• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

The Tecsun PL-360

D

dxer720

The PL-360 is a tall & skinny, but very small radio. It's unusual in the fact that it's very tall for it's size, but only 6 inches tall. It's only 2 inches wide, though...& less than an inch thick. This is another one of Tecsun's inecpensive DSP receivers, covering AM, FM (stereo to the headphone jack) & SW. You cet 450 memories (100 for AM, 100 for FM & 250 for SW) & the ETM (Easy Tuning Memory). See my post: http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=179335.0 for details on ETM. The buttons on the front are small, but the volume & tuning thumbwheels are easy to use.

On AM, this receiver is very selective, but not very sensitive alone. The radio comes with an outboard AM loopstick antenna that connects to a dedicated AM antenna jack on the top of the radio. The antenna then sits on top, being about an inch wider than the radio, itself. Once the antenna's on, the AM sensitivity improves dramatically. I'm sure this antenna is provided because the couldn't get much out of the less-than 2 inch internal AM antenna. With the antenna, the AM reception is as good as my Panasonic RF-3100 & outperforms Grundig's G8. Alas, it suffers the same overload (& de-sensing) problem as my other DSP radios (Degen DE-1125, Grundig G8 & Tecsun PL-390) when I get close to the 1550 frequency of the 1KW daytimer's tower I can see from my window. When this station is nulled or off the air, the sensitivity on that part of the band comes back to life.

SW reception is very sensitive & pretty selective as well. Not as selective as the PL-390, as that radio has multiple bandwidths available. The PL-360 picked up most of the signals that my RF-3100 heard. The sensitivity was slightly less than the PL-390, but a bit better than the G8.

The FM is very good for the radio's size. It's not as sensitive as the PL-390, but about on par with the G8. The selectivity is very good. I was able to get 95.9 & 96.3 with a 6KW FM just down the road.
 
I have a PL-380 which seems to have a similar desense problem, and I'm curious - what are the signal readings on 1550, about 13-28kHz off (pick a channel with no audible signal, splatter, or (if applicable) IBOC), and how far off do you have to tune from 1550 before the modulation slop can no longer be heard, when facing their transmitter?
Also if you could post comparison numbers on-channel with the antenna connected, disconnected, G8, and PL-390 (in 3kHz BW to level the playing field) on 1550, as well as a relatively weak signal (somewhere between 16 and 62 dBu) near the low end of the band, I would appreciate it. :)
 
First, I'd like to apologize for omitions in my review post. I was trying to get it done before a sever storm hit & knocked out the power...which it did. FYI: The PL-360 is easy to hold & operate one-handed.

For the FM...The 6KW station down the road is on 96.1.

The answer tfcwings's question...

The reading on the 1550 station is 60 dbu without the AM antenna connected & 68 with the antenna.

I also have the Grundig G8, Tecsun PL-390 & Degen DE-1125 that that also read the signal strength in dbu. The Degen has no reading for signal to noise ratio, though.

Here's how the radios read for 1550
PL-360...68 (with antenna)
PL-390...67 (3KHz bandwidth setting)
G8...72
DE-1125...72

On all 4 radios, the splatter from 1550 was confined to 1540 & 1560. I also have weak stations on 1520 & 1570 that are on the same AM antenna bearings (NE/SW) as 1550.

1520
PL-390...audible without DSP muting
PL-360...audible, but muted by the DSP
G8...also audible, but muted by the DSP
DE-1125...audible, but the DSP muting was cutting in & out

1570 (very weak)
PL-390...audible without DSP muting, but noisy
PL-360...not audible
G8...not audible
DE-1125...barely detectable under DSP muting

I found a 590 that is very weak.
PL-390...readable, but very noisy with no DSP muting (22 dbu)
PL-360...hardly readable with DSP muting (18 dbu)
G8...hardly noticeable under the DSP muting (17 dbu)
DE-1125...also hardly noticeable under the DSP muting (14 dbu)

I have a 580 that a bit stronger. I tuned the PL-360 to it & got a listenable signal that read 33 dbu with the AM antenna, but became hardly noticeable when I disconnected the antenna.
 
Interesting... I would have expected the numbers on 1550 to be much higher. Maybe I underestimated how far the tower was - I was guessing within maybe 1/2 mile or so, or maybe even close enough so you could see the base of the tower.
My grandma is about 1/3 mile from 50kW/9.8kW DA-2 1430-KMRB and 1300-KAZN's 23kW day site (night site is 1kW a little under 3 miles away, station is a DA-2), and on the G8 which I had for a few weeks, they would read anywhere from about 83-91dBu, 1430 would hit 95dBu if the radio was resting on a rod iron fence and 98dBu with the Select-A-Tenna (and overloading/distorting significantly) during the day, and 1300 would be 98dBu during the day when the radio was resting against a power pole.
At home, 10kW 1130-KSDO at 6.3 miles reads 72dBu, 50kW (daytime) 1170-KCBQ at 9.3 miles reads 77dBu, and 50kW (nighttime) 760-KFMB at 7.3 miles reads 77-81dBu on the G8.
When I was in Escondido a month or two ago with the G8 at the main bus terminal about 1.75 miles from 1450-KFSD's 1kW transmitter (whose tower I couldn't see from the terminal), the G8 was indicating 81dBu.

Did the DE-1125 actually read 14dBu on 590? I thought those DSP radios wouldn't read below 15dBu on AM.

As for stations near the above mentioned pests...
At my grandma's house, 1230-KYPA, 1260-KGIL, 1280-KFRN, 1330-KWKW, 1370-KWRM, 1460-KTYM & 1480-KVNR range from barely detectable to weak but listenable, all reading 50dBu and fully muted (0dB SNR) by the DSP. 1390-KLTX is a little better at 50/15 or so, though, but 1580-KBLA is a bit weaker at 49dBu and single digit (if not 0 - can't remember) dB SNR.
At home, 1110-KDIS is barely readable under 41/00. I've occasionally thought I've detected traces of 1150-KTLK under the 45/00 there, but I'm not sure. 1190-KXMX is barely detectable under 43/00.
For the ends of the band, there's a weak TIS audible at about 15-17dBu or so on 530, and another weak-to-moderate TIS at about 17-22dBu on 1620.

So how close is that 1550 station? I would have thought since you can see it from your window that it'd be much closer, but apparently where you are the view isn't blocked as much as it is here.

BTW my nearest FM is 89.5-KPBS about 4.4 miles south of me (I can see it on a mountain top), reading mid to upper 60s dBu on the G8 (I don't have it anymore, btw), but 89.3 and 89.7 are wiped out by 89.5's IBOC.
 
I can't see the base of the 1550 (WZRK) tower, as it's about a mile away. I have to use binoculars.

I've been able to barely hear an AM station on these DSP radios down to 10 or 11 dbu. I've also not yet used these radios with my Terk Advantage AM antenna.

I'm not near enough to any FM IBOC stations to make the adjacent channels much of a problem.
 
I tried my Terk Advantage AM loop antenna with my DSP radios. Here are the readings I got on the nearby 1550 station.

PL-360...88-91 dbu, (outboard AM antenna conected) with no audio distortion...57-60 dbu without outboard AM antenna
PL-390...maxed out at 68 dbu even with the AM loop, but no distortion
G8...87-90 dbu, also with no distortion
DE-1125...83-87 dbu, still no distortion
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom