Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Joe, who recently asked in our comments section:
“The CC Skywave is more than double the price of the Tecsun PL-310ET. The two radios appear to have similar features and performance. Can anyone suggest a reason why one would want to pay the extra charge for a Skywave?”
Thanks for your question, Joe. I’m asked this a lot by SWLing Post readers, so quickly realized I should just turn my response into a proper post. Here’s my response in a nutshell:
The Tecun PL-310ET
The Tecsun PL-310ET is (and has been for years) one of the best budget shortwave portables out there.
For the price of $40-45 US shipped (via eBay, for example), you really can’t go wrong. It’s certainly a benchmark among the ultralight DSP portables.
The ($79-89 US) CC Skywave, in my opinion, has a few advantages:
- An excellent weather radio receiver (for folks in North America)
- The AIR band which is a fun and useful addition if you live near an airport or like travelling by air
- I prefer the Skywave over the PL-310ET on the mediumwave band. Its selectivity and AGC, in my opinion, have a distinct edge over the ‘310ET for MW DXing.
Because of these particular advantages, the Skywave has become my travel portable of choice when SSB reception isn’t a priority.
The CC Skywave
You might check out my CC Skywave review because I tried to include reception recordings which I felt represented both radios fairly:
https://swling.com/blog/2014/12/review-of-the-c-crane-cc-skywave-portable-radio/
In short, though? If I didn’t care about the AIR band or NOAA weather radio, I’d be quite happy with the PL-310ET. In truth, you really can’t go wrong either choice.
I can say that I now take my CC Skywave on travels more than my PL-310ET.
Click here to search for the Tecun PL-310ET on:
Click here to search for the CC Skywave at
- C.Crane ($89.99 and free shipping through Dec 6, 2016)
- Amazon.com ($89.99 with free shipping option)
- Universal Radio (lowest price without shipping: $79.95)
- eBay (pricing varies greatly)
Either of these radios, by the way, would make for an excellent gift.
Very good radios in their class difficult to distinguish apart without going down into the weeds on details, neither one appear to be capable of receiving cw/ssb so that puts them in a standoff, If one had the forethought, the one with BFO that would win hands down. Marketeers fail to understand there sometimes are subgroups that make a competitive advantage because of some seemingly insignificant feature that make a break a sale.