Testing a friend's PL880
The previous days I had a discussion with a friend in a nearby place in the village and gave it to me for making a review . He bought it recently and used it for a short time but had no problem to give it to me for a some further testing for publication to return it after a short time .
The box was with full material: the radio inside a leather box , the earphones a wound antenna and a cable to be connected for a supposedly ubiquitous as it is called (?)USB charger . Also there was the documentation a big paper of ca 80x60 cm with all specs in a blitz with the rear side showing the codes of the world in a big map,seebelow for more
In this picture there are all documentation including the sheet with the special adjustments from the keypad
The is included a very largre shhet with all operations of the radio in the one side , with the amateur radio map that includes also codes ertc
The radio has a very nice though quite narrow designed leather box for transferring
The radio has a nice design nearly same dimensions with oterh PL radios but quite heavier . Its weight is 555 grams measured with a kitchen scale
A close up of the panl at right . there is a tuning knob at the right , a fine tuning in middle and the volume control .ALso a tone switch an a light switch
on the left side there are a USB charging socket , line out , Headphones , attenuator and antenna in.
here the presentation ends and yo can read more about it in otehr sites as the purpopse of this page is to provide some important i hope personal observations and comparisons to other radio i use mainly comparative test with 1103 and 380
What I liked with this radio, it has a 'analogue' volume control that behaves differently than the 380 and is close to 360
I didnt like that the antenna used has quite thin elements that once fully unfolded , the last withch is less than 1 mm think can easily break
AM Filters & tuning : there is a series of filters of 2.3 /3.5 / 5 and 9 kHz which are close to the PL380 of 1 /2 3 and 6 kHz respectively in terms if audio fidelity
Bandwidths can be changed in htse 3 ways :
Using the b/w switch The filters are changed in a up and down style ie start from low to hi then high to low and vice versa !
Using the freq switch
Using the fine tune switch
Fine tuning is to 1 kHz
Notice that changing the freq in either tuning knob there is some 0.1-0.3 sec latency (blank audio )
SSB:
In SSB the filters use nearly the half of the bandwidth e 0.5 /1,2 /2.3/3.0/4 kHz
The manner to change the bandwidths ar the same with AM
Fine tuning is to 0.01 kHz
Here is a ‘but’ in the situation : the filters of 3 and 4 kHz don’t have any significant difference in audio fidelity and are close if not lower to 2 kHz !!
Though not easily recognized there is a shift from the exact freq by 130 HZ in both sidebands . ECSS (fine tuning) to an Am signal )seems to operate properly .There is a technique to adjust it via the table provided n he separate sheet
SYNCHRO :
Synch is a special feature thought not operating properly in cases that the signals have strong fading and a buzzer is quite apparent but locks quite well to the signal (even with more than 200 Hz there is no shift to audio )
Once I tested the synchro feature in a SSB signal : ther result was a totally garbled sound
I prefer to use the ECSS technique (using the SSB totune ). It works much better for listening to signals more stable
FM reception and usage :
The FM tune knob has a 0.1 MHZ step and the fine tune knob uses 10 kHz
The BW filter is the standard of all Silicon based radios , I think it is ca 200 kHz
The audio is pretty good but is a little less than the 380’s fidelity if using earphones
Reception is ca the same with PL380 . But there is a very nice advantage :the audio level of the very poor signals is the same with the strong signals , in contrast to the PL3x0 series
Attenuator operates also in this band
This is the only Filter. I could prefer to see a narrower filter !
Earphone cable can affect reception . IN several cases also the hand over the radio can enhance reception of low signals . But detaching the antenna to its ful length can restore to better reception
MW reception and usage :
Slightly better sensitivity over PL380 : tested in various frequencies (1503 810 and 567 )
There are no problems with self images as in PL380 that occur in several important Greek freqs as 1404 or 729 but still there are some carriers in other frequencies
Attenuator operates in this bands too
Synch also works in this band
LW
IN contrast to PL600 ,and PL380 the 880 excels in reception on nights with clear signals even if the band is attenuated for more than 20 db in between 160-200. One of the nicest operations of this radio
Attenuator does affect the band a bit but not so much as in other bands
Seen a fall of sensitivity in the range of 160-200 kHz. Just a few kHz and the radio's sensitivity restores
Shortwaves :
NO overloads even using the 16 H antenna connected to the radio of the antenna on local nights
Operates properly with the mag loop via the 3.9mm antenna plug
Once you change a band the last freqs remain of the band
I found several carriers
Speaker : The 880 is bassier than the 380 (380 is heard very sharp comparing to 380 , as the DE17 is heard comparing to PL380)
Earphone : The earphone included tested with mine's AKG 909 loses trebles and has little more bass . Didn't made any parallel listening for it btu just changed earphones during listening the same song
Result and verdict : 3.5-4 /5
The reasons (downs):
could prefer the filters to be exact (unless the filters on the 380 ar more wide than the displayed!!)
the SSB modes have correct filtering eg 4kHz to operate as 4khz (and better audio correspondingly)
a second narrower FM filter could be a nice addition esp fr the FM DXers
as for the synch is quite known problem also mentioned in the yahoo group quite much (?)
the high internal noise herd in all the bands (possibly problem from the internal analog circuitry this happens also to the MW reception of the PL380 )
The ups of this radio:
No SW overloads even the radio's antenna is connected to the external antenna
Nice FM audio normalization on all stations from the soft tune (something the very cheap De 17 has also for the SW)
Good LW reception better comparing to the vacancy of PL 600 and 380
If you are member of the yahoo group https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Tecsun_PL-880 you can search some interesting material on the files including spectrum analysis for SSB and ECSS reception . I will not include any photos here It also includes the sheet with the hidden operations
BTW the hidden features are as follows:
Adjustable FM De-emphasis (no audio difference )
Adjustable Line-Out Level
Adjusting Muting Threshold
Battery low voltage shutdown
Digital Noise Reduction
Force Receiver to accept LW/MW antennas into the external SW antenna jack (a complex 7-step process)
MW and SSB Calibration
Radio Run time
Seconds on/off for clock