Tecsun PL390 DSP Digital AM/FM/LW Shortwave Radio with Dual Speakers, Black

• PLL Synthesized AM/FM/LW/SW Radio with DSP (Digital Signal Processing) Technology
• Dual 2.5" Speakers prvoide FM broadcasting in stereo
• Patented ETM Tuning (Easy Tuning Mode) plus 550 memories
• 12/24 Alarm clock with C/F thermometer + Sleep timer + Built-in battery charger
• Earphone jack for private listening & Line-in for MP3 Players

I have read some positive reviews of various Tescun radios with the DSP chip included for enhanced performance. I finally decided on this radio from the Tecsun family. I primarily use this radio for AM talk programs as well as FM for both talk and music. I will play around with the shortwave to see how well that works over the next few nights.

First of all my location is in northeastern NC. There are lots of FM stations within a 100 mile radius of my residence. Some of these stations are local, but not in my backyard so to speak, so there is no interference with a strong versus weak station. I am amazed at the stations this radio receives. In scan mode it seems to stop every second or so with a station I have never heard of before. I mean the dial (sic) is full of FM. Listening through headphones is fantastic....great sound even from $10.00 cheapos.

The AM is fantastic as well with lots of stations. Only low power AM stations here, so no interference with tuning across the dial. There are several filters on the AM from which to choose. Select the one that offers the best balance between noise and voice. I ultimately chose filter 3, which for me, offers the best balance. Rotate the radio to null out the signal for best reception.

The manual is well written, but with so many features, keep it handy to reference functions that you only occasionally use. Playing around with the different buttons is very helpful to learn their function. I like simple stuff, so anything over an on-off switch, tuning and volume controls are sometimes challenging. The learning curve on this radio will be short for most folks.

In summation, I find this radio more than meets my expectations. Accessories include a fabric travel pouch, shortwave antenna, patch cord, and in-ear headphones. The sound is ok from the radio speakers, but they are small speakers, so, one would not expect symphonic sound. The radio measures approximately 7x3x1 inches. This radio will probably be a lot smaller than you would expect, it was for me. This is not a negative, its highly portable. Rich in features, this radio for me, is like experiencing radio for the first time. Its that good.

Update 6-9-11: Still very pleased with Tecsun 390 radio. I have tried the shortwave bands and reception is very good. I use the supplied wire antenna and this helps reception, but the telescopic antenna works great too. The station presets are a joy when tuning thru the stations. Using the presets, you turn the tuning wheel up or down to the next preset.....which is a great feature because it so simplifies finding the "right" station to listen to....no scanning the dial listening to unwanted stations. The only nit to pick is with the volume wheel. When listening in bed at night, turning the wheel just one click, the volume goes from being just a bit too low to being just a bit too high. I have read where others share this same observation. Maybe this will be a running correction to the circuitry that controls the volume. Still, I love this radio and have no regrets buying it.

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Picked this up a few months back, and I'm amazed with this radio. It's well made, has a good "feel" to it. The sound is quite good for a small radio. But the big part is the tuner is so dead-on and easy to use. The first time I fired it up in my house I was amazed with how fast it found stations. (I'm in Northern California, not really the best place for Shortwave reception). I've used other radios before but none were able to lock on as well as this unit.

Highly recommend it... I use it during the day to listen to AM (it also can do FM Stereo, and ack as amplified speakers), and at night I listen to the world on this gem of a radio.

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Considering that it only has one tiny speaker, the sound from the Ipad is pretty good. It's only mono, though. Also, its volume doesn't go high enough for larger or noisy places.

It would be nice to have a set of external speakers for it. But most of the computer speakers I've seen are either without any power of their own, or they eat batteries too fast to be that much use. And most of them are too bulky to haul around much. Granted you could use a big set of speakers around the house, but it would be nice to have some that are as portable as the Ipad is.

I was considering this problem, wondering where I could find a set of self-powered portable speakers for the Ipad, when I remembered that my Tecsun PL-390 has a line in. A stereo line in...

This puppy hooks to the Ipad with a standard stereo patch cord, one of those two-ended things with a miniature stereo headphone plug at each end. So it would hook to anything that has a standard miniature headphone jack, like your Walkman (if anybody still uses those things) or your MP3 player.

Here you have a set of portable stereo speakers that also picks up AM, FM. shortwave, and (for anybody in Europe) longwave. Plays stereo on FM too.

Not only does it pick them all up, it picks them up WELL. The "Easy Tuning Method" is especially nice. You set it to scan whatever band you're listening to. It makes note of all the listenable signals there are, even on the shortwave broadcast bands. After that, when you turn the tuning knob, it jumps clear signal to clear signal, skipping all the spaces in between. Cool!

They also make a smaller version without the right side speaker. I got the larger stereo version because it has a longer case that gives space for a longer AM antennaand for a miracle, they did actually put a longer AM antenna in it, instead of the shorter antenna of the one speaker version. It makes it borderline amazing for AM reception.

Plus it does all the "usual" radio thingsit works as an alarm clock, it has more memory presets than I can find use for, and so on.

This is a great little set. Amazon has them for $66 or so. That's not too bad just for a set of speakers, let alone the other features. Recommended.

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I was very excited to receive this radio after doing a lot of research on reasonably priced but feature rich shortwave radio receivers. Several radio hobby sites metioned this radio in very favorable terms. Indeed when the radio arrived I was pleased by the build quality of the unit, and the feature set that the radio had, especially the DSP chip.

I was able to pull in a slew of shortwave stations in quite clearly (of course a lot depended upon time of day and atmopsheric conditions.) I could routinely receive signals from Asia, Australia, South America and Europe. Most came in very clearly especially considering the 390 is not a high end radio. The 390 pulled in over twice the amount of stations the Sony ICF-SW7600GR I had purchased before this radio.

I was very pleased with this radio in the beginning. So much so that I bought two as gifts and another for work. After having the unit for three days, the 390 started to continually freeze up for no reason. I would have to remove the batteris, wait 20 minutes and put the batteris back in. The day after that the tuning dial went wonky. So before the other radios I ordered arrived I had to send the first one back. My opinion of this radio plummeted shortly thereafter.

The other three radios arrived. I thought it best to test them before I gave two of them as gifts. I ran each of them for a seven day cycle, carefully testing then out. One of the three was bad right out of the box with a defective display and a defective tuner. That one went back to Amazon for a replacement. The second unit had terrible radio reception on all bands and very poor sensitivity. The third froze up continually from the beginning.

So four radios ended up going back to Amazon for replacement. To make a long story short, after several exchanges to try and get four that worked properly, I ended up finally getting two that worked properly. At that point I gave up exchanging the 390's and kept the two I had.

What I found most intersting and aggravating at the same time is that I received several radios that were consecutive serial numbers, and none of them performed the same way even though they came of the line at the same time. I'll use radio reception as a prime example. I set up three of these radios up side by side (all three consecutive serial numbers) and the quality of signals they could pull in were all over the map. One could pull in several stations very clearly, one pulled in almost as many stations in fairly well, and the third could not pull in any sations clearly and had a constant buzz .

So as much as I love the feature set of these little radios, they suffer from the worst QC I've ever encountered in a radio.

What prompted we to write this review, is that one of the two I still have has just started to continually lock up.

Until Tecsun can improve the QC on their radios I suggest you avoid them all together. This is another glaring example of a great product ruin by unforgivably poor Chinese quality control.

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Simply put, this is a great little radio. Not only is the sound very good, given the size of the unit, but the built-in features are useful and sometimes entirely surprising. I listen to AM, FM and SW (at night) and am more than happy with the reception.

Very impressive for the price!