I recently bought the PL-880 and it's great that Tecsun finally make a good MW\LW radio. And even better is the fact the AN 200 MW Loop works extremely well with the PL-880 it's as if the PL-880 was designed for the AN200 , it makes stations appear that are otherwise inaudible. I find the P-880 also more sensitive than the S-2000 on SW, I haven't done a direct comparison on MW yet between the two. But I like the PL-880 so much that I'm selling the PL-600 and S-2000. The PL-600 is deaf on MW/LW by comparison to the PL-880.
I had the Tecsun PL-880 and I couldn't get ONE SW station from my house, but with the XHDATA D109 I received a solid 30 station with just the standard antenna. So the $40 XHDATA D109 outperforms the $180 Tecsun PL-880. The XHDATA D109 also has equivalent sound quality. I returned the Tecsun PL-880 and kept the much superior XHDATA D109.
I have a Grundig S350 that looks extremely like your S-8800 and I think they are the same thing . I don't have a PL-880 but I heard it's a good radio. Just not cheap lol. Thanks for the video (s).
In my opinion the Tecsun S-2000 is not so good. Listening to a station with the PL-880 is much better.SSB does not sound like Voices of "Micky Maus" and so on. And it is good, that there is no AC Adapter build in. Many interferences come from the AC outside Your house. Please excuse my bad English. Many greetings from Germany..
It would be interesting to test how the set behaves on ECSSB. Pure SSB is as ghastly as on the PL-880, neither radio can handle peaks of modulation on SSB and ECSSB, though both are pretty good on AM.
Actually, I adjusted the treble and bass so that the 8800 audio characteristics better matched that of the 880. Regardless, the treble control is not the culprit with the 8800's higher MW noise floor--no matter how the audio controls are adjusted, the noise floor is still there. It prevents the 8800 from clearly receiving weak signals.
I just received the 8800 this week and am very disappointed in it. In my location ( Tampa Bay ) we have a very strong AM Broadcast station, 820, WGUL. It's 50K watts during the day, and power is reduced at night. The problem is this station overloads the 8800 to the extent that 820 is heard in several spots on the AM Broadcast band. The only way to operate this radio in my location for the AM band is to use the Local switch to reduce the sensitivity. The SW bands and FM Broadcast are fine using the whip antenna. If I use my Wellbrook Loop as an external antenna, you can forget it. It overloads this radio severely. If your on the fence ready to buy, I think it's going to be good if your in a rural setting, or don't have a powerful transmitter close by. If you do I wouldn't recommend buying it. The high points are excellent FM reception, and audio quality is good. I also have a PL-880. In my opinion this is a better radio. HTH
That's interesting about overloading. I'm not that close to a bloworch station, so my radio never exhibited this behavior. You might need attenuation for the Wellbrook.
Thomas Witherspoon is spot on with hs recommendation, you likely need attenuation. or possibly an antenna attenuator might be the first item to try to knock back that Wellbrook's signal, here are URLs for an eBay attenuator listing: www.ebay.com/itm/Stoner-DA-100-Shortwave-Antenna-Control-Box-Power-Up-Extent-Of-Testing/183922760453?hash=item2ad2a69b05:g:n4QAAOSwa7RchTfm If you should ever experience station bleedover, a medium wave passband filter might be with a try. Tom Stiles, aka TRRS or hamrad88, had much success on his S-8800. I have two sets at my rural location and have excellent sensitivity with no overload on my dipole or bleedover issues. Here's the URL to Tom's Radio Room Show vid showing the S-8800 with in-line MW passband filter installed and complete success: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nUZLis2FAT8.html Here's the eBay URL for the MW passband filter: www.ebay.com/itm/Broadcast-AM-High-Pass-Filter-2-6-MHz-HPF-by-RTL-SDR-Blog/273337706930?hash=item3fa43269b2:g:78cAAOSwopRYmtHO Don't give up until you find a solution that works and don't sell off that S-8800 unless you purchase a late production run Grundig Satellit 800 Millennium, that is. Two fine sets and the best portable and porta-top set respectively, IMHO the best available at present. Best wishes HH.
Here's a video providing a solution to SW band AM (MW) band RF interference: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nUZLis2FAT8.html Here's the Broadcast AM High Pass Filter that you need: www.ebay.com/itm/Broadcast-AM-High-Pass-Filter-2-6-MHz-HPF-by-RTL-SDR-Blog/274419383210?hash=item3fe4ab7baa:g:78cAAOSwopRYmtHO Remember to order the proper adapters to connect the SMA female input & output fittings on the filter to both your antenna cable & to your radio antenna input jack (1 SMA male adapter is included with the filter). This filter and it's FM trap counterpart really works to filter out the RF overload noise. Good luck and let us posters know your outcome.
Disappointing. If the 8800 were also a good AM radio I would probably get it. No excuse for a radio of this size not to have very good AM. Tecsun should know better. Why do they not benchmark with other radios with good AM. I think I will get the 880 though. Seems like latest software on the 880 has things working well.
