AGC Pop distortion is unacceptable on the Tecsuns. I had a 330 & sold it because of that & the soft mute. I still have my PL-600. And the SSB on the Sangean is whimpy. I like my Belka the best overall for a small portable. It has a gain control and the designer got the AGC right. Thanx for the great vid!! 👍
Belka is a great radio but I hardly use it because I get a lot better satisfaction using the Tecsun PL-680, traditional radio and the PL-680 is quite a good radio and does ECSS excellently.
Thanks for another great video in my opinion it was not too long I liked it . I think your very fair and honest on your comments and I agree with you . The tecsun 990x does sound a bit murky on ssb , and the 330 does sound better on ssb . Very good for travel due to the size . But I do like the sangean 909x2 . I sometimes think that some people's videos are biased , so it's nice to watch and listen to an honest review . Many thanks
Thank you for your kind comments and for watching my video and surviving 25 mins :-) The sangean is the nicest to use due to the tuning encoder being on the front of the radio, ergonomically the Sangean is the best, the Audio is the best, just a shame it doesn't have tighter filters for SSB. I find it really remarkable a radio so cheap and small as the PL-330 how it can handle such a long antenna so well especially at night! Extremely good value for money.
The pl330 still has a sound in ssb similar to the pl990, sometimes the same distortions, but in general the sound is noticeably cleaner on the pl330, less dirt, artifacts and noise.
The 330 is amazing on the AM band with a direct connection to an AN-200 loop. I have a much larger and better homemade loop and plan to modify it for a direct connection.
I find the distortion on the 330 much less than the 990x, yes audio is much cleaner but for it's size, cost and no RF attenuation it's remarkable how it handles a 134 foot long, 40 meters long antenna at night!
I`ve noticed that my 330 varies. Sometimes SSB is very stable and clean and other times it acts up. It`s a very nice little receiver though and I was very impressed with many things about it. One great thing is that it can be recharged with a folding portable solar panel so it`s a great off grid radio.
@@baneverything5580 The battery lasts a long time in the 330. Would have been nicer to have it run on AA cells because if I forget to charge it I've no other battery, suppose I could power it from USB battery sill, I prefer AA cells, these newer LSD NiMh batteries are really good.
Your channel is much more interesting than a certain YT author from Canada whose initials are "G.T." ☺️👍🏼 He rarely replies to his subscribers and even then, doesn't write more than a few sentences. I wonder if the firmware version of a receiver can influence its performance. My PL-990's firmware is 9902b while my PL-330 has the 3306 version. I find that my 330 needs a little more frequent recalibration compared to my 990 and wished it offers 7 filter widths like my Sihuadon D-808 instead of three. The Sangean ATS-909X2 is on my hit list and I will certainly consider the Bonito MA-305 whip antenna that you use. What are your thoughts on the MLA-30+ active antenna? It's seems to be prominently mentioned on RU-vid. Keep up the great vids, hope you'll get 100k subscribers by the end of the year, sir! ☺️📻❤️
Thanks for watching and for your kind comments. :-) Different Firmware might cause the radios to differ in performance slightly. You should add the Tecsun H510x to your list, while the Sangean ATS-909 X2 is a fine radio I like the larger 501 and it's sound quality on AM is really good and they improved SSB sound quality a lot. The Bonito is MA-305 not 405 www.bonito.net/hamradio/en/megactiv-ma305-active-antenna/ It's a good antenna for DX and for LW/MW/SW, for more local Ham radio stations a wire antenna might bring them in stronger but the 305 really pulls in the DX stations. I have not used the MLA-30 antenna so I really couldn't comment on it's performance. Videos have been slow to come the last while, but hope to make some more soon and maybe with my MFJ-935C loop tuner for Ham radio. I was very impressed with that the last few times I used it. I'm waiting for finer weather to experiment more with that, and of course time.
@@o00scorpion00o Hi again, thanks for your kind recommendations, much appreciated! Apologies, I erroneously typed MA-405 instead of MA-305 on this small Android tablet of mine. 🙄 The H-501 is a fairly large receiver for the paperback form factor and nearly as expensive as the PL-990 which I purchased as my birthday present. ☺️ I can only afford either the Sangean ATS-909X2, Tecsun S-8800 or the S-2000 for my birthday treat next year. 📻😁 In the meantime I've just ordered a Tecsun PL-398MP stereo receiver as it looks almost like a mini H-501 and can play MP3 music files from a standard SD card. And it's the only Tecsun multi-band receiver that has fully illuminated buttons, including the power switch - how cool is that? 😏.. It boggles my mind why Tecsun didn't incorporate illuminated buttons on its flagship models like the H-501 and the PL-990. 🤷♂️ My regular dealer is having a sale until the end of April and it's only US$50, plus shipping. I had also considered ordering the PL-310ET again but didn't want to risk getting one from the same bad batch, with an overly aggressive AGC configuration. This AGC pumping issue has been documented on one of the posts on the SWling.com blog and it seems to affect only the PL-310ET. If I'm not mistaken you also have this pocket receiver. The Tecsun radio factory is located in Dongguan, China and employs about 500 people. Most of its employees are assigned to the assembly lines. Just like smartphone production, there's a human element involved in assembling and testing the radios, therefore mistakes and oversight will inevitably affect the quality and performance of a single radio, or an entire production batch. And there are other variables like firmware version, the circuit board and their components from a particular consignment. I may have rekindled my shortwave radio hobby only last September but I crammed so much research into Tecsun and XHDATA hardware, SDR radios, 18650 lithium ion batteries, chargers and the DSP chips that are used in a span of six months! 😬 The only subject which I haven't explored yet is sophisticated antennas. Before I subscribed to your channel, I've never even heard of the Bonito brand but it seems that many hobbyists have recommended the MegaLoop MLA-30+ active antenna. From what I've read or or watched (on RU-vid), I've gone through mixed and conflicting reviews of the Tecsun S-2000, H-501, S-8800, PL-990/880 and even the PL-680/660 receivers. For example, @WaveZone didn't like the H-501x and had demonstrated how noisy it was, but advocated the PL-990 instead. 📻🤔 In contrast, you had mentioned your preference for the H-501x rather than the PL-990x. I try to listen to every critique and viewpoints from all angles, but I then realized that what I look for in a shortwave receiver differs from other people's check boxes. I'm a little bit fascinated with SDRs with their waterfall display, but don't like the unrefined "industrial look" of the current SDR radios and their harsh sounding audio.
Just saw your video... The PL880 I've got would also have the same issue on strong SSB signals but I found if you disable the DNR via the hidden features, the problem with SSB audio seems to be pretty well resolved. Can you disable DNR on the 990?
It doesn't, the best one for that is the H501X. But you have to press and hold No.3 on the radios keypad to prevent overload while using external antenna. It works great on MW but I find some noise on LW I can only put down to overload but stronger stations work fine for me such as my local 252 Khz and the BBC 198 Khz.
Thanks for watching, not sure it could be much louder with a 134 feet long antenna, with externa antennas there's not a huge amount of difference between most modern radios, the real difference with external antenna is the ability of the radio to pull out weak signals without much overloading or images. The fact a cheap radio the size of the PL-330 receives anything with a 134 long antenna especially at night is astonishing really, especially considering it has absolutely no form of attenuation.
Thanks for your great video, i think I read your comment before about converting of the pl 330 batteries and would like to know the way if that possible
Hi and thanks for watching ? I'm not sure I understand your question, do you mean if it's possible to convert the PL-330 to normal AA batteries ? If so then no it's not possible.
I don't know in Khz how wide or not they are, sorry. On the wide filter if one of th3 Ham bands are busy you'll hear QRM, Narrow helps but they're not as tight as the radios with the DSP chips but be warned, the sound quality on most of the DSP radios is atrocious so the benefits of tighter filters are wiped out, the only DSP radios I have heard that sound decent on SSB is the PL-330 and H501x but they still have some distortion at the start of a TX. The PL-660, 680 and Sangen ATS-909 X2 have the cleanest audio on SSB even if the filters are wider and the clearest audio, the PL-990x, 880 and S-8800 sound very muffled along with distortion on SSB. For ECSS the PL-660/680 and ATS-909 X2 sound the best by far.
Hi And thanks for watching. 🙂 I don't know what part of the world you're in but if in North America you could order from myantennas.com and if you're in Europe you could order from hyendcompany.nl. You could also try make one up, the one I use is the 80-10 meter 49:1. You will need space to mount it, but it doesn't have to be mounted straight, it can be mounted as I have it in a kind of sloping INV-L. I have the UNUN around 3 feet off the ground where I have it grounded. You could also buy the much, much smaller Bonito MA305FT whip antenna, I got the optional longer whip for more gain. This is a superb DX antenna for it's size wth lower noise compared to a long wire antenna. Just mount it outside on a 2 meter pole and ground the coax. It doesn't have to be up very high unless you're surrounded by large buildings, perhaps. It's here at the link below but sadly not available, probably due to parts shortage. hamradioshop.net/antennas/e-field-active-antennas/225/megactiv-ma305ft-active-antenna If you have your Amateur radio licence then I would recommend the hyendcompany.nl 80-10 meter with the compensation capacitor to lower SWR in the phone portion of 80m or 75m if you live in North America. If you're not licensed and get this antenna then hopefully it would encourage you to get the license. You can also read this PDF from K1RF about constructing your own EFHW www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjywpzkqOX-AhUIS8AKHcqsAcwQFnoECBAQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgnarc.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FThe-End-Fed-Half-Wave-Antenna.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3B0gwkUePla0GpQ4_BxrT3 For transmitting, I'd say get the hyendcompany.nl with compensating cap or for RX try build your own because tuning this EFHW 49:1 can be really difficult because there is a coil in the antenna that is used for 17-10m I think it is and it can be very difficult to get all the bands into resonance where you want it but for RX it's not crucial. Bonito also have an active loop antenna which is a very good RX antenna, hamradioshop.net/antennas/h-field-active-antennas/320/megaloop-fx-active-loop-antenna?c=23 Or a cheaper, longer passive loop hamradioshop.net/antennas/h-field-active-antennas/221/paloran-200-passive-loop-antenna?c=23 Remember to get good quality H155 coax for receiving and ground it. Good luck, let me know what antenna you choose.
Hi and thanks for Watching. If you listen to SSB a lot then the Sangtean ATS-909 X2 is absolutely the best radio here. Even if you do not listen to radio Hams SSB is highly useful on Shortwave commercial stations, say you're listening to a weak station and there's a stronger station close by causing interference then press USB or LSB whichever has the best effect at reducing the noise or stronger station and fine tune the radio until it sounds as natural as possible, this works extremely well on the Sangean ATS-909x2 but on the Tecsun PL-990x it does not work at all because the audio on SSB is absolutely terrible and I do not recommend this radio at all for anyone interested in SSB or using ECSS which is the method of using USB/LSB to listen to a commercial SW station as I mentioned above. The Eton is full of bugs and I would advise stay well away from it at it's shockingly high price I would never recommend it unless it performed as well as an amateur radio transceiver at that price. It would have to be perfect in many ways and it is absolutely not. One advantage of the Tecsun PL-990x is that it works with LW/MW with external antenna and this has a huge impact for LW/MW, the Sangean can only use the internal antenna for LW/MW but for me I listen mostly to SW. The Tecsun H501x is a notable improvement on the PL-990x, the audio on SSB is a lot clearer but it has a bug in the FW which means that you have to cycle through the filters only via the AM/BW button and not via "fine tune" while the audio is a lot clearer it still suffers from distorted audio on SSB but not as bad as the PL-880, 990x or S-8800. Another very fine radio is the much cheaper Tecsun PL-680, it's a pure analogue design and sounds great using ESSS, it's still one of my favourite radios, you do have to learn how to fine tune via the BFO, on the sangean it's a lot easier because it's got finer tuning but I would save money get the PL-680 and get a better antenna as the antenna will be the best investment you can make. A really super antenna to get is the Bonito MA305FT and while it might seem expensive as I said, the antenna is going to be the best investment you can make. Get good quality H155 coax and ground it well, it only needs to be on a pole around 2 meters off the ground, more if you can do that will be fine. There are other non traditional but exceptional radios you can buy, the malahit DSP 3, they might advertise 2 on the website but that's discontinued and the belka DX. Only get the original Russian Malahit not a Russial clone of inferior quality. malahiteam.com/en/ This is the belka I have arriving hopefully next week. belrig.by/belka%20dx%20with%20speaker%20EN
@@o00scorpion00o Wow😀 Thanks for the very detailed answer. A lot of useful information that will help for radio fans, to buy new a radio for a good price.👍 🙏🇱🇹🫡 Thank you
My Sangean shortwave radio in the 1990s had a very quiet noise floor. It`s disgusting that so many shortwave radios sold today have no gain control knob.
Yes, the ability to adjust the RF gain so much on the ATS-909 X2 can lower the already low noise floor even more making listening a real pleasure. The 990x really is hard on the ears!
@@o00scorpion00o fully argee I had the icom icr 8500 great receivers but too harsh audio even with a bhi niose reduction witch worked on my other radios
@@martinryan5069 I have the FT-891 and the audio and receiver are a lot better than the IC-7300, really amazing radio, I use it in my sitting room as a 2nd radio when I don't want to go to the shack and I really love the audio via headphones. I connect it to the Chameleon MPAS 2.0 with CAP HAT and just 4 radials and have made contacts all over the world with it. The Antenna sits on my front lawn. I could listen to the 891 for hours it sounds so good.
Hi and thanks for watching. I was using an external antenna and the antenna switch would be at Local or Medium to stop or reduce the effects of strong signals or overloading when using an external antenna. Using the telescopic whip I would put the antenna switch to DX. Since making this video our local 252 Khz transmitter was switched off and the antenna destroyed so I would probably not suffer as much from overload today. I haven't used any of my portable radios in some time.
Oi e obrigado por assistir. Espero que o google tradutor eu ok? Eu conseguiria o Tecsun PL-680, pelo dinheiro é um dos melhores rádios novos que você ainda pode comprar hoje. Se você gosta de SSB, então o PL-680 é muito bom porque é áudio analógico é livre daquela distorção horrível e áudio abafado que assola rádios DSP. DSP não é bom para SSB. O custo do PL-680 é baixo, então você pode ter mais dinheiro para uma boa antena, recomendo muito o chicote Bonito MA305 com chicote opcional mais longo. Em seguida, monte-o do lado de fora em um poste. O PL-680 e o Bonito MA305 formam uma excelente estação DX.
@@sidneycavalcant veja o link no final deste post. Aqui está o link para a antena, mas vejo que não está disponível, provavelmente devido à escassez de peças. Eu não sei o quão caro é em sua moeda, mas é um investimento muito bom que você terá muitos anos. Você também precisará aterrar o coax, H155 coax é muito bom. hamradioshop.net/antennas/e-field-active-antennas/225/megactiv-ma305ft-active-antenna
@@o00scorpion00o Muito obrigado pelo envio e preciso analisar bem, pois a moeda no Brasil em relação ao Euro é 5,5 por 1 + frete + 60% de imposto, infelizmente. O ideal seria na Amazon.
Tecsun took the old pl880, stuffed it into another case and named it pl990, announcing that they had released a completely new receiver... Scammers!)))
I have avoided buying the inferior 880 due to reports I`ve read. If I need a great sounding speaker I`ll connect my radios to one much better than the 880 has. I have the 330, 660, and an Eton Elite Executive and they`re a great team. The 330 is an incredible AM receiver when connected to an external loop.
@@baneverything5580 I will make a video of the 330 and 990x on LW/MW, The Sangean ATS-909 x2 doesn't support external antenna for LW/MW but it can greatly improve reception if the antenna jack is not fully inserted, not ideal of course.
Of course it works but you hardly think the telescopic whip will pick up weak DX signals as good as an external antenna ? I use the Bonito MA305 mostly for receiving because it outputs just enough signal for receiving and has lower noise than a long wire.
Million Dollar ? not quite 🙂 The Sun is an excellent transceiver but I missed the box with some buttons and knobs and not having to need a computer all the time so I sold it and got the Yaesu FTDX-10, fantastic radio too and just works out of the box without nearly as much messing around like with an SDR, I was never going to use the Sun to it's full potential, I just don't have the time and the same reason I won't invest in a tower and beam at this point in time. Anyway, I sold the 909 X2 and the 990x, I now have the H501x and I like it a lot as it has much improved SSB sound quality.
@@o00scorpion00o isn't the new one them 7 or 8 thousand and your right give me a radio with a face any time yaesu a lovely radio had the ftdx 3000 nr was incredible thanks for replying 👍
@@martinryan5069 There is the Sun SDR MB1 that costs between 6 and 7 Thousand USD, that's SDR in a box which is why it costs so much, the computer and screen are built in. Personally I would rather more radio manufacturers follow the Kenwood route of making a normal radio and having IF out so you can connect your own SDR or just a monitor out socket to connect a monitor for those who want the waterfall then you can have a lot more room for buttons and knobs. I would have loved if the FTDX-10 had better ergonomics but it's got a really amazing receiver and audio, I had the IC-7300 and I was never happy with the harsh audio I had to have NR on all the time and on the FTDX-10 I rarely use DNR. SDR's can sound very harsh and you really much have proper control over AGC, the SUN allows this, the Anan etc and it makes a really big difference to the audio, even the Kiwi SDR allows you to adjust the AGC and can make it sound really good, you can really reduce the harsh background audio. I was sorry after that I didn't get the FTDX-3000 instead of the 7300, I really regretted it.
@@o00scorpion00o I have the malachite 10v3d v3 if you use them right they will give any high end radio a run for their money especially niose reduction something icom never got right
@@martinryan5069 I have the Malahit, v2, Russian one and it's really good. I think the main issue with Icom is that the audio in general is poor, if I think of the 891 and the FTDX-10 I rarely need noise reduction but with the 7300 I had it on all the time.
Hi Scott, thanks for watching. I appreciate the video is quite long but I did cycle through the filters, it makes little difference. The 330 sounds much better and now that I have the H501X is also sounds much better than the 990x both in clarity and much reduced distortion but the filters only work properly on the 501x when you press the AM bandwidth button and cycle through them that way and not by the fine tune because then it sounds muffled like the 990. The 501x is a great radio I have made some videos with it. The 501x is Night/Day better than the 990x, PL-880 and S-8800.
@sidneycavalcante Para o meu transceptor de rádio presunto eu uso um hyendcompany.nl 80-10m 49:1 EHW antenny que é cerca de 40 metros de comprimento, se você tem onde montar tal antena também é uma excelente antena de recepção ou algo semelhante ou se você pode fazer um. O bonito é apenas um chicote minúsculo em comparação com uma antena de 40 metros de comprimento. Bonito também faz uma antena passiva loop de 15 metros de comprimento que você pode montar em um arbusto ou uma árvore. Veja abaixo um link para o meu sdr kiwi com EFHW 49:1 de hyendcompany.nl. Por volta das 21:00 UTC você vai ouvir algumas estações do Brasil e até mais tarde à noite aqui na Irlanda. emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8074/
Yes if only! I just can't understand why they didn't. But filters are not everything, due to the poor sound quality on the 990x on SSB the 3 Khz filter is the only one that's really usable and the 4 Khz filter doesn't work at all not helping but the distortion is horrible, especially with strong signals. The 330 sounds a lot better at 2.2 Khz than the 990x on 3 Khz so the filters on that are more usable.
@@tomki6asp The 909 X2 is a good radio but for the money the PL-680 is very hard to beat on performance and sound quality, it even has the edge over the 909 X2 on ECSS sound quality.
@@tomki6asp welcome Tom, You will be very happy with the 680 especially when you try out ECSS and have such good sound quality the 880,990x and S-8800 can only dream of. Spend the rest on a good receiving antenna such as the Bonito MA305 Whip, I have this and got the optional longer whip, I power it by usb power battery bank and use good quality H155 coax which is grounded, it really pulls in the DX. The PL-680 and Bonito MA305 ( mounted outside ) will make a really great receiving setup and the SSB sound quality is so good that you'll really be able to pull in the DX on a SW station on a crowded band. It's not the most modern and it's not DSP but if modern and DSP means a radio sounds as bad as the PL-990x on SSB then I don't want it. All the best and let me know if you get the 680 and what you think of it. Mark
