Review on 📻 TECSUN PL-380 DSP FM Stereo. MW. SW. LW. World Band PLL Radio Receiver with LCD Display and Enhanced ETM Function by Carl Durant

I've been listening to shortwave for 61 years, I've been a radio amateur for 32 years and I've worked in military communications for many years. I've had receivers from the 1920's which I've worked on most and enjoyed for many years. The reason I mention all of this is that it might give my review a little more weight than a review from someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about. I received the radio on Thursday and have been testing it on AM, SW and FM for many hours. I was really blown away by the FM performance. It's better than my Sony 2010 on FM and be aware the Sony costs about 8x more! I live in a terrible area for FM because there are mountains and hills on all four sides. So-called multipath distortion is caused by the transmitter you are listening to reflecting its transmitted radio waves off mountains and hills, causing them to reach your radio at different times and from different angles. This little radio gives me a perfectly clear signal from Portland, Maine, which is 65 miles away. My Grundig YB400 pe can't do that, and neither can my Sony 2010. On FM, the only other portable I have that can pick up this station cleanly is my Sangean ATS 909 Deluxe, which costs $289.95. I've had Sangean mods that cost me $50 so it was worth it. The Tecsun costs $46 and really is a sentinel. The software performance is outstanding at this price point and the variable bandwidth feature is great! On MW I know there is a station on 530kHz in Cuba and Tecsun picked up very little of it about an hour ago which is surprising as I live 85 miles from Canada. I installed it alongside my Tecsun AN-200 AM loop antenna and the pair of Tecsuns really boosted the signal just enough for me to hear it well enough. A few words on some of the radio reviews and I notice a lack of logic in some of them. There is criticism, for example, that you cannot connect an external antenna to this radio. Not correct! One reviewer said that some of his other handheld models get overloaded when he connects an external antenna. Either shorten the antenna or take it and connect it inductively to the pin. It's an easy fix. So if you're interested, check out the radio pages. On youtube a reviewer said he liked this radio but then said the only downside is that it doesn't accept ssb signals. Nonsense! You wouldn't buy this radio if you needed SSB capability so it's not a bad thing! That's a really stupid statement. It was not designed for ssb as it is a entertainment radio and the engineers have done a great job on this little gem. Oh yes, I looked at a model airplane once and it was a four-engine model and I really liked it. The only downside was that it didn't maneuver as well as my mate's Mitsubishi Zero. Do you see what I mean by stupid? I am very impressed with this little gem, it comes with an English manual and a one year guarantee. If the radio suddenly won't turn on with good batteries, remove the batteries from the radio and reinsert them after about 30 minutes. During the winter in colder climates, the air can be very dry and there is a lot of static electricity. A tiny static pulse when the radio is next to a tiny charge can block the circuit. What you did is a reset and hopefully this will fix the problem. This happened to me with my $350 Sony 2010 so don't blame the radio as it's fine sometimes with all radios with memory chips. Today I wanted to turn on my new PL 380 and it was dead. I did a reset and a few minutes ago I recorded Cuba at 530kHz barefoot without a Tecsun cable. Surprising for such a small $46 radio. Oh yes I think the sound produced by this radio is excellent and can fill a decent room. Have fun, read the manual and don't forget to reset it if it gets blocked!