PL880 Portable Digital PLL Dual Conversion AM/FM Longwave Shortwave Radio with SSB (Single Side Band) Reception

I was debating over getting this model or the Tecsun PL-680. There are many reviews and pros/cons for each model. I eventually chose the PL-880 and I've no regrets. This model has many features, and a number of them are "hidden". Doing a search you can find how to access these new features, some useful (battery run time), others not so much. The included case is nice and will keep the radio from damage while traveling. It's not leather, but sturdy and holds up well to packing into my carry-on backpack. The provided 18650 battery holds a charge for a long time! I like that it's rechargeable, and I'm sure it will last a long time too. The radio has wonderful room filling sound from the speaker. On a recent trip to Tennessee I was a little disappointed by the reception, but that may have been due to my location in the hotel building. I just had to adjust the antenna, and sometimes use the provided external antenna, and got good enough reception on local FM. The shortwave works well, but that's hit or miss due to the airwave band conditions. There's also not as many shortwave broadcasters as there were 20 years ago. But there are still many foreign broadcast to be heard and enjoyed. I really like the SSB capability to listen to ham radio operators. When you hear voices like Donal Duck, you just turn on the SSB, and then tune until the voices are understood. Very easy. I'm think about getting an extra external antenna, there's many on the market. This is a great radio.

I bought mine in 2014. This radio is the first of a renowned Tecsun radio family: started with the pl880, followed by the s8800, pl990, h501x and finally the s-2200x. They all are premium products, and priced accordingly. Besides the pl880i also have a s8800 and a h501x. I can attest the pl880 is the best sounding of these. Based on the specs and other reviews I believe the s-2200x is even better, but you will pay $300 more for a beautiful but bulky tabletop radio. This is the radio you want if you want a radio small enough to take in your carry on luggage, decent AM, very good SW performance and amazing sounding FM reception. About the SW reception: unlink the majority of modern DSP based receivers, this radio does not soft muting when cruising the dial, so you will be able to find faint stations much easier. About SSB capabilities: it is usable but not great. If you are an avid SSB listener then you will be better served by any of the other members of the family; both my s8800 and h501x are perfect. The local oscillator is somewhat unstable and the pitch will be wobbly (perfect sounding person will would like Donald Duck in seconds). There are some undocumented settings and features. Some are useful, some not. In particular: the product detector for AM. It is available, it is awful. But you did not pay for it anyway… Other than that, the radio is solid. After 11 years I replaced the rechargeable lithium battery a couple of times, the antenna became a little wobbly and recently the main tuning knob failed. As there are several ways to tune it the radio is still operational. I have had several radios (Gundig, Tecsun, XhData, Hammarlund among others). If I had to have only one, this is the one I would take.

I received my Tecsun PL-880 just a week ago, and I have to say that from my perspective, it's the *almost* perfect portable shortwave radio! I came close to purchasing a Grundig SAT 750, but when that order was delayed, I opted for this radio instead. I'm certainly glad I did! I can't imagine how the Grundig could be much better, and this radio provides a more portable option. PRO's: * Amazing sensitivity on the SW bands. No matter the time of the day, the auto-scanning function seems to always pick up 40-50 (or more!) shortwave stations. And these are stations that are easily copied. (The only antennae I'm using is the $10 Sangean 'reel'. And it just runs up a corner of my room to the ceiling.) In the limited time I've operated the radio I've already copied Radio China (came "booming" in on the 22 meter band), Radio Australia, and several far eastern stations. (I'm located in the southern United States.) BTW, if you own an iPad, you can always check the frequency with the "SWBC Sked" app to ascertain the station you're currently listening to. * Very good SSB reception on the Ham Bands ... all the way through 10 Meters! I've seen some YouTube videos of this radio providing a "muffled" SSB experience, but I've had no such issues (Firmware 8820). The only thing I can think of that could cause that is having the selectable Bandwidth set to 1.2 kHz or lower. I keep it at 3 kHz for SSB. (BW Options for SSB are 4, 3, 2.3, 1.2, and 0.5 kHz. That alone is astonishing for a portable SW radio!) When switching to SSB mode, the regular tuning knob automatically switches to "slow" tuning mode (1 kHz steps) while the "Fine" tuning knob switches to "Ultra-fine". You can literally tune in 1/100 kHz steps! Needless to say, this makes it super easy to get good quality speech from SSB signals. The only problem I've seen with SSB is a bit of "splatter" for very strong signals. In those instances, I would like to have a RF gain control. The three-position antennae-attenuator switch will do the job here, but is not as convenient. In any event, that's a very minor quibble. This is still the best SSB I've ever experienced from a portable. * Very good scanning options. You can scan just one International shortwave band, or *all* the bands. Use "Page 0" for scanning, and just the most recent scan results are stored. You can then easily step through all the stations it found by simply turning the tuning knob. Only the International SW bands are scanned; it automatically skips over all the Ham Bands. Since shortwave conditions change hourly, this makes it real easy to find the current "hot" bands. * Great sound! The speaker sounds great and can easily fill a small room without straining. It almost makes me wish a Bluetooth option were available so I could run Pandora through it via my iPhone. (Maybe the next generation, perhaps?) * AM/FM --- The "AM" band is adequate. If I were serious about AM I would opt for an external antennae optimized for AM. FM is *great*! * As mentioned earlier, this radio has incredible bandwidth options for a portable. In AM/SW mode you have 9, 5, 3.5 and 2.3 kHz options available. A strong music AM station with the 9 kHz BW option engaged sounds absolutely amazing. For most AM listening I keep it on "5". I use "3" as the default for most SW listening. The SSB bandwidth options were mentioned above. It's just *great* having all these options! * Rechargeable battery with "intelligent" charging. You don't have to tell it how long to charge like some portables require. Charging is through a mini-USB port. The cable for charging was supplied, but not the charger itself. I just use my iPhone's charger, which works great. CONS: * As mentioned above, the only real feature I miss is a variable RF gain control. I think it could really help out with the SSB "splatter" mentioned above on strong signals. Again, the three-position "Ant Gain" control can help out here; it's just not as convenient to use. As far as CONS go, that's pretty much it as far as I'm concerned! Summation: I *Love* this Radio!!!

I wish the Tecsun PL-880 had RDS FM and HD-FM, instead of LW. There's nothing on Long Wave anyway, so why include it? LW is used for shoreline directional beacons. So what if HD-FM (which stands for High Density, not High-Definition) becomes the "AM Stereo of the 21st century"? I still feel it should be included in a radio at this price. There is no way to name presets, important when there are over three thousand of them.This radio has a few bandwidth selections for SW and SSB, but there should be more preset selections or ideally, the bandwidths for SW/SSB should be continuously adjustable and capable of storage in station presets memory. The removable Li-Ion battery lasts many hours, days really. The radio is charged via a mini USB instead of a typical wall adapter and connector, which would have been better given the fragility typical of mini USB connectors. Still, the battery does last a long time so it doesn't have to charge frequently. Also, note that USB chargers seem to produce obvious audible RF noise if operating this radio while charging. I couldn't get good reception indoors, so I had to string a Realistic Shortwave Antenna kit outside and solder a mini-phone connector for the radio's RF input. This came as a surprise, as I am in the country and didn't expect all the AC noise. If you live in an urban area the radio's apparent high sensitivity to AC noise junk may be disappointing. With the right antenna input (built-in, portable, or outside) and the RF switch set right, the reception is good, and the right combination of fine tuning and bandwidth selection reduces SW station fading on most signals. There are some red icons on the radio's front panel buttons which are not mentioned in the manual. Perhaps someone can comment here on how to access these. The Scan function doesn't seem explained properly so here it is; if the tuning knob was last set forward the radio will scan up, and if the knob was last moved to a lower frequency the radio will scan down (when Scan is pressed and held in both cases). If you quickly tap the Scan button, perhaps accidentally, it takes you to the Presets area thus losing whatever station you were just on, which is annoying. Its too bad worldwide SW is not what it once was (so it seems). The Internet is now the big thing. I couldn't find many popular stations, they just weren't there. Maybe a propagation thing. This radio will receive ham stations but the radio sometimes distorts in SSB on audio peaks. I am not sure if it is the radio itself or the ham operator but it is frequent. As a last note, the clock on my radio didn't keep accurate time. Most of the popular SW stations I couldn't receive, just too much buzzing and noise in the background. I don't think it's the radio, maybe it's antenna orientation. The Scan function frequently didn't produce many listenable results. Overall listening experience not as expected. Probably not radio fault, but AC harmonic RF noise and propagation problems plaguing reception as well as an overall decline in listenable stations worldwide. Of course this is just opinion. --------------------- Just wanted to add something to this review. After a year the radio's working fine. Reception is great but there's only one problem. With the exception of ham, there's fewer and fewer broadcast stations to listen to. If broadcasts are what you seek, such as those in a foreign language, shortwave is a dead end. The new frontier is Internet Radio. There are currently over 15,000 stations available from almost every country/state, genre, call sign, etc. You can receive IR on a computer or a separate table top receiver. A note on stand-alone internet radio's; these hardware boxes are not all the same. They rely on existing website radio databases like Reciva.com or Pandora. These services carry many radio stations but not all. I recently acquired a C Crane and as a typical WiFi radio, and compared to shortwave, I wish I had never bought a shortwave radio. Oh sure, the hams are ok to listen to, but like many others I was interested in SW for news and alternatives to typical FM/AM fare.

Immediate note: My 880 purchased in July 2024 has a USB-C charging port. Not sure if that's in the description, but many old models were miniUSB. Pleasantly surprised. It's not high speed charging, but at least it can charge with any cable I have laying around. So far I'm really loving it! I haven't had a radio around the house for maybe ten years. Decided I wanted one that was a good radio first and foremost. Second, one that's shortwave capable just to try out shortwave listening. I'm in the suburban San Francisco Bay area living in a third floor, north facing apartment. Straight away, the speaker is excellent. I can easily pick up every FM radio station I know of in the bay area. And the sound is crystal clear. I've enjoyed just plopping it down in my home office to listen while I work and the speaker is very enjoyable and clear if you don't fully blast it. AM reception is also excellent, with adjustable bandwidth. For shortwave, wow! This is my first SW radio, but I've really enjoyed sitting on my balcony tuning around. In the evening I can easily pick up Radio New Zealand International on 17675 kHz! I've also caught broadcasts from China, Japan, Miami, Maine, and others. On my second night I also picked out and tuned in a ham transmission and dialed it in on upper sideband mode. Loud and clear, coming from West Calgary! The included wire antenna I find helps me detect faint signals but also all noise. Not unexpected. Usually I have the best luck finding a broadcast with the wire then switching to the whip/telescoping antenna and moving to get the best signal with minimum noise. The rechargeable 18650 Li-ion is also awesome. Can easily replace with standard cells if needed, but also a long life rechargeable. Buttons and knobs are all very well thought out and intuitive. Even has a line out jack if you wanna use a stereo or record. The hidden features (do a Google search) only add extra value. Overall, I love it! Money well spent! Very impressive handheld radio, great quality, excellent results.

Oct 10th - I just got back from a trip and was all excited about using this radio. After charging all night I could not get it to work! With great disappointment I tried to use it with a connection to external power and it seemed to be just fine. But,. if I disconnected the external power the battery read "Lo". The radio did not function at all. How could this be? I pulled out the battery and tested it with my voltmeter. The 3.7v battery read 3.9v, which was just fine. It appears that there is something wrong with the battery connection to the radio itself. With considerable disappointment, it has been returned. Once the return is clear I do plan to buy this radio again and hope the one I get next actually functions. This is a really neat radio. I had hoped that the battery was defective in which case I'd have bought a new one and tried again. Not so. To say it again...I am DISAPPOINTED! Older review: Beware of lithium batteries while traveling on aircraft. I got this radio to use in China, but decided to leave it at home on this trip. When ou seek to fly within china you better have the radio in your bag and the battery in your carry on bag. Same for leaving China. The internal customs here will check every electronic device for rechargeable batteries. This was also the case in Burma as well. The lithium battery that comes with this radio is large...like a sausage link. They will freak out if in the radio. Policies do change so what i am saying now may prove wrong or may be an intermittent concern. Customs or their version of TSA even tore into my carry on looking for batteries...flashlights, cameras, a small radio. You just can't know what our TSA or other government policies really are. I suggest doing what I do and put batteries into plastic snack bags so they don't come in contact with anything they can ground with. I will learn more about the radio when I return homw. Very glad I did not bring on this trip. It would have been a huge hassle.

Quite possibly one of my most favorite radios! Very high quality, easy to set up, great reception and sound. I spent a lot of time deciding if it was worth the money and finally pulled the trigger. Haven't had and issues or regrets yet. Great for fm am and shortwave listening.

I have many radios, including several World Band Radios. I recently received my new Tecsun PL-880 and I Love it! The Sound is Amazing! The PL-880 is By Far the Best Sounding of ALL my portables. Since I have SW experience the ease of use of the PL-880 is relatively intuitive. The PL-880 is much easier to use than one of my other world band radios, which usually requires me to have my manual handy to recall certain functions, but not on the PL-880! The Build Quality is Solid. The Rolling Knobs on the side are of quality materials, and are pleasure to scroll through the bands. Their placement is logical also, from Tune, Fine, Volume top to bottom. At first I was leery of the 18650 Lithium Battery, only because I thought they would be hard to replace. Upon research, they are readily available, and reasonable priced. They even sell that size for Vape devices, so most smoke shops have them. The longevity of the battery itself is amazing...lasts for days per charge (several hours/day with dial light ON). Which brings me to the Dial Light feature. I love that that dial light can be made to stay on, most of my other radios it turns off after a few seconds if not dialing stations. Now the most important part, the reception....The kit comes with an external coiled extension antenna, I have not needed it at all. I have pulled in stations all over the globe (time of day, and atmospheric condition dependent) with just with the telescopic antenna itself. AM/FM locks in perfectly, and FM is especially amazing due to the amazing sounding speaker. I get many more am/fm stations than just my local stations normally heard on regular radios. The usb/lsb works very well, and is easy to use. I've ready some reviews that complain about the sync mode (easy to turn on, just hit the usb/lsb a second time), I'm not a pro, just an amateur SWL, and it seems to work as fine as or better than any of my other radios which have that feature. The kit itself is great also. It comes with a nice zippered protective case, One battery (wish there were two), USB charging cord, the external antenna, and a really cool two sided poster. One side shows the PL-880 and its functions, and the other side is Colorful Amateur Radio World Map, perfect for your wall of your listening room/garage. My only 2 wishes for this radio would have been Airband, and a Line In, so I can take advantage of its awesome speaker. The Pl-880 is a Fun, Solidly Built, Great Sounding, Quality World Band Radio, which was reasonably priced ($159 at time of my purchase) . I highly recommend the PL-880!