Tecsun PL-990 and H-501: What we know so far about the upcoming production run

The PL-990 released in China last year.

Many of you have been asking me about the pricing and availability of the Tecsun PL-990 and H-501 receivers. Both radios were released late last year (2019) in China, but the final export version–and first full production run–has not yet hit the market.

I reached out to Anon-Co to see what updates, if any, we have about these radios. They were able to share the following points:

  • “Tecsun sold a first version of the PL-990 and H-501 in China as a promotion before Chinese New Year, at a promotional price.”
  • “They will launch further updated versions in the next few months, which will also be the international export version. This price will definitely be higher than the promotional prices, but the exact price is not available yet.”
  • “The version for the international market is not finalized yet. It may become available by the end of March or April, but there is no official launch date yet.”

The H-501 version released in China last year.

I think the important take-aways here are that we’re still perhaps a couple months out from the final versions shipping and that the price will be slightly higher than the initial production run in China.

Good news is, it sounds like this radio will get a proper vetting before it ships!  I’m willing to wait knowing this. Also, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, there could be some noticeable changes and updates to the final exported versions.

If you would like to follow updates about these radios as we post them, bookmark the tags PL-990 and H-501.


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4 thoughts on “Tecsun PL-990 and H-501: What we know so far about the upcoming production run

  1. Troy Riedel

    David,

    I had the exact same issue with my PL-880. My cause may be different than yours, but …

    … I found a [Chinese] Tecsun Radio Forum and I used Google Translator. One person on there reported they had the same problem & asked for advice. Someone replied and stated they took all batteries out of the radio for 24-hours – and upon reinserting them they performed a reset of the unit – and that mitigated the issue (they stressed it was imperative the unit have no power for many hours – the 24-hours may have been arbitrary – to “clear” it). Sure enough, I did the same thing and I’ve never once had that issue again (maybe 2-years ago?).

    Reply
  2. David Mitchell

    My PL-880 drains the batteries, even when turned off, in just a couple hours, entirely dead (no time display, etc). I suspect a bad diode in the internal charger.
    I’m going to see if I can repair the broken battery spring on my old Realistic DX-398 (Sangean ATS-909)… need an external antenna set back up for it, HF is a bit insensitive.

    Reply

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