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Reviews For: Tecsun PL-660 PLL World Band Receiver

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Tecsun PL-660 PLL World Band Receiver
Reviews: 63MSRP: 109.9
Description:
FM-Stereo /MW/LW/SW SSB/AIR band (118-137 MHz) World Receiver with high sensitivity and selectivity.
Product is in production
More Info: http:// http://www.tecsun.com.cn/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00634.1
N4YX Rating: 2017-12-17
Too Many Issues Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I had the PL-600 & probably should have kept it. Bought the PL-660 & soon discovered many of the issues others before me have already shared. Audio screech upon advancing the volume control; minus 5 KHz wide filter offset; many internally generated artifacts when tuning around especially LW; LSB not set correct albeit USB is set correctly ... etc. I sent the radio back. IMHO these issues should not exist. It may be these radios are leaving the manufacturing facility simply not aligned. And, OBTW, try to find anything official about DIY alignment!
K7QQH Rating: 2017-11-20
Very good SW Portable Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After researching "best" portable Shortwave/all band receivers in terms of features vs. cost, I choose the PL-660.

The little RX is packed with features, is VERY sensitive, and all accessories are included. Being an active ham (59 years), I wanted a "do all" travel rig for casual SW listening - which it does quite well - even copying CW and SSB on the ham bands.

Throwing the (included) wire antenna over a tree limb netted excellent SW reception and I was blown away by the many stations on the busy bands.
Build quality is also VERY good and the radio has a slightly "heavy" and robust feel for a small travel rig. Would I buy another? Absolutely! The company is solid and my conversations with the factory (regarding ship time to Seattle) were warm and pleasant (interesting that Tecsun sells MANY weather radios to both civilian and military clients)

Buy it and enjoy!

Roger C.
K7QQH
SQ4NYY Rating: 2017-11-20
You get what you pay for. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
UI is terrible, but it still is the cheapest pocket SSB receiver.
VK2JEM Rating: 2017-07-25
Outstanding! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I got one just as a cheap travel radio i could throw in suitcase when i was going overseas. Thought if it works OK it will be fine and if i lose or break it i wont cry.

I was really blown away when i got it! It works really well. Is very sensitive and stable, two well chosen bandwidths, SSB, sync detector works well. Sound is good for its size, outstanding on phones.

Its small and the buttons a little fiddly and stiff, makes it a little hard to use in dark. But its a top performer, especially given the price.

Mine has been around the world with me and i wont travel without it.

Some people have had problems with theirs but mine is faultless. I know from dealing professionally with Chinese manufacturers that they have a different idea of quality control. (When i told one manufacturer - not tecsun- i was disappointed by the failure rate, they just said "but they are so cheap you can just replace the faulty ones".) They are right, if mine fails I would replace it with another.

If you are buying one used test it first, if it works well its a great buy.
K0KZO Rating: 2016-10-08
Good for the ham bands Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was looking for a radio with better SSB reception than my old Grundig YB400PE and Kaito 1103.

The PL-660 is clearly better for this purpose. It is easy to tune in SSB phone and CW signals; much easier than my other two sets; however, my sample is not without flaws. The tuning accuracy on MW is off by 5-6khz and reception is noisy. The BW filter is centered at 10khz steps instead of the tuned frequency, so it is useless if the tuning is off by 6khz. So for MW DXing it is subpar, but servicable.

On FM I have distortion (maybe a birdie) around 88-90 Mhz that wipes out a couple of stations. Other than that it's okay.

Since the radio is very inexpensive, I will keep it, flaws included. I purchased it to surf the ham bands and it works well for that purpose.

All of my little portables have strengths. The Grundig is a good sounding AM/FM BCB radio. The 1103 is a good weak signal DXer, and this 660 is a nice SWL with good SSB performance.
K9YC Rating: 2016-09-18
Fine Portable Receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I'm a retired broadcast engineer, and I've owned and loved the smaller and lower cost PL380 for 3-4 years now. I use it for general FM listening, both at home and when I'm traveling. I showed it to my neighbor, W6GJB, who soon after bought a PL-660. I listened to it, and ordered one for myself.
Both this radio, and much smaller and cheaper PL380 have excellent selectivity on the AM and FM broadcast bands. When connected to an external antenna, I can tune in weak signals with much stronger signals on the adjacent channel that my wonderful 70s vintage Technics ST9030 don't even hear! (The ST9030 is the last great FM receiver with a big, multi-section tuning cap (6-7 sections), and is virtually overload proof.
The PL660 is considerably more sensitive than the PL380, adds Aircraft Band AM coverage and a BFO. Both radios do very well with an external antenna, both sound pretty good driving headphones (I use Sony MDR-7506). See note below about the switch.
The PL660 is quite useful in probing for RF noise, both for power line noise using the AM detector on the Aircraft band, and for electronic noise (switch-mode power supplies, computers, variable-speed motor controllers, battery chargers) tuning on the ham bands.
Battery life is quite good with good batteries. The unit is shipped with lousy 1 Ah AA cells; I use high quality 2.8 Ah NiMH batteries.
My only complaints are 1) the headphone "tone" control is a two-position switch that rolls off the low end or the high end, but there's no center position for full range; 2) the batteries must be removed from the radio for charging.
MIKEL Rating: 2016-03-06
Very Good AM Reception / SSB Only Fair Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
As advertised, the receiver offers excellent sensitivity and reasonable selectivity. The BFO on my unit will not effectively receive amateur SSB transmissions. The Sony 7600GR and Eton/Grundig products seem to perform significantly better with SSB reception
W0MUD Rating: 2016-01-09
Quick to the point review. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have had this radio for a week now. That being said I have had some time to "spin the dial". At first I used the supplied "long wire" antenna. It worked pretty good. I was able to hear stations on 75m up to about 1000 miles from me. On 41m I was able to pull in DX station. I had made a 40m dipole awhile back so I put that to use with the PL660. I could hear great after that. It is a nice radio, I really like it. I would recommend it anyone just getting into the hobby of shortwave listening because it is a very nice beginning radio. I have enjoyed it for the past week. It is nice also to be able to monitor 10m for propagation while on 20m or 15m on my Transceiver.
KI6RSE Rating: 2015-11-06
NICE Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Excellent audio for a little receiver.. Controls are tight, very sensitive, for what it is its very well put together.. It isn't a 400$ desktop.. it is a close to 100$ portable easy to operate and well made..Pleased with it.. works the DX fine..Not quite sure how people can review more than once with complete 0s because they received a defective one tho??
N6KB Rating: 2015-09-24
Infant Mortality Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I loved the way it worked before it stopped working. Barely got to use it, didn't even use one set of batteries. Can not turn on, except by using combination of power button and reset button. Then it turns on to FM band and cannot be changed to any other band or even turned back off. This is the second one of these units that has failed. First one lasted only days. This one less than two months. First one I got full refund. This one I don't know yet. I'd really like to get one that keeps working, because it is really pretty nice when it works.

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Earlier 0-star review posted by N6KB on 2015-07-28

Within minutes of trying it out for first time the display blanked out. No, not the back-lighting of the LCD display, THE DISPLAY. RESET button restores display for only a few seconds, almost a minute some times, then it goes blank again.