Tecsun PL-365 scanning question

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Julien, who writes with the following question:

First, thanks for your site !

I have a question about PL-365. It seems auto-scan works only in the range of 2,245-21,950 kHz. The ranges from 1,711-2,245 and 21,950-29,999 can only be scan manually.

Do you know the reason for this? Or a trick to auto-scan the other two ranges?

I do not know the reason for the auto scan limits, but imagine it could be a limitation of the SiLabs DSP chip inside–although this is merely a guess. My hope is that someone in our community can verify or perhaps help if they know of a work-around. Please comment!

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10 thoughts on “Tecsun PL-365 scanning question

  1. RonF

    Do people really find value in scanning on SW bands anyway? I’ve got a few radios that have the capability, and have even experimented with various ways of doing it (e.g. SNR, RSSI, etc) when retrofitting old radios with computer control, but never found it worthwhile – too many missed stations due to fading, noise bursts, being slightly off frequency, etc; too many false positives due to weird signals, harmonics/intermod, birdies, etc.

    I’ve always seen it as more a marketing feature than something actually useful…

    (That said, scanning stored memories is kind of useful – but that’s not what we’re talking about.)

    Reply
  2. Rui Delgado

    I’ve made the exact same question to Anon-co since I’ve bought the radio there. The answer was that tuning above 21.950 should be done manually which does not work for me. I cannot go above 21.950MHz with the 365!

    Reply
    1. RonF

      Don’t know why it omits the 120M band, but the 11M band is outside the scanning range of the Si4735 chip used in the PL-365. From the programming guide:

      * Valid range: 149-23000kHz
      * Recommended ranges: LW 153-279kHz; AM 520/522-1710kHz, SW 2300-23000kHz

      Reply
      1. RonF

        edit: from what Julien says, it _doesn’t_ omit the 120M broadcast band – he says it starts from 2245kHz, which covers 2300-2495kHz.

        Looks like the only SW broadcast band it omits is 11M, which is outside of the chip’s scanning range.

        Reply
  3. K.U.

    I don’t have the PL-365, but I have Tecsun PL-606. It scans only broadcast bands with some extension. All the rest is skipped. I Guess, the reason is faster scanning when sections with no or few broadcast stations are skipped.

    Reply

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