TECSUN PL-660 Portable Shortwave FM/AM World Radio Compact Receiver Black(UK-PL660-Black))

Product Information

If you’re a medium-wave DXer, you might skip over the PL-680. That is, unless Tecsun makes a good iterative design improvement. If you’re a casual medium-wave listener, on the other hand, you’ll probably be pleased with the PL-680. If you’re a shortwave radio listener, you’ll be pleased with the Tecsun PL-680. In all of my comparison tests between the Tecun PL-660 and Tecsun PL-680, the PL-680 tends to edge out the PL-660, performance-wise. This coincides with the user surveys, too. While I like the position of the tuning wheel on the front of the radio, which is ideal for tuning with your thumb and reminiscent of the ICF-SW55, I don’t like the indents you feel as you tune. If you’re a listener that takes advantage of radio memory, the ATS-909X has a very appealing feature: alpha-numeric memory tags. When you store a Radio Australia frequency to memory, your 909X can display the full station name in large, easy-to-read characters. In truth, I believe strong signal reception on both these radios is excellent and nearly indistinguishable from each other.

Indeed, if you plan to buy a portable that will be hooked up to an external antenna more often than not, the Sangean ATS-909X may be a good choice for you. Its front end can handle external antennas better than most of the radios above (with the Sony as an exception, in my experience). With a loop antenna, I’d like to mount the antenna on the porch at night and have a remote tuner/control inside because it’s very hot n humid here in Louisiana even after dark. While I haven’t spent more than, let’s say, an hour with the PL-680 on the FM band, I have concluded that it is very sensitive–able to receive all of my benchmark local and regional FM stations. My first question is, what’s the best coax to use for the 10-ft run from the small loop to the radio inside? Second, will that 365 pF cap tune the entire 3-30 MHz range? To be fair, however, it’s worth noting that the Sangean performs admirably if connected to an external antenna. Again, I resisted connecting an external antenna in this particular series of tests because I believe a good portable radio’s performance should first be judged upon what it can receive with only its telescoping whip antenna, considering that, when traveling, it’s not always possible to use an external antenna.

PL-660 review

It’s hot here in Louisiana, so I’d really like to tune the capacitor from inside my apartment, also using coax to connect the cap to the large loop. Will that work? Or does the cap have to connect directly to the large loop? The second survey focused on synchronous detection, which is a very useful receiver tool that mitigates adjacent signal interference and improves a signal’s stability. Perhaps it was my good fortune that the same day I tested synchronous detection, fading on even strong stations was pronounced at times. Perfect! While I give priority to a receiver’s sensitivity and selectivity, there’s obviously more to evaluate here–for example, the more sensitive radio may be less pleasing to the ear. Apologies in advance: somehow the cord from my monitoring headphones is in the shot on some of these videos! I’m still getting used to the new Zoom Q2n video camera: WRMI 9,455 kHz First, I found this blog post regarding ESD repair to a Tecsun 600, which might be similar in design to the 660:

Don’t wait for Santa: Buy it directly from Ten-Tec–the factory where it’s made in the USA–in Sevierville, Tennessee. It’s become a familiar observation for many of us – if this were still the 1960’s and 1970’s – even into the 1980’s, which could be considered the golden days of shortwave and we had receiver technology like this, well what a joy that would have been. Thank you for sharing this, Rob! It’s experiments like this that help us determine, especially, what antenna setups work at our own particular locations since RFI characteristics can vary so much. I’m guessing had your horizontal wire been elevated to even 20′ off the ground it might have produced better results, but sometimes this can be difficult to achieve. I like how you used the auto search function to determine the number of stations you could receive with each setup and it was a great addition to include the built-in telescoping whip. Although all of these receivers are considered best in the portable realm for a particular manufacturer, each has a character that suits individual listening skills or requirements.Though I’m often an early adopter of new shortwave portables, I wasn’t for the Tecsun PL-660. When it came out, I figured it would be redundant, considering the many other portables I own with synchronous detection. Tecsun decided to go with a BL-5C battery here – the same with the new PL-368. I think this is unfortunate, since it requires one to obtain a number of those flat batteries if you want to travel and not have to re-charge. On the other hand, this is not a crippling design decision. I have a question about loop antennas; specifically which type is “better,” passive magnetic loops or active electric loops? I have never attempted to receive weather fax; however, based on this information I found, the PL-330 should be suitable:

Results: For the vertical antenna orientation, 32 stations were detected between 5959 – 15730 kHz. Nearly all were intelligible, with those at the lower end more steady and those a the higher end much more variable in strength. For the horizontal antenna orientation, 21 stations were detected between 9265 – 1570 kHz. Similar overall signal quality was heard for the received stations in either antenna orientation. More noise was noticeable at the lower frequencies between the stations for the vertical antenna orientation. However, this was significantly below the received signal levels, and not an issue in the overall listening quality. Great internal speaker–an improvement over the PL-660 (but not as good as the PL-880 or Sangean ATS-909X) In most circumstances, you’ll find that the PL-680 has better sensitivity than the PL-660. It’s a marginal improvement, but one I certainly notice on the shortwave bands–and so did the majority of readers who participated in the shortwave AM reception survey.above). But not entirely. We were unable to do a side by side test (PL-660 sample was not available during test period). The only requirements of the radio are that it tunes the frequency ranges of interest. A general purpose communications receiver tuning 0-30 MHz is ideal, SSB marine radios may also be used, if they can receive the frequency bands of interest. The radio must be able to tune in USB (upper sideband) mode. Inexpensive portable radios are not as satisfactory, although higher-end units can work well. The radio must be able to tune in small steps (10 Hz), or have some sort of a fine tune adjustment.” I've had SW and BCB receivers for over 50 years. Things have certainly changed due to the technology. Portable RXes are a very different performance animal than desktop ones. That should be kept in mind.