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Reviews For: Tecsun PL-880

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Tecsun PL-880
Reviews: 39MSRP: 169.00
Description:
Tecsun's 2013 release of their latest worldband radio with FM/SW/MW/LW. Freq range: FM: 870108/76-108/64-108 (user selectable) Tuning Step: 0.01MHz/0.1MHz
SW: 1711-29999kHz Tuning Step: 1kHz/5kHz
MW: 522-1620 kHz with 1kHz/9kHz tuning step
520-1710 kHz with 1kHz/10kHz tuning step (user select)
LW: 100-519kHz, Tuning Step: 1kHz/9kHz
3,050 Station Memories, Alarm Mode, 3W speaker, Earphone and Line-out jacks. Powered via 3.7V Li-ion rechargeable battery or via USB jack (DC 5V, Current >300mA.
Unit dimensions: 192(W) X 113(H) X 33 (D) mm.
Weight 520g (without battery)
Zippered Leather(ette?) slip cover provided along with long-wire SW Antenna, USB charge cable, and stereo earphones. Also included was a dual USB wall adaptor plug for charging the radio.
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00394.4
KB5KWO Rating: 2024-04-13
I Enjoy Mine.. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The PL-880 is a solid little performer. My main use for it is bedside and with a pillow speaker. The wife falls asleep quickly and so I usually listen to 80M or MW broadcast as I unwind.
The radio does well for both. SSB and CW/Digital have available filtering which helps. Other reviews report some distortion at times. I've also experienced this but nothing too terrible..
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The Re-Chargeable battery will play the radio all night long and so I charge it daily. No problems so far for the three years I've owned it
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Pros: Decent performance in a small package. Has stable SSB/CW performance. Telescoping antenna is durable and there is a jack for long wire connection.
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Cons: Both MW and Shortwave Reception are nullified by hash when the wall-wart is plugged in and charging. One cannot listen to these two modes while plugged in. For myself, I will look into something a little larger and also backlit as I find myself wanting to change frequency at night.. Listening while being on house A/C power would also be nice ..
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Overall I really like this radio and lately find myself using it in the yard or while working around the house, etc.. Purchase again? Yes, unless something else appeals to me more..
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Hope that helps
KX4LG Rating: 2024-02-20
SSB is a compromise. Otherwise good. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Decent portable for FM, MW, LW, and SWL.

SSB audio has some overload distortion on leading edges of syllables.
(AGC attack rate = too slow?)
Recovered audio is usable though not pristine.

For me this is not a deal breaker at the price point it sells for.

YMMV
K8EL Rating: 2024-02-19
Good But Not Perfect Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I don't regret my purchase, but I wouldn't give it a perfect 5/5. The sensitivity on every band is great. Let me break up my review by band.

FM broadcast: Sensitivity is great, selectivity is average. I noticed some splatter on adjacent frequencies, and you can't adjust the bandwidth on FM. FM lacks RDS, which would've been a nice feature to have.

AM broadcast: Amazingly sensitive on MW. There are several AM bandwidths to choose from, which is nice. I usually keep it on 5 kHz. I took this to a nearby park where the noise was low, and I was picking up signals several hundreds of miles away using a tunable loop in the middle of the day.

SW: One of the better performing radios I have. The tuning works beautifully. The tuning knob doesn't have notches; you just turn the dial, and you can go up and down the bands really fast finding stations in no time. The sensitivity is excellent on SW broadcast.

HF ham (SSB): LSB/USB just doesn't sound right, a bit of distortion, but I can deal with it. I had to tune down 0.1 kHz for the USB to sound like I was on frequency. But having SSB is nice on a portable so I can casually listen to the ham bands, volmets, military, etc.

For $170, I think it's a good deal.
WB0FDJ Rating: 2022-03-04
Better than I expected Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Long story short: I wanted a small portable general coverage radio to listen to while sitting out with my pooch in my heated garage. Honestly I didn't expect much. Now that I've had it for a while I'm pleased with the radio. The AM/FM experience is great with good audio and speaker. SWL has been fun. I don't expect to hear "DX" but the commonly available HF SW stations are easily found. Sitting in MN with the attached antenna I can have almost solid copy of the MIDCARS net at mid day. I've copied CW on most bands and it's as good as I would expect.

So all in all this is a fun little radio. It would be worth the time for a potential owner to check out some of the more obscure or hidden features by consulting Professor Google. There's a lot here if you know how to use it!
EI3IBB Rating: 2020-11-16
Bad SSB Distortion. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
EDIT: 16th November 2020

I sold the PL-880 and S-8800 and got the PL-680 istead, boy what a difference, the audio is just so good, no harsh white noise in the audio and no distorted SSB and no warble souning audio listening to SSB on SW or MW, zerobeating on LW/MW/SW is just so good on the PL-680, if there's an interfearing source close by hitting USB/LSB can in most cases greatly reduce or completely eliminate this interference.

The SYNC is also decent against mild fading but it can growl and squeal when conditions get challenging but it's at least useful compared to the 880, oh wait, it doesn't even have SYNC, ok, it does but it's in a hidden menu because it works so bad Tecsun tried to hide it out of embarrassment which they should.

I would avoid the PL-880 and S-8800 DSP only ruins the performance and audio especially on SSB.

Another piece of advice, do not connect a Ham radio style wire antenna to this or most portable radios, they overload badly unless you use some serious attenuation.

I use a Bonito MA305 whip with the Tecsun radios and it outputs just the right amount of signal and changing the atenuation to local or medium setting takes care of any overloading and with this Bonito MA305 ( mounted outdoors up in a tree using H-155 coax gorunded ) I can hear much more signals at night than my Ham radio antenna because the MA-305 isn't overloading the radio. The Performance of this antenna has to be heard to be believed for such a small antenna.
W2VIB Rating: 2020-06-17
Exellent Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This radio is as good as it gets for a portable. I use it as a table top radio for USB/LSB on 20, 40 and 80 meter ham bands with a 130' doublet antenna from my transceiver tuner. It receives as well as my Icom 745. FM has excellent stereo quality in my headphones. AM is great as i live 100 miles south of NYC but could only receive NYC stations with built ferrite core antenna after i discovered the AM interference was because of switching wall warts on surveillance cameras was the source, once turned off, then AM reception was clear. The manual is hard to understand and i have yet to put frequencies in memory channels so i just enter my favorites manually. Recommend using high dipole outdoor antenna for SSB reception and fine tuning + or - .10 khz for clarity. All in all a great little radio, easy to use but remember any shortwave radio is only as good as it's antenna system. Bob W2VIB
SV1DPP Rating: 2020-04-20
Bad for SSB Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My opinion is that it's a bad radio, with leading edge distotion on usb/lsb and a useless "sync". It's a very expensive-very good FM radio.I have one and I am very disappointed.
VE4AMN Rating: 2019-01-31
Truly excellent Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have owned a host of small portable radios and this beats all. It is sensitive and selective, plus offers great audio for FM. I am seriously considering building a small TR switch and mating it with a QRP transmitter it is that good.

The battery life is excellent and the USB based charging process is fast.

I have two nits. First the leather case, while of excellent quality could be 1/2 inch larger to accommodate the portable antenna, charging line and earphones. Then the unit would make this a truly portable system.

The manual is poor. When I first switched the radio on, the sync was engaged and the SSB and CW sounded bad. After hunting around on Google I figured out how to turn this function off (which has always been marginal on any small radio I have heard). There are many "hidden" features not covered in the manual, but users have unearthed some really useful tricks. They appear at https://swling.com/blog/2014/06/complete-list-of-tecsun-pl-880-hidden-features/

In short this is a great radio.
N4MU Rating: 2019-01-27
Exceeded my Expectation! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Got the PL-880 after selling a tuner. Total cost: $24.99! This little gem has truly exceeded what I hoped would be a great receiver. I have had other comparable receivers but sent them back due to "non-performance". I bought it just to listen to the ham bands, especially CW and I have to say it is superb. Of course it does AM & FM but if I want to listen to those I can sit in my truck. The 10 Hz steps do the job very well and it is rock stable. There is absolutely no chuffing even when rapidly changing frequencies. The 500 Hz filter is great for CW!
I don't write a lot of reviews but when something this good comes along folks should know. It's great...did I already say that?
KB3HJK Rating: 2019-01-09
The best portable out there Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
It's incredible. I have owned the 1103, a lower Tecsun, and a few Sonys. The SSB reception is outstanding. The bandwidth filters are excellent. It blows away the radios I mentioned. After researching this and the Sangean 990, reviews pointed me to this. Thank god. Note...this is based on using the supplied wire antenna. I did see a massive difference between the and the whip.