tecsun's

[Sparki]

I see a lot of posts about these things and having googled them it looks like some portable radio? there seems more to it though and looks like its good for listening out to pirate stations, seeing as you guys are more in the know can you explain to me what these things are about? would like to know and maybe I'll buy one.

[bristolpirates]

Tecsun is a Chinese company that makes a number of radios which use DSP chips to process the signal coming in and provide pretty good selectivity and sensitivity. You will be able to hear stations .2 away from each other on FM. They are also good for picking up MW pirates from Europe at night as they have the ability to set the MW band to the US standard up to 1710kHz. UK radios tend to only go up to about 1600kHz and the pirates use from 1611kHz upwards.

Two are recommended, the PL-310 and PL-606.

Tecsun PL-310



The better radio for MW and SW. Still great on FM, but not quite as sensitive as the 606. You won't see the difference on the dB meter that much, but you will hear it on the weakest signals. I find that the dial is a bit cleaner on the 310 though. It depends what frequency and how weak the signal as to which radio I use.

There is a newer version of the 310 which has the ETM feature. I'm not sure if it's as good as the original though.

Tecsun PL-606



Smaller, cheaper, less features, you can't loose the tuning knob (the 310 one comes off easy), comes with an aerial extender, only takes 2 AA batteries instead of 3, isn't as good on MW and SW (I seemed to get some weird images from MW on FM, but that might've been the area I was in), FM seems a bit noisy in the middle of the dial (droning noises around 100.6) but is a little more sensitive, certainly down the bottom of the dial.

Both have aerial sockets for FM and SW.

There is also a PL-380 which isn't as good as either of the above. It has no aerial socket, mine has a different readout on the dB meter but is just as sensitive as the 310 if you listen to it, while I know some other people have found the dB meter to be the same but the radio to be less sensitive.

Then there is this beast...



The Satellite 750.

[teckniqs]

That looks familiar...

[bristolpirates]

Yeah, Tecsun make stuff for Grundig

I forgot to check it was the right one

The Tecsun S2000 is cheaper by a long way.

[McDonalds]

Just a shame they have no RDS or DAB ones but hopefully they will bring one out and these radios from China are a lot better than the cheap transmitters they have.
The radio I have is the PL600.

[teckniqs]

Yeah, Tecsun make stuff for Grundig

I forgot to check it was the right one

The Tecsun S2000 is cheaper by a long way.

I'm slightly put off by the World War II look, lol.

[teckniqs]

I have both the PL-606 and the PL-310, I've also got an Eton E5 somewhere but haven't used that since I bought the PL-310 and haven't used the 310 since I bought the 606, which is better than those IMO.

[RG1]

What are these like compared to those Sonys that the American radio geeks from across the pond speak highly of?

[teckniqs]

If you mean the Sony XDR-F1HD then they are probably the closest thing you will be able to get to one as far as an affordable small and portable radio is concerned.

...The Sony is by far the best radio I've ever used, it has no problem pulling in long distant weak signals that are just 0.1MHz/100KHz away from strong stations and is great for DX. Much like the Tecsun it uses DSP to enhance signal to noise ratio and pull the weaker stuff in. I'd probably give the Sony a well deserved 9 out of 10, the only let down is because as it's made for the American market it tunes in 0.1MHz/ 100KHz steps and not 0.05MHz/ 50KHz steps, and it's 110-120VAC, otherwise I'd give it the full 10 out of 10. I'd probably give the Tecsun around 6 out of 10 in comparison.

Bristol mentions that you will be able to hear stations 0.2 away from each other on a Tecsun, but if they are both around the same signal strength as each other you will hear the two stations 0.1 away from each other with ease.

As mentioned the main let down with the Tecsun is the lack of RDS but if it had it, then it would mean the price would be much higher and at least twice the price....

[bristolpirates]

I ended up looking up the Pl880 last night. Looks interesting. There are hidden features such as being able to turn off the automatic volume drop you get when the signal goes below a certain threshold.

[RG1]

If you mean the Sony XDR-F1HD then they are probably the closest thing you will be able to get to one as far as an affordable small and portable radio is concerned.

...The Sony is by far the best radio I've ever used, it has no problem pulling in long distant weak signals that are just 0.1MHz/100KHz away from strong stations and is great for DX. Much like the Tecsun it uses DSP to enhance signal to noise ratio and pull the weaker stuff in. I'd probably give the Sony a well deserved 9 out of 10, the only let down is because as it's made for the American market it tunes in 0.1MHz/ 100KHz steps and not 0.05MHz/ 50KHz steps, and it's 110-120VAC, otherwise I'd give it the full 10 out of 10. I'd probably give the Tecsun around 6 out of 10 in comparison.

Bristol mentions that you will be able to hear stations 0.2 away from each other on a Tecsun, but if they are both around the same signal strength as each other you will hear the two stations 0.1 away from each other with ease.

As mentioned the main let down with the Tecsun is the lack of RDS but if it had it, then it would mean the price would be much higher and at least twice the price....

Yes that's the one!

Is it that good then? I could of bought new one a while back for like £70, now they've skyrocketed!

Also don't forget the other negative, coz they're built for US, means that have 75u De-emphasis, which means you'll loose a bit of top end on the audio when using it in the uk.

[Sparki]

Thanks guys really interesting read! may just buy one of these when Im on my travels it'd be nice to tune into some dodgy pirate that maybe the car radio or stereo wont lock to. I do have a scan around on the home stereo on FM and cant get nothing (living in Kent is shit for pirates) and MW is just a load of noise I cant make head to tail of! probably because lots of appliances are all turned on and it interferes. Anyway I'll def check these things out, need to sort my paypal and ebay out and once I do I think I'll grab one of these for xmas or birthday

[teckniqs]

If you mean the Sony XDR-F1HD then they are probably the closest thing you will be able to get to one as far as an affordable small and portable radio is concerned.

...The Sony is by far the best radio I've ever used, it has no problem pulling in long distant weak signals that are just 0.1MHz/100KHz away from strong stations and is great for DX. Much like the Tecsun it uses DSP to enhance signal to noise ratio and pull the weaker stuff in. I'd probably give the Sony a well deserved 9 out of 10, the only let down is because as it's made for the American market it tunes in 0.1MHz/ 100KHz steps and not 0.05MHz/ 50KHz steps, and it's 110-120VAC, otherwise I'd give it the full 10 out of 10. I'd probably give the Tecsun around 6 out of 10 in comparison.

Bristol mentions that you will be able to hear stations 0.2 away from each other on a Tecsun, but if they are both around the same signal strength as each other you will hear the two stations 0.1 away from each other with ease.

As mentioned the main let down with the Tecsun is the lack of RDS but if it had it, then it would mean the price would be much higher and at least twice the price....

Yes that's the one!

Is it that good then? I could of bought new one a while back for like £70, now they've skyrocketed!

Also don't forget the other negative, coz they're built for US, means that have 75u De-emphasis, which means you'll loose a bit of top end on the audio when using it in the uk.

So could I and if I had any idea they would have quadrupled in price straight after they stopped making them I would have bought about 20 of them!

Yes you are right however it's so minimal it's not noticeable and most people's hifi's have got bass and treble controls so it's no bother. I've even used one out and about with no tone controls and there was no noticeable difference so I don't count that as being any kind of problem - from experience.

[bristolpirates]

Thanks guys really interesting read! may just buy one of these when Im on my travels it'd be nice to tune into some dodgy pirate that maybe the car radio or stereo wont lock to. I do have a scan around on the home stereo on FM and cant get nothing (living in Kent is shit for pirates) and MW is just a load of noise I cant make head to tail of! probably because lots of appliances are all turned on and it interferes. Anyway I'll def check these things out, need to sort my paypal and ebay out and once I do I think I'll grab one of these for xmas or birthday

To be honest - I wouldn't expect the Tecsun to out-do a car stereo as the reception is usually top notch in the car due to the car body acting as a massive ground plane, and even some of the radios they fit as standard can make sense of stations .1 away from each other, but as a portable you can take with you and use when you aren't in the car, or at home with a roof aerial plugged in, it's excellent.

Has anybody tried connecting the aerial of the car stereo to a Tecsun to see how that works, is it any better or worse than using the car stereo?

[thestig]

I have used car radios at home on a dipole before and find them brilliant, Some better than others,the last one was from a volvo s40, dragged in the signals.

[teckniqs]

Has anybody tried connecting the aerial of the car stereo to a Tecsun to see how that works, is it any better or worse than using the car stereo?

No, but I have used an XDR Sony in a car with a 110v inverter using the antenna and had great results and put the car radio which worked extremely better than any car radio I've ever used.

[verticalvince]

guys you should try these rtl dongles all the bells and whistles for unda a tenna nice rx down to 20mtrs without any mods and as high as 1700mhz all mode including digitial lotsb of add-on tools being a pirate of almost every band i got one from fleabay for 6quid free delivery just to see the hype but gotta say for what it is im im pressed takes me bk to the scanner days sitting about scanning well reconmended RTL2832U R810T worth the 6 quid to fill a boring sunday

[thestig]

guys you should try these rtl dongles all the bells and whistles for unda a tenna nice rx down to 20mtrs without any mods and as high as 1700mhz all mode including digitial lotsb of add-on tools being a pirate of almost every band i got one from fleabay for 6quid free delivery just to see the hype but gotta say for what it is im im pressed takes me bk to the scanner days sitting about scanning well reconmended RTL2832U R810T worth the 6 quid to fill a boring sunday

I got one and have tried various software with it but cannot get decent sound from it, it's very quiet and distorted. I have tried different settings and may well be doing something wrong which is really annoying as it receives well with the antenna I added.

[verticalvince]

for audio i recommend HDSDR also the rx very nice.. for push button knob turning faffin SDRsharp V2 with updated rtlsdr dll can go down as far as 40m .. audio is grim i use a acer one notebook with a 3.5jack to phono plugged into an old denon amp

[thestig]

I have tried both. I will install them again and try them out, I got fed up and uninstalled it all. Thanks.