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

I like this little radio a lot! As an experienced shortwave listener and amateur radio operator ("ham"), I have many sophisticated radios and transceivers. But I needed something small and portable for when I just want to sit out on my porch and listen to Morse Code (CW), without lugging out one of my big receivers and associated antennas. So I shopped around. The choice came down to the new Crane's SkyWave SSB or this Tecsun PL-330. I've owned small radios from both Tecsun and Crane, and have been happy with both, but none of the ones I already had could detect Sideband or morse code signals. Both the Skywave SSB and the PL-330 can do this.I chose the PL-330 mostly from the reviews I'd read, but I think you'd be happy with either. Both cover all of the shortwave spectrum, from above the AM broadcast band to about 30 MHz, plus the AM and FM broadcast bands. Only the Crane offers VHF airband and NOAA weather; the Tecsun doesn't. Only the Tecsun offers Longwave (below the AM broadcast band); the Crane doesn't. Also, the Tecsun operates on a removable, USB-rechargeable internal lithium battery (included) that seems to last forever, and the Crane uses two AA batteries. (If you use rechargeable AA's in the Crane, you can recharge them via USB without removing them.)So your choice might boil down to which of these additiional bands is important to you. Also, the Crane is about twice the price of the Tecsun. If you compare them, be sure you specify the SSB model for the Skywave. The PL-330 has SSB, so no confusion there.As for Morse Code ("CW") reception, I can tell you only about the Tecsun, since that's the one I chose. This function works well. You choose either upper or lower sideband, choose a frequency in one of the ham bands (like 14050 KHz), then choose your tuning step and bandwidth and you're ready to start tuning around. With "SYNC" you get two tuning steps: 1 KHz and 0.1 kHz; with SYNC off, you get 1 KHz and 0.01 kHz. I start with the 0.1 kHz for finding signals, then switch the SYNC off to get the 0.01 for fine tuning. Available Bandwidths are 0.5,1.2, 2.2, 3.0, and 4.0 kHz, which you choose according to how crowded the signals are. Not quite as flexible as either of my $1000 transceivers, but plenty still good for sharpening my CW listening skills. And, of course, you can listen to hams and government services using voice on sideband, something most portable shortwave radios in this price class won't do.

Bought this for my dad and he loves it. He takes it from his garage to his deck and listens to it everyday. Allows him to listen to AM stations. His old one broke and this is an upgraded version of the one he has. Great build quality and portability

Interesting result on the synchronous reception in the AM band. With the standard envelope detection you get a nice audio wideband that is adjustable up to 9kHz bandwidth with plenty of bass too. This makes strong local music stations sound almost as nice as in FM. When you turn on the synchronous demodulation for AM, the audio bandwidth is immediately reduced to an adjustable maximum of 4kHz. You also loose all the bass. Even male voices at usually sit aroud 200-300Hz loose their bass tone.I bought two of these sets to operate in synchronous AM mode to do some diversity reception with the audio outputs. Very strangely, the synchronous demodulation is not exactly synchronous. It is within a couple of hundred Hz and can be fine tuned in 100Hz steps. I have been able to fine tune one of the radios to get the audio to be synchronized between the two radios, but this tends to drift. I was hoping for a true phase-locked synchronous detection, like I get with my SONY IC-FSW7600GR radio.This approach of using quasi synchronous demodulation explains with the bass is cut off in this mode. However, one possible advantage over true phase locking, is that you don't loose synchronization when the AM carrier fades out in long distance reception. So you always get your quasi synchronous reception no matter what.The AM sync detection is always single sideband, so you select the upper sideband USB or the lower sideband LSB, with LSB being default. Switching between USB and LSB does the expected thing of being able to select the less noisy of the two, which is handy for electronic interference from switching power supplies, that tends to land on one sideband or the other, but often not on both.