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I think I found a great DX radio

D

dxer720

I just bought the Tecsun PL-390 LW/AM/SW/FM stereo radio & it's great for DXing. It's one of these inexpensive Chinese radios with DSP (digital signal processing)that you can find on ebay. It also has 2 speakers for FM stereo & line-in sound. It offers direct frequency entry & 550 memories. What I love about it, is it has the option of 6, 4, 3, 2 & 1KHz filters for LW, AM & SW. These really help with selectivity. I've never seen a portable with that many filter options.

The LW & AM are super sensitive. On LW, I was able to get beacons that even my Sangean ATS-909 & Degen DE-1103 couldn't pick up. AM is incredible. Very sensitive. The filters really help here. One thing I've noted, though. I have a 1KW daytimer within eyesight, on 1550, & the radio can overload & become less sensitive as you near that frequency.

SW is very good. The sensitivity is great &, of course the filters help here as well. It doesn't suffer from intermod, like the Grundig G8 does. I was tuned to CHU on 14670 during the day, & I heard a religious broadcast coming in as well, on the G8. There was no hint of this on the PL-390. One not here, too...The DSP tends to close off really weak signals instead of just letting them get lost in the background noise.

FM is very good. The sensitivity is great, & the selectivity is just awesome. I have a 6KW on 96.1 just a half-mile down the road, yet I was still able to hear 95.9 (@ 58 miles) & 96.3 (@ 65 miles) clearly enough to get stereo reception.

The radio is small, for a stereo radio. The design is simple, in fact it's kind of boxy. What it lacks in the cool looks department, it sure makes up for, in performance.
 
Very interesting review. I have three Tecsun DSP radios--PL-310, PL-380 and the Grundig G8. Of these 3 I liked the PL-380 the best. I recently bought the 380 and never thought about the PL-390 at that time. My 380 seemed to outperformed the other two on AM, although I don't know how it compares with the 390's AM. It also seemed to performed best on FM. I haven't tried out on longwave on 380 yet.
I find that all DSP radios from Tecsun are excellent radios.
 
I also have 4 other Tecsuns. The G8 (rebranded Tecsun PL-300WT), two PL-200s, a PL-550 & a PL-360. Maybe, in a few days, I'll put up a review of the PL-360, since it's the newest.

I have about 140 radios in my collection.
 
That review is VERY helpful. I've been looking at the PL-390 ever since it came out. Early reviews were glowing, so your's is the latest encouragement that I have to take the plunge. Supposedly, the awesome FM reception of the PL-310 is now combined with improved MW and LW reception thanks to a longer ferrite bar. Is there an issue with soft muting on the 390? It'd be great if Tecsun made that go away.

Curious as to which is a better performer: the PL-310 or the PL-380? I've heard that the 380 has the potential to be better, but that they skimped on the ferrite bar antenna when they came out with the 380 - rendering it inferior when it comes to LW/MW reception. Haven't heard too many good things about the PL-360; I guess it would be good if it were not for every other DSP radio in Tecsun's stable!

BTW - Tecsun has also just cranked out a new DSP radio: the PL-660. But, in spite of the high number, it seems to be smaller than the others.
 
Just a few notes to answer some questions.

The PL-390 does have the "Soft muting" that almost completely brings down the sound of the signal very quickly when the signal drops below a certain level. It does this, rather than simply letting the signal naturally get lost in background noise.

The PL-390 is strictly an AM mode (other than FM) receiver...that is, there is no means for decoding SSB or CW signals.

Also...For general AM/FM listening, the ETM (easy tuning memory) is a nice function. It scans the band & stores active frequencies into a special memory (not effecting the 550 memories) so you can step through only those frequencies, skipping the ones with no (or very weak) signals. It works best on FM, or doing it for AM during the day. One note on this...because of the AM antenna's directional nature, ETM may skip frequencies that you may usually receive, because they were in the other direction when you performed the ETM scan. I was surprised how sensitive the ETM was, though.
 
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