cn/)
Last night, I discovered news of the new Tecsun PL-880 on Jeff’s excellent blog, the Herculodge.
Out of all of the current shortwave radio manufacturers, Tecsun seems to be one of the only companies making new models for the radio hobbyist–models with important features like SSB, bandwidth control, fine tuning steps, capable AGC, etc.
According to a comment Owl left on this post, it sounds like the PL-880 could be a performer:
Two photos of Tecsun’s new model PL880 appeared yesterday. It uses an analog+DSP architecture similar to ATS909X but has made some significant improvements (4 AM bandwidth + 5 SSB bandwidth) and better audio compared to previous Tecsun portables.
http://herculodge.typepad.com/
herculodge/2013/08/new-tecsun- pl-880-on-its-way.html
I will plan on reviewing the PL-880, once it hits the market. If it’s no larger than my Sony ICF-SW7600GR, it might make for a great travel radio.
(Photo source: bbs.tecsun.com.cn)
I have two ?? radios already, i.e. PL450 and BCL2000. These two machines gives me very good result in the last several years. Now I wish to have your latest model PL-880. Please let me know the cost of the radio, plus postage send to Canton, a friend of mine’s address. Also the cost of an extra battery for this radio if I shall need another one for future use. For your information, I came to New Zealand from Hong Kong, and lived in New Zealand for over 23 years. Thanks for your attention to this matter. John Lai
although the 4 KHz filter be selected, the audio-response is cut to about 2,5KHz ! So ssb reception of digital signals like MIL-STB 188-141A (aka ALE) is impossible since it needs almost 3,0KHz BW.
Hi,
is this site active ? So what about the external antenna socket ????????????????????
Vy 73
Hi, Bertrand,
I was waiting until I had heard more about the PL-880. So far, no new news, so I can’t give any details about an antenna socket. Hopefully we’ll hear something in the next few weeks!
Best & 73,
Thomas
Hi,
has anyone more info about the external antenna socket ? Will it be also available for LW and MW this time ?
Best greetings.
hello,
what about a separate external antenna socket for LW, MW and SW….
and not only SW……. greetings and best 73.s
I found this link courtesy of the manly men at Heculodge :
http://tecsunradio.com/2013/09/14/new-arrival-tecsun-pl880-fm-radio-dsp-stereo-speaker-coming-soon/9030
Looking pretty good !
Do they gonna make that horrible automatic noise blanker on SW again, as in PL-660 ?
Three weels right side, missing three left side. Would be a nice truck.
Let’s hope they leave the noise blanker OFF – who ever dreamed that up as a “feature”! Obviously someone who doesn’t really listen to or scan for SW broadcasts…
The box shows 192 x 113 x 33. If those are millimeters, that’s about 7.5 x 4.4 x 1.3 inches.
Hi !
What about RDS ?
Is it available ?
I guess not. It is not mentioned in the broshure picture. RDS is not officially used in mainland China and I can’t remember that any Tecsun radio has RDS support.
Forgot to mention:
according to the brochure, the size of the radio is 192x113x33mm.
There are separate fast/slow tuning knobs.
Also, a so-called ultra-dynamic full-range speaker is used. The design of the audio section of PL880 might have benifited from Tecsun’s experience on making a few portable media-players (Tecsun A3/D3/X3/etc.) in the past couple of years.
An update:
The post with the two photos of PL880 was removed from Tecsun’s customer service forum, which might indicate Tecsun is not ready to release it in the immediate future yet. I contacted the guy who initially posted the photos and he didn’t know a release date either.
As for the AM/SSB bandwidth, the four AM bandwidths are: 2.3, 3.5, 5.0, 9.0 and the five SSB bandwidths are: 0.5, 1.2, 2.3, 3.0, 4.0. These are the figures displayed when bandwidth switch is pressed repeated in AM or SSB mode. I am not sure how they are defined (DSP radios like PL390 has five AM BW 1/2/3/4/6 which are in fact 2/4/6/8/12k in conventional sense).
Any idea how much it will cost in the USA (or if it will be offered here)?