TECSUN PL-380 DSP FM Stereo. MW. SW. LW. World Band PLL Radio Receiver, LCD Display, ETM Function Added

I have been a shortwave listener for 61 years, an amateur radio operator for 32 years and did military communications for many years. I have owned receivers dating back to the 1920s most of which I worked on and enjoyed for many years. The reason I mention all of this is it might lend my review a little more weight than a review from someone who doesn't really know what they are talking about. I received the radio on Thursday and I put it through its paces for many hours on MW, SW and FM. I was really shocked by the performance on FM. It is better than my Sony 2010 on FM and bear in mind that the Sony cost about 8 times as much! I live in a horrible area for FM because there are mountains and hills in all 4 directions. What is called multipath distortion is caused by the station you are listening to bouncing its transmitted radio waves off the mountains and hills so they arrive at your radio at different times and angles. This little radio gives me a perfectly clear signal from Portland, Maine which is 65 miles away. My Grundig YB400 pe cannot quite do that and neither can my Sony 2010. On FM the only other portable I have which can get this station cleanly is my Sangean ATS 909 Deluxe which cost $ 289.95. I had mods done to the Sangean which cost me 50 bucks so it was worth it. The Tecsun is $ 46 dollars and it is really a keeper. The SW performance is stellar at this price point and the variable bandwidth feature is great! On MW I know there is a station in Cuba on 530 Khz and the Tecsun was picking it up about an hour ago very faintly which is surprising as I live 85 miles from Canada. I set it near my Tecsun AN-200 MW loop antenna and the Tecsun pair really hauled the signal up enough so I was able to hear it quite well. A word on some of the radio reviews and I perceive a lack of logic in quite a few. For instance the criticism that an external antenna cannot be hooked up to this radio. Wrong! One reviewer said that some of his other models of portables overload when he attaches an outside antenna. Either shorten the antenna or take and inductively couple it to the whip. It is a simple fix so do some research on radio sites if you are interested. On Youtube one reviewer said he liked this radio but then said the only negative was that it doesn't receive ssb signals. Balderdash! You wouldn't buy this radio if you want ssb capability so that is not a negative! That really is a stupid statement. It wasn't designed for ssb as it is an entertainment broadcast radio and the engineers did a great job with this little treasure. Oh yes, I once reviewed a model airplane and it was a four engine model and I really loved it. The only negative was that it couldn't maneuver near as well as my buddy's Mitsubishi Zero. See what I mean about nonsense? I am extremely impressed with this little gem and it came with an English instruction manual and a one year warranty. If the radio all of a sudden refuses to turn on with good batteries, take the batteries out of the radio and after 30 minutes or so put them back in. In winter in colder climates the air can be very dry and there is a lot of static around. A tiny static pulse from just having the radio near a miniscule charge can lock up the circuitry. What you have done is a reset and hopefully that will fix it. It has happened to me with my 350 dollar Sony 2010 so don't blame the radio as it is sometimes normal with any radios that have memory chips in them. Today I went to turn on my new PL 380 and it was dead. Did a reset and now just picked up Cuba on 530 Khz a few minutes ago barefoot without the Tecsun loop. Amazing for such a small 46 dollar radio. Oh yes, I think the audio produced by this radio is excellent and can fill a decent sized room. Have fun, read the manual and remember to do a reset if it locks up!

Bought one for my wife as a clock radio a couple of years ago and coveted it ever since. So when my latest clock radio called it called quits, I finally got one for me. Sound is like an average small pocket radio (actually to big for normal size pockets), but great sound through my small stereo system and this radio's FM reception is outstanding, so much better than the FM receivers that come with stereo systems. It pulls in the NPR station 60 miles away. Not difficult to operate but you do need to read the manual and keep it handy for seldom used features. A bit quirky. You can tune in stations and set the time with direct keypad entry (a must-have for us) or by turning the knob on the side. The knob is also used to scroll through station presets. A quirky part is that it accelerates the scrolling if you turn the knob fast, which is a good feature if you have a lot of presets (550 are possible! But really?) but with a small number of presets (I have 3 so far) it often skips over a preset or 2, even if I turn it slowly (thankfully scrolling starts over when you reach the end). Another quirk showed up when I, in my sleepiness, held down the on button long enough to activate sleep timer mode and the default was 0 minutes, and thereafter every short press to turn it on resulted in it turning immediately off. A review of the manual, which is well done in English, showed how to switch it back normal mode (long press and set sleep time to On (i.e. always on). A very minor annoyance. Battery life is phenomenal even with NiMH batteries (I use eneloop) which can be recharged inside the radio with a USB mini-B cable and 5V charger (not included). We've not found any defects (but don't let the antenna screw come out, you'll have to open the radio case to reattach). Also wish the snooze could be custom set - it's only 5 min. Sure it's not perfect, what is? Wife's radio is still going strong. Does not oversquelch weak signals like some other radios with DSP. Have not tried SW or LW, nothing there of interest to me to receive. Medium Wave ("MW" button) is actually AM under a Techie name - has options to optimize the AM reception) Totally worth the 5 stars and worth the time to write a positive review. I have not received any incentive to right this review.

Summary: I am generally happy with my purchase of this product. Very light weight, seems to pull in FM and AM stations quite well, directions supplied in well-written English and they also provide a plug to charge rechargeable batteries if you use them, earphone buds and an external antenna to attach if you want to pull in stronger short wave signals. I do have some minor complaints that prevent me from giving this 5 stars. See below. Details: I bought this as I wanted to have a method of getting information from the outside world if there was a widespread power outage or other emergency. The price was right. The product worked right out of the box without issue once I installed batteries. It does a good job of pulling in FM and AM stations. There are not many shortwave stations I can pull in here in Vermont. To be fair, I did not try to attach the additional external antenna as I was not all that interested in pulling in shortwave. So look to other reviewers for a discussion on that subject. The radio is very small as you will see in my video. This has advantages if you want to carry it around in a backpack but does cause some drawbacks. You will need the manual to effectively set up the radio. I found it would not be intuitively obvious for me to do this without a manual. Fortunately, the manual is in well-written English and not hard to understand. I have said to myself, "you must make sure you never, ever lose the manual". Seriously, if I haven't used this for 6 months and accidentally push a wrong button, I can see myself making this radio unusable for my needs without having the manual available. The small size, while being advantageous in a lot of ways causes drawbacks for me. By nature of that, all the writing on the buttons on the radio are very small. As a retired guy, I'm going to have to have reading glasses available if I haven't used this in a while. Worse, the buttons you need to press are very small. I find they are often hard to activate by pressing on them with my fingers. I've had to press the required buttons by pushing on them with my fingernail instead of the skin on my fingers. Slightly annoying. Once set up, though, if you use it a lot there should be little need to press the buttons as in my case I will be using only the power on button and side volume and tuning dials which are easy to use. If I'd want to switch from FM to AM (which would be rare), I'd need to pull out my reading glasses and fight with pushing the buttons again, though. So take this review for what it is worth. It is not a review of its technical capabilities but a review of its usability in pulling in FM and AM signals. It does a very good job of getting FM and AM signals after original setup. Just expect to need to hunt for the manual and have a little frustration pushing small buttons if you want to do more than that and have not used the radio for a while. I am nonetheless very happy with this purchase.

I waited for over a week to submit this review so I could try the radio out under differing conditions. To say that I am impressed with this little radio would be an understatement. The greatest feature is the ETM function. It pulls in stations as if by magic. Not only the strong ones, but the weak ones as well. The first time I tried the ETM function, the PL 380 pulled in over thirty shortwave stations. The number of stations received will vary depending upon time of day and atmospheric conditions. By the way, the ETM function works on AM, FM as well as shortwave thus making this radio great for travelling. It can put you to sleep at night as well as wake you in the morning. It sounds good for a radio containing such a small speaker, but you can listen to FM in stereo by using the earbuds included with the package. The earbuds are also very useful when listening to weaker stations in the AM and SW bands. The long wire antenna does boost the signal on weaker stations. The radio features memory storage of up to 500 individual stations. If you want a great radio that is small, compact and loaded with features, the Tecsun PL-380 is the one to buy.

This radio was shipped quickly and well cushioned with air packs along with a few other items. I received it “on time” as promised, and even had a follow up email from the Hossen Company who was the distributor of this product. I think both the distributor and producer of this item is committed to customer satisfaction. I would not hesitate to make future purchases from them. This is a superb little radio. Small and lightweight; it’s easily carried in a day pack, briefcase, or flight bag. It’s also very well designed and has lot’s of features which, although I've not seen on other radios, surpass your expectations of past portable shortwave radios. I’m very impressed with this radio although I've only had it around two weeks. This is not your usual “small shortwave radio”. The feature I find most pleasing is the ETM (easy tune mode). It’s a remarkable scanning mode which automatically stores busy frequencies into a specific memory bank. The ETM mode can scan the entire spectrum available in the radio. There are five hundred possible stations which can be stored using this, and other modes, all at the push of one button. There are also several other scanning and memory possibilities. Of course, you can “manually” turn the tuning knob but you can also enter the frequencies with the keypad. You can scan individual segments of the bands or you can capture busy frequencies and place in memory mode, or delete as you choose. Once in memory mode, moving the tuning dial brings the frequencies into a convenient display and a quick recall. This is VERY nice! Sensitivity is good and also selectivity. It has surprising good audio from such a small speaker. FM stereo is very good with the accompanying ear buds. The "digital signal processing" makes the sound quality a joy to hear on all the bands and the “pitch” can be custom tuned by increasing or decreasing bandwidth. The addition of the external antenna doesn't seem to overload the “front end” of the receiver. The AM and FM bands are both surprisingly good. I find this receiver to have all the features, and much more, than most more expensive models. I’ve previously owned small Sony, Sangean, and Toshiba brands costing twice as much as this model. This radio is an excellent choice for the money and doesn’t lack any amenities. It has alarm, both buzzer and radio, or sleep and snooze modes, which work well. Time displays can be set for either twelve or twenty four hour modes. The display mode also shows signal strength and signal to noise levels, and also displays the current temperature. The choice of tuning steps for American or European AM stations determine the Celsius or Fahrenheit choice and is done automatically. My only complaint about this radio is the manual that came with the radio. I was in a bit of a panic when I first viewed it, since it was, for the most part, written in a different language. I easily printed out an English version which I found on the web. Don’t be overly alarmed when you view it for the first time. Take the time to read it carefully to utilize all the great features of this radio. It’s adequate, although not perfect to our way of thought. All the features are easily grasped by reading the English version. Take the time to do so, and you will realize just how great this small radio performs. It’s a jewel as far as I’m concerning.

This could be an amazing little radio, but it also holds some real disappointments. First, the good: With a DSP stage, this radio offers FIVE useful bandwidth settings with “brick wall” roll off characteristics. My $1200 pre-DSP set isn’t as good in that regard. The upshot is that you get the ability to pull weak and ragged signals out of a noisy, congested band better than most radios. The DSP also provides the linearity needed to eliminate the audible grunge that’s a by-product of the old school diode detectors. Along with that comes a more graceful handling of selective fading. When listening to distant signals, these are huge pluses. The ability to defeat stereo on FM is an unexpected bonus. Monaural FM is cleaner when signals are weak. Many times I’ve had to give up on an interesting FM broadcast while driving because— my expensive car stereo doesn’t allow me to defeat stereo in order to carry a station for an extra 30 miles. I live 2.5 miles from a 50,000 AM transmitter, so I really can’t complain when a $50 portable overloads and ALL the shortwave bands suffer for it. Well, I can complain a little because my $19 cheapie AM/FM portable DOESN’T have this problem. Hmm. The special tuning modes are gimmicky and a waste of time for me. So, I was delighted to find the familiar thumbwheel tuning and volume controls. They have detents, no less, in order to tune easily from channel to channel. Except that you CAN’T do this!! First, the controls work backwards. So you need to turn them counter-clockwise to tune upward in frequency or to increase the volume. What invariably happens is, your instincts fail you and you get the opposite response to your control input. Imagine if the left- and right-clicks of your computer were flipped. Try to deal with that all day! Here’s the greatest disappointment of all. To move up or down by one channel, you have to run through 10 detects on the thumb wheel (20 detents per FM channel). If you lose patience and do this too quickly, the tuning rates jumps to 10X and you’ll hop over a couple of channels. If you only care about a few local stations, this won’t bother you. If you are happy to jump directly to particular frequencies of interest while ignoring the other stations, you’ll be happy with this radio. However, if you like to explore, stepping channel-by-channel in a search of something interesting, this poor design will frustrate and disappoint. You’ll be fighting this radio all the way. With care and patience, this radio will clearly pull in stations from many states away and from foreign countries around the world. Just understand, what you hear will vary hugely from time to time and from location to location. The clarity can be surprisingly good or you may need to concentrate. It can be a treat and a thrill to know you’re picking up a signal from a distant or exotic location without the help of the Internet. Ending on a positive, for $50, buying the PL-380 isn’t a mistake. If you’re a young person destined to be bitten by the shortwave bug, you’ll look back fondly on your first radio if it’s this one.

This radio is a huge bargain. In terms of selectivity (excellent,) sensitivity(excellent,) resistance to overload (very good,) and features (excellent) this is one heck of a radio. It does not have a BFO, product detector, sync detector or other means of receiving SSB so if you want to listen to SSB on the ham radio bands, you'll want a different model. But for all other MW, SW and FM use it's a really nice radio. The radio is small enough to put in your coat pocket. Because it is super-portable, there isn't room for a large speaker. The speaker's sound is focused on clarity and intelligibility; you cannot expect hi-fi to shoot from a radio that isn't much bigger than a cell phone. However, if you connect it to headphones, earbuds or an external powered speaker(s) it will sound just fine. The limiting factor is the very small speaker and the small volume enclosing it. The laws of physics are at work here- you can't get loud, rich, mellow sound from such a tiny thing. I particularly like the present tuning feature- you can set it to roll through your presents as you turn the tuning wheel. For example, I have three FM presents that I listen to in bed at night. I can just reach over to the radio and turn the tuning wheel and each detent of the control is one of my presets. No need to turn the light on, etc. Nicely thought out. Of course, you can punch in a frequency if you want, or manually tune up/ down using the tuning dial in normal tuning mode. Automatic "seek" tuning modes are also available. Another nice feature is the signal strength readout. Instead of 5 or 6 little "bars" to show signal strength, you get actual dBu. Very cool. Heck of a lot of radio for the money.

I just received the Tecsun PL-380 radio and I'm pleased - very pleased. The radio is small, and comes with a bunch of advanced features, but those features may frustrate a user who is just looking for a shirt pocket radio. Using ANY of the features will require that you open the 30 page manual to use the radio because they aren't obvious at first glance, but with a little effort and experience, you'll see there is a coherent user interface to the radio. The radio I received came in a sealed plastic bag with all the accessories. At the low price point for the PL-380, the bulk packaging is understandable, but may disappoint buyers looking for a nice box if the radio is intended as a gift. In the bag, there's the radio, a custom fitted zippered storage bag, an English manual, a clip-on external antenna, and an especially nice set of stereo ear bud headphones with a small storage pouch. All the gear in the bag was clean and well made. The English manual is usable, and had all the information I needed to get the radio up and running, but the manual and its illustrations are small and somewhat difficult to read. In addition, some of the wording (probably translated from Chinese to English) is awkward but not completely incomprehensible. Just stick with it, and don't get too frustrated. It may take two or three readings before all the functions become clear to you, but eventually, you should start feeling comfortable with the controls. Many of the buttons have alternate uses, or need to be configured before they start working the way you suppose they should work. As an example, out of the bag, the radio was configured for 9kHz steps between AM (or MW) stations. The U.S. and Ecuador where I live use 10kHz steps, and there's a button on the number '3' that says 9/10kHz. I pressed it repeatedly, but only when I got to page eighteen of the thirty page manual did I find out that the button only works when the power on the radio was switched off. The table of contents only listed page 18 as "System Settings" without sub-headings of what those settings might do. Once you have the radio configured for your locale and preferences, you'll be able to concentrate on the features that make the radio fun and easy to use. One thing that the PL-380 makes easy to do is tuning, but even it requires a bit of reading to operate initially. There's a tuning knob on the side of the radio, but it can tune either the radio frequency, or it can be used to switch station by station through the preset memories. The mode of the tuning knob is controlled by the buttons, 'VF' (View Frequency) or 'VM' (View Memory). There's no indication on the display which mode you're in, but a click of the tuning knob makes it obvious that either the frequency or the preset memory has changed, and you can press the a button for the function you intended for the tuning knob. Once you understand the dual use of the tuning knob, the radio becomes a whole lot easier to operate. Automatically memorizing stations and presetting them is easy. Just select a band, FM, AM, etc., and hold down the button, and the ATS (Automatic Tuning Storage) will kick in and start memorizing stations for you. This method will store up to 550 stations for you, 100 each in FM, AM (MW), and LW, and 250 in Shortwave. If you're traveling, or if you want to check what stations are currently available, the ETM (Easy Tuning Mode) lets you scan all the stations that are currently available without changing your presets. It's easy and fast except for on shortwave where it scans the entire shortwave band which can take five minutes or so. Once scanned, you can hop from pre-scanned station to station with just a single click of the tuning knob. The radio also has a clock, sleep timer, and a two-way alarm. You can wake to a radio station or an electronic beep, but the manual cautions you that if you select waking to a radio station, be sure the radio station will be audible when the alarm activates. (A real concern if you select a shortwave station.) To be absolutely sure you wake up, the electronic beep may be your best option. There are several other feature described in the manual that may be of use to you. The radio can be made to display the signal to noise ratio and signal strength of a station. It can use a mini USB charger as an external power supply or it can charge Nickle Metal Hydride rechargeable batteries. The radio can receive LW (Long Wave) broadcast provided they're available in your region, but that's another configuration option you'll need to read about in the Configuration Settings before it works. The FM reception is very good, and if you enable the stereo headphones, the sound is very good. The built-in mono speaker is acceptable, but it's not hi-fi. AM reception is pretty good too. Shortwave is hit or miss, but that's the nature of shortwave. During the evening, using the ATS system, the radio found 55 stations, and several had reasonably good reception. During the day, no stations were found even with the external antenna attached. Here in Cuenca, Ecuador, I didn't find a single long wave station night or day. Long wave may work somewhere in the world, but not here. If you're looking for an small pocket sized radio with advanced features, the Tecsun PL-380 is worth looking at especially at the price. You'll get a good set of stereo ear buds, a very good FM radio and very usable AM radio, and some clock radio features. You'll also have the option of listening to shortwave radio, at least at night.

Excelente y muy manejable

I don’t often take the time to write reviews but I do when I care when this may help or influence people in going for it or avoiding it. There are a lot of other reviews - read those. Read the ones on specialized websites like eHam where people in the know can give you a proper review. Summary For the price, this seems to offer a lot of features and be of reasonable quality. Pros: Easy tuning mode(ETM): searching for frequencies with activity when you have thousands possible is impossible to do manually (well not really but you get idea) this facilitates it. ETM doesn’t overwrite your existing preferences - smart Regional settings: can customize to various settings Thermometer: not sure accurate, but get ambient temperature You can recharge your 3 NiMH AA batteries via USB - this is soo practical. I have 3 cheapo dollar store Panasonic NiMH batteries and works great. Included external antenna, which is basically a piece of high gauge wire (did not measure it, but seems like 8 to 12 feet long) with clip that snaps to extended built-in antenna, and with other end that clips to something (like a smaller version of those potato chip bags clips). Works. This does NOT attach to an internal Antenna port like other SW radios do. Backlight, clock, alarm, button lock functions etc, makes a lot of sense. Gain and S/SN display: this is incredibly useful and interesting, you can “see” what the radio “hears”. Great for adjusting positioning of radio/antenna. Works for all bands. Little display that shows you what wavelength band plan you are in (10meter band, 11 meter band, etc). As an amateur radio operator I like this. For AM/SW/LW you can change the bandwidth from 6,4,3,2, or 1 Khz. This is extremely useful on some hard to hear stations. Comes in a usable neoprene like case. I squish my radio, manual, antenna and headphones in mine. Cons: Manual is in improved “chinglish” - I’ve seen worse, but some translation needed No single sideband (USB or LSB) - this is typically a feature of >$100 SW radios, but would have been REALLY sweet to have, but alas, not here. (this is useful for weather fax and other data sent over the airs, typically used by sailors and others) If settings to North American FM spacing setting, assumes temperature in F, vs 9hz spacing (asia) in C. Canada and other civilized countries use 10 Mhz spacing and don’t use Fahrenheit (booooooo. Stupid setting). Wish this was a specific setting, but alas does not see to be the case. There have been comments about the internal AM antenna being of limited size due to the radio’s limited size. I haven’t had any issues with local AM stations, so YMMV. There are some publicized hacks on those who like to take things apart, you can find those online. Some have noted that the speaker quality does not compare to more expensive speaker sound quality. Big surprise. You can always output the audio to an external speaker or headphones. Someone noted that this doesn’t have the NOAA Weather Bands. That could have been useful, but many people have those on their FRS/GMRS two way radios, emergency radios, or dedicated units. You can get a $25-$35 baofeng dualband radio and use it as a scanner and weather radio (just don’t break the rules) or have your nerd friend configure it for you if you are unable to do so (And also benefit from other interesting bands like Marine weather, etc). Also, some people (like me) like to read the manual to get better info on the specs. This was one was hard to find, but I found it for you, so here it is: http://tecsunradio.cantonmade.com/files/2011/12/Tecsunradio-PL-380-English-Manual-PDF-Download.pdf Overall this is an impressive radio for something <CAD$60. Are there Radios with more sensitivity, better RF shielding, stronger speakers, more speakers? Sure. Not at anything near this price point. Don’t take my word for it, look at the other reviews. Good enough as an everyday AM/FM radio, scan SW/LW channels at night to see if you can pick up interesting international channels. Could be useful when camping under the stars and want to hear something else than your mp3 or other devices.

Good choice, value for money. Working as per expectation. Free delivery to AlMagrudy was not my choice.

Me funcionó muy bien en mi rancho donde la señal de radio FM era muy mala.

I wish to have more brighten display panel