Tescun PL380 review

PL380 is one of my latest catches and comes two months before I bought the De17 PL 380 replaces my older PL 200 which is used mainly as clock radio instead of a DX toy !

As with my all reports this will be a comparative review between 380 and several oter radios namely DE1102 and DE17

Design : its design is superb .The model I have , has a black colour and buttons are black though very small. Frequency and volume controls are both digital

Som e photos of it with some info

Keyboard :

keyboard is a rather thumbs down feature . Its buttons are quite stff and require some pressure to be activated .

Some buttons have second utility . as for example the button 2 can be used also for changing the 12 hour clock to 24 hour . M can be used also for battery charging . Button 1 can be used for setting between 68-108 and 87.5- 108 number 3 can be used between American (10 khz )and European 9 kHz standard . FM /MW/LW and SWbuttons can be used also for ATS ie auto tune and store

Light snooze lock keys time and alarm . i only use the local function when i ma not using the radio

Volume and tuning control. Both are digital ie with steps . Volume has 30 steps.

Earphone and power supply using D connector !The same is with other PL models

AM reception :

MW reception and sensitivity : MW has better sensitivity than the Degen 1102 as measured by parallel listening. Due to self AVC (auto volume control ) inner circuitry's noise is highly amplified , though is quite softer and lower than the DE17's harsh noise and is heard higher than the 1102’s inner noise . It has the sense of the so called ‘pink’ noise . Although i don’t know the circuitry I think it could be possibly still lowered more either by replacing the fist preamplifier with HEMT technology (or is it Hemt??) or by using external MW loop antenna such as An200 or my ‘basketena’ With little experiment , 380 did nt shown any real enhancement except for the signal indications !

MW suppression : If there are nearby stations with strong signals , part of the MW band will be suppressed in terms of sensitivity or dynamic range, ie becomes less sensitive . As for example there is the University’s station on 1431 KHz of ca 500 W of power (not EIRP ) produces a signal of 78 dbμ in a distance of ca 1 km . This makes the radio increase the threshold to ca 40 db from the nominal of 25 db in the remain band . This doesn’t happen with DE17 or DE 1126. this is another thumbs down for this radio .

Frequency extension : PL380 offers extended MW (531- 1710 kHz )we as well as extended Fm band (68-108 MHz ) This is very good for listening to Greek pirates on MW and the Bulgarian TV audio on ………. Hz Please read below for a memory funny

Self hets : There are some hets esp in the MW band I found some on 729 1405 1603 635

Long waves : I have not found any signals in this band

AM filtering : PL 380 is programmed with filters of 6 4 3 2 and 1 kHz . I found that 6 kHz fits only for strong and free of QRM signals (or good for MW ) 4 kHZ fits for more cases as well as 3 kHz , but 2and 1 only for difficult conditions. Could prefer if BW was stored in memory .....

Fading pattern : due to soft mute , fading is heard as more intense than 1102 . co channel fading is heard faster than the nominal

Accurate S/N ratio can be shown only if proper filtering – clear from QRM and hets - is used . as for example if a signal has QRM or radio’s self carriers s/N readout is shown as zero . As filtering is lowered S/N gets the correct readout

I m still wondering if these filters are really the correct bandwidth. The 6 kHz filter can receive signals of +- 5 khz from the main freq as it was on freq !!

SW reception : the same applies to Sw with the MW reception in regards of sensitivity and selectivity .

S meter : this is the reason i bought the radio. Rather bizarre operation as the S level depends on location height above ground and the band of reception if measured on vacant frequencies.

Please look on thi page for a better definition

There are two indications : S and S/N standing for signal and signal to noise ratio

There were many cases the readout sticks to one point or number errors occur . IN order to be 'reset' you have to detach antenna or otr put the radio to ground so that the signal level drops to 'zero' (this is meant for SW bands )

Soft mute errors!!! Yes that can happen ! especially if signal is relatively low or the processor thinks that signal drops to soft mute levels . Using the technique above can restore radio's operation

ON some cases it can overload. This can be following the reset procedure as above and only in MY Olymp (thresholds there are at last 35db in vacant freqs )

FM reception :

PL380 seems again more sensitive than 1102. Audio is 'clearer' than 1102 ie less bassy and more trebly (parallel listening with two Carefour ear bud sets ) . Parallel listening with DE17 and PL360 shown lower inner noise than other models . Selectivity is very high so that poor signals in between high power signals can be also received. Same as with 1126 17 and 360 !

Could be also nice if a narrower filter is used for more extreme FM DXing

Fm band can be extended from 88-108 to 68-108 using the … button while radio is off

Important notice : as with most DSP radios PL380 requires high S/N rate in order to decode properly stereo signals .The lowest level for Fm decoding is 10 db S/N

Audio is low for low signals (ie S/N levels lower than 10 db due to soft mute ) and require several volume steps in order to be heard OK External antenna can greatly help low signals without distorting band reception as tested with short wires

A memory funny :

if you activate extended frequency bands as eg 68-108 instead of 88-108 and memorize some freqs , and then revert back to the standard band (88-108) , the out band memories are hidden from the mem scan ! Reactivating the full band the out f band memories are once again activated !

Same applies to MW band .

Audio :

PLL 380 has 30 digital volume steps. Best level with earphones is 5 to 8 This level is very low with the built in speaker though can be heard with the same headphone level if your ear touches the speaker !

In this range (5-8) volume steps have big skips. The least volume is at 9 -10 to be hjard in silent places .About 20 is required

Earphones : this radio continues the tradition of most Tecsun radios with very low speaker output and high earphone audio. Earphone audio level is the same with ear touched to the speaker!

Battery operation : Radio has really very low battery consumption . With ca 1 hour per day , from the date pf receiving it (Feb 13 ) I charged the battery on mid August ! ‘Blinking battery level’ can be fully drained in ca 5 hours

Batteries : 3 batteries are included brand Enelong (surely Chinese )of 2100 mAh

Memories : the radio has 550 memories separated by bands .

ETM : A very nice choice for PL380 for collecting all freqs in a given band . though not very fast in scanning it collected nearly all the signals in the very congested FM band !

ATS : it is te same as with ETM , but with the diference that freqs are steored into regular memories . Any previous memories are deleted Therefore prefer to keep my memories intact and use ETM for freq scanning. ETM memories can also be memorized.

Verdict 8/10 radio is superb in terms of functionality performance etc . It drawbacks are the loss in sensitivity in case of string local signals the stiff keyboard and sometimes the little crazy reception (more esp in S unit terms ) that easily can re restored

MY wishes:

- suppression to be corrected

- external antenna connector as with 390

- line out or better include a flash memory for recording

add on : (update )

usage wit external antennas. as far as i tested this radio is very prone to overloads or even to faulty signal reading. It has been tested both internally and externally. hat means it requires immediate separation from the antenna and again connect or even be induced with the external antenna in order first to read correctly as well as play /listen correctly

(that s very bad to me )

New info

Here are photos of the audio spectrum in SW as heard in a DRM signal and a FM bandwith recording