TECSUNDigital PL330 AM/FM/LW/SW Worldband Radio with Single Side Band Receiver

PROS-Sensitive-Feature packed- SSB-Feels good in hand / Quality/CONS-Still no kick stand-Alot of features will take time to learnI purchased this radio mainly for its strong SW capabilities and to use as a portable /small emergency radio. It recieves a variety of SW channels. Religious and foreign language seems always available. Different nights and times , it gets other stations also. I have heard foreign news channels in English , Music from other countries, Replays of old time radio shows and talk shows .It is a fun hobby !It has also renewed my love of AM and FM . It receives over 100 AM channels some nights. I also do DXing. Sound is clear ! Battery charge is long lasting . When its time to charge - with one bar it took about 3 and a half hours to fully charge. I purchased a twin package of spare batteries ($8 on Amazon ) to prepare for emergencies . Powerful and feature packed ! I am happy !

Years ago a radio of this size would have sound similar to the workers hitting a metal garbage can against the truck as they empty the can. These days the sound, espcially on an FM music station is concert hall quality. How do they do it? Amazing! This is a great ready with great sound, good coverage, and features that one might find in a much larger and more expensive unit. I think the best feature is step changing button. The worst feature maybe the battery life (I ordered extra batteries). However, it does charge quickly. To me, this is a must have radio for anyone who lives far from a major city, who travels outside the country, or just wants to plan for true disaster. The SSB feature allows the listener to monitor all of the major ham radio HF bands. I guess there is a second worst feature in that in does not receive the Air Bands. All is all, the radio does what it says it does. The price is reasonable and the quality is there.

I got this little radio largely for it's shortwave SSB capabilities, listening to amateur radio bands. It works surprisingly well for the size of the small antenna attached. I bought a little retractable wire spool antenna to go with it, and have noticed that on longer wavelength bands, like 75-meters, the added wire helps a lot, even just 6 feet of extra wire brought signal to noise levels up quite a bit.I really like the rechargeable lithium battery. It seems to run a long time on a charge. USB charging is also very convenient.The biggest weakness I've observed is the tuning knob, which has detents and fights you, combined with the receiver muting with each 1kHz step. This makes it difficult when tuning all around a band looking for SSB or CW stations. I also have the Tecsun PL-600, and it does not do this, but allowed smooth tuning without muting. The tuning knob also feels a bit flimsy. For this reason, the radio is not as pleasant to use on the amateur radio bands, and not sure how long before the tuning knob may fail. I have had to lubricate the tuning encoder on my PL-600 several times after it froze up.I miss the built-in stand to prop up the radio at a convenient angle when listening, but that's not a big deal.General FM and Medium Wave AM reception is very nice, though I think my PL-600 may be a bit more sensitive on medium wave AM, and a little better sounding due to the larger speaker. A small tunable medium wave loop antenna might enhance AM reception further.The different SSB filter settings work well, but I wish there was a filter width between the 2.7kHz and 1.2kHz widths - like 1.8kHz or so. The 4kHz width is too hissy and harsh sounding for pleasant listening on SSB, IMO.This will still likely be my go-to radio to throw in a bag for traveling now, as the SSB reception seems quite a bit better than my Tecsun PL-600, but for everyday listening on amateur radio bands, the klunky tuning with muting every 1kHz isn't great. The PL-600 seemed either too insensitive or too overloaded a lot of the time, so the PL-330 seems way better in that regard. It handles strong signals from a full size dipole antenna remarkably well also, without much AGC pumping or distortion.I will still be on the lookout though for a portable with a really high quality tuning knob (weighted would be nice) and smooth SSB/CW tuning on shortwave. Some of the portable HF transceivers are probably the next closest thing to what I'd like, but with pricing in the thousand dollar range are hard to justify, at least unless I get into portable QRP operating.For what the PL-330 is - an inexpensive portable receiver - I still think it is a really good value for the price, maybe the best deal going right now.