Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:
Confessions of a horizontal DXer and some initial impressions of the Tecsun PL-880
by Jock Elliott
Back in the day when I wrote for Passport To World Band Radio, one of my favorite things to do, while my better half drifted off to sleep, was to clamp on a pair of headphones, lean back against the pillows, and mess around with a Sony 6800W shortwave receiver.
It wasn’t a radio that was built for band scanning: you had to rotate a dial to select the megahertz segment of the bands that you wanted, tune a built-in preselector to the appropriate area, and then dial in the frequency with a tuning knob. And memories? Ha! You want memories?!! There were no stinking memories . . . you had to remember what frequencies you wanted or at least what portions of the bands you wanted to tune. The memories were between your ears.
But it was a receiver with an extraordinarily low noise floor, and many a happy evening I enjoyed programming from half a world away. Drifting off to sleep with headphones piping in a signal from a distant land was not without its dangers, though. One night I fell asleep listening to the news from Radio Australia beamed, in English, to Papua, New Guinea. I woke a while later to the same newscast beamed to Papua, New Guinea, but this time in Pidgin English. I heard some English words, but the rest did not make sense. I panicked, thinking some neurologic event had scrambled my brain, but a crisp voice rescued me: “This has been the news in Pidgin English, from Radio Australia.” Thank God!
When Passport ceased publication, I neglected shortwave radio for over a decade, busy with freelance writing and running the Commuter Assistance Net on two meter ham radio.
Earlier this year, the SWLing bug bit me again, and I fired up a long-neglected Grundig Satellit 800 and started cruising around the HF frequencies. Many of the big-gun shortwave stations were gone, or they weren’t aiming programming at North America, but there was plenty to listen to, including shortwave stations, HF ham bands, and some utility stations.
Gee, I thought, it might be great to have a radio for a little horizontal in-bed DXing before shutting off the lights for the night . . . something I could hold in my lap, turn the tuning knob, and discover hidden treasures. The Satellit 800, emphatically, was not the answer. It is a large radio, roughly the size of the vaunted Zenith Transoceanic radios, and definitely not suited for laps.
So, based on a great reputation and excellent reviews, I bought a CCrane Skywave SSB. The Skywave SSB is a powerhouse, offering AM, FM, Weather, Air, SW, and SSB in a package roughly the size of a deck of cards and perhaps twice as thick. And it delivers the goods, offering worthy performance on every band, although SW performance is greatly enhanced by attaching the wire antenna that is included with the Skywave SSB.
Two factors, I discovered, reduced the suitability of the Skywave SSB for bedside DXing. First, the tuning knob is really small, so you can’t just twirl your finger to traverse the bands. It also has click-detents on the tuning knob and muting between tuning steps, so the tuning is non-continuous, which diminishes the pleasure for me. So the drill becomes: use the automatic tuning system (ATS) to search the bands and store stations in memory and then use the keypad buttons to jump from stored station to stored station. Further, each keypad key makes a distinct “click” sound when properly depressed. And that brings us to the second factor: one night, I am attempting to explore the stations stored by the ATS when my bride, who was trying to doze off, taps me. “What?” I say. “Too much clicky-clicky,” she says. Oh, I thought; now I need to find a radio that is quiet, so long as I am wearing headphones.
Now, just to be clear: I would highly recommend the CCrane Skywave SSB (except for use next to a spouse who is attempting to sleep), particularly for traveling because it is so small and performs so well. To underscore the value of a shortwave-capable travel radio, some years ago, I spoke with a journalist who was in Russia when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster took place. Russian media were not reporting on it at all; he found out about Chernobyl by listening to the BBC on a shortwave radio he had tucked into his luggage, and he rapidly made plans to leave Russia.
A bunch of research eventually led me to the Tecsun PL-880, which is about the size of a trade paperback book. According to some reviewers (including Dan Robinson), the 880 is a bit more sensitive and shortwave than the PL-990. The 880 offers a bunch of bandwidths on both AM and SSB, and the tuning is butter smooth with no muting or detents. The smallish tuning knob has a bit of knurling on the edge, which make it possible to twirl the knob with one finger; you can fine-tune SSB with another knob, and, with one button-press, use the tuning knob to select filter bandwidths or memory channels. In short, if you avoid the keypad, this is a radio that can be operated in near silence next to a better half who wishes to snooze.
The performance, so far, is exemplary; using the PL-880 whip antenna, I could readily hear Gander, Newfoundland, broadcasting aeronautical weather as well as Shannon, Ireland, air traffic controllers directing aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Yes! I haven’t yet begun to explore all that the PL-880 can do, but it promises to be a lot of fun.
Thomas my bad.
Above
I should have written “Kudos to Thomas for running this website”
My humble apologies
Please forgive me.
For some reason I woke up at 3.34am – dry socket from a recently extracted molar (2 weeks ago) is the most likely reason, if like me you had no idea what “dry socket” is check out this Mayo Clinic write up a friend in Minnesota sent me https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dry-socket/symptoms-causes/syc-20354376 – I digress.
I really liked this article and the feedback above which I stumbled across just now.
That’s one of the things I enjoy about this website. It’s a whimsical informative helpful community. Kudos to Timothy for running it!
Before stumbling upon this article, I read Jock’s most recent one referring to C Crane’s antenna article and I read the article too.
I’ve never tried a C Crane radio. They certainly have a cool factor about them.
Living in Hong Kong and having chanced upon the very nice people from Tecsun at an electronics trade fair I am a Tecsun fan.
Disclaimer: Tecsun has never sent me a free radio to review, I always buy my own.
I share the views about the Tecsun PL-880
I couldn’t believe it when I first came across it. What an amazing feature rich radio in such a tiny package. 10hz SSB tuning steps in a radio the size of small paperback book!?! Not so long ago 10hz steps was the land of professional rigs…
I’d like to add a couple of observations about the PL-880 and the PL-990
I have both and if I’m having difficulty dozing off at night I do a / b tests with various radios including these two….
1. PL-880 audio
The sound from the PL-880 is magnificent, no other word for it, especially considering the size of the radio.
Best way to convert the XYL to be a fan of it would be to tune into a radio station with her favourite music or programme and let her enjoy that rich mellow almost valve / tube radio like sound.
2. PL-990 audio vs PL880 audio
a. FM / AM / SW strong signal BCL
The PL-990’s audio is also very good. But compared with the PL-880 for BCL (Broadcast Listening) the PL-990’s audio is not quite as good as the PL-880’s
b. Weak Signal / SSB
But for weak signal and for SSB I prefer the slightly crisper more pronounced sound from the PL-990
Tecsun tell me that the PL-880 and PL-990 share the same loudspeaker. But one look at the front panel of each tells us that the internal speaker landscape – the speaker cabinet if you will – is differently configured in each of them and clearly by design or by happy coincidence the speaker cabinet for the PL-880 is built so as to achieve that wonderful rich sound quite out of proportion to the size of the radio.
3. Reception
One final note on the PL-880 and PL-990
Comparative reception. Several contributors above remarked that the PL-880 is slightly more sensitive. From memory that’s not my experience.
Though I have not field tested them.
Caveat:
I live in a semi-Faraday-cage apartment in the heart of downtown Hong Kong surrounded by massively taller skyscrapers – I mean 20 storeys in this area is “low rise” – these buildings tower over our 6 storey walk up.
Yes, I can hear some of you thinking “Why bother trying to SWLing at all in that environment?”
Well as you all know it’s likely a genetic thing, we can’t help it.
If we’ve got the SWLing bug, we just have to keep trying.
And I am astonished by what I can pull in from the airwaves in this RF rich / semi-Faraday-cage environment.
Using just the whip and using an AOR LA400 active mag loop and using a Tecsun AN-100 passive AM / MW loop and a Tecsun active AN 48X loop, I found the PL-990 had the edge on the PL-880, though I could usually find what I found with the PL-990 with the 880, I found that PL-990 is better at finding those stations in the first place.
By the way for AM / MW BCL or DXing on a budget I thoroughly recommend the Tecsun AN100 / AN200 AM / MW passive loops, they are excellent! In addition they look cool and elegant, almost like a piece of sculpture and they are not big – I mention this in case the XY or XYL is finnecty about things radio-esque
And for C Crane fans I expect the C Crane ‘TERC’ AM / MW passive loop antenna is equally as good as the Tecsun AN10 / 200
The Tecsun AN48X active loop is a compact active loop designed for travel / indoor use. It does help. But not as much as a bigger, better more expensive active loop. But if you’re looking for a budget active loop, you could start with the AN48X – which comes with some cool accessories such as an inductive connector that can also be used with other antennas to inductively connect them to radios that don’t have an external antenna plug… by the way fitting an antenna plug is usually a doddle, but that’s another rabbit hole…
And I see from C Crane’s website that the C Crane active ferrite loop also comes with an inductive connector…
Thank you for the articles Josh and thank you everyone for your feedback to the articles – reading them and writing this over the past almost 2 hours or so has taken my mind off the dry socket…
Just my penny’s worth.
73
Julian – Hong Kong
Julian,
Thanks for your comments and kind words.
And I’ve had dry socket too . . . my condolences. I take it as a high compliment if the writing distracted you for a while . . . get better soon!
Cheers, Jock
Ccrane has quietly introduced an upgraded version of the Skywave SSB:
https://ccrane.com/cc-skywave-ssb-2-with-am-fm-sw-wx-and-aviation-bands
Mike,
I saw that and hope to get my hands on one to compare with the original.
Particularly intriguing is the gizmo that apparently is designed to allow a wire antenna to be hooked up to the Skywave SSB 2.
Cheers, Jock
Interesting review, some of these subtleties often get overlooked.
For late night listening I’m not a fan of the muting and chugging whilst scrolling around the bands that a lot of DSP receivers suffer with, or bright digital displays.
I found the Tecsun 9700DX the most pleasant to use. It’s based on an old school analog receiver with a full light up dial, tuning is slow but smooth with a sunken tuning wheel on the side of the unit and it’s a sensitive receiver.
There is a click when you move the slider switch to change band but it is subtle if done gently and obviously it doesn’t have SSB mode or many other features other than dual conversion.
Franco,
Thanks for your comments. The R-9700DX looks like a very interesting alternative for late-night DXing if you don’t need or want SSB.
I, too, am a lazy, horizontal SWLer….
Great to see that Mr. Elliott, who had presumably gone the way of Bigfoot, has surfaced again on Swling.com. I recall a discussion with John Figliozzi, once upon a time, in which we considered contacting you to form a local SWL group as we all lived in same area (upstate NY). We chickened-out since, as you know, all SWLs are loner-geeks who hate to meet people and/or go out of the house.
Nice to hear from a former-editor of Passport!….I wonder whatever happened to the Grand Wizard of SWL, Larry Magne… I rabidly consumed all his radio reviews endlessly from the mid-80s until publication of Passport ceased… I often conjecture what he (or you) would think of all the advances that have occurred in radio since Passport’s demise (SDRs, etc.)….
Carl, thanks for the kind words. Are you still in upstate? Anybody else around? Maybe we could get together with Bigfoot for coffee . . .
I communicated with Larry Magne about a month ago; he’s alive and well. As to the modern advances, I certainly am blown away by the Skywave SSB and the Pl-880. These radios have more tricks than a bridge tournament.
I got to thinking, if there were an upstate New York DX group, what their logo might look like. Here’s my small effort:
That, by the way, is a Fennec Fox, denizen of the Sahara, and the ears really are that big. Supposedly, they help to provide cooling. My guess is that they can hear pretty well!
Jock,
Apparently the tidal wave of desire to form an upstate NY SWL group can no longer be contained.
Last I heard, John Figliozzi retired and moved to Florida, so he’s out… He was living in a condo with so much RF interference that he could only listen to portable radios at beachside.
I know of no one else who might be interested in SWL meeting… I sometimes try to talk about SWL with wife, but it’s like talking to a frequency-jammed radio.
I am still in Albany area, retired, and would love to meet with you and anyone else for coffee and SWL discourse. We could title the meeting “Bigfoot meets Bigmouth”… I’ll be Bigmouth…
Fair warning: I am not in your SWL league. I am the laziest of SWLs… drifting in and out of the hobby over 35 years. I think I might be a bit intimidated meeting with you/others, but I think it might be fun to share my evolution as an SWL and Passport reader….
How to proceed…?
If you are signed up with Radio Reference, you can PM me there or my QRZ email is good. KB2GOM
Gostei do artigo também gosto de ouvir rádio na cama tenho vários mas a experiência descrita do PL 880 me parece interessante muito bom artigo descrever o sistema da antena de uma forma simples sem dados técnicos seria muito bom abraços
Francisco, I hope to write more about the PL-880 in the future.
Jock,
Glad to see others that like to listen to the radio in bed. Many years ago, I would always listen in bed to the Happy station Program from the Netherlands. While there seems to be fewer stations now, there still are some very interesting programs to listen to.
Like you, I have settled on the Tecsun PL-880. I find that the controls just naturally fall under my fingers. The only thing that’s a little awkward is the antenna. If I lay stretch out with the radio on my stomach, then the antenna slopes away from the radio instead of going straight up at a right angle. I wish they would put an antenna that you could pull out of the case about half an inch. Then it could go straight up. I know I have had radios that did this.
In fact, I just checked around the house and found that my old Realtone AM/FM radio’s antenna does just that.
Thanks for the nice article. Happy listening.
73
Bill WD9EQD
Smithville, NJ
Back at ya, Bill: Happy listening! I agree with you about the antenna on the 880; it can require careful maneuvering. I must measured: the 880’s antenna is about 38.5 inches long. By contrast, the antenna on the Skywave SSB is 21.5 inches.
Thanks for the article, Jock. Like Robert I really miss Passport. I far preferred it to WRTH. And the 880 is a great radio.
Thanks for the kind words, Noel. These modern generation radios — the 880 and Skywave SSB — continue to amaze me with all that they can do. Perhaps “further on down the log book,” I’ll have another guest post about my further adventures with the 880.
Nice article, Jock. I truly miss Passport – a great publication! I too like “horizontal” radio. Cheers!
Robert, thanks for the kind words. Yes, I miss Passport too. I always felt it was the best resource for the non-professional shortwave listener. It was great writing for Passport as well.