I can forgive the imperfections in the PL-330 due to it's cheap price and also it's tiny size but I can't forgive the PL-880 ( cost at the time of release ) the S-8800 or the PL-990x and especially Tecsun's ( flagship ) H501x due to the poor audio quality on SSB, the distortion and the fact much of the bass frequencies have been cut making the audio very thin sounding. There's plenty of space in the 501x for an improved analogue design with analogue components but these engineers think that a Radio-on-a-chip is fantastic because it minimises component count and cost but the real cost is to the consumer due to the awful sounding SSB audio quality. These engineers have no idea how a radio is supposed to sound especially on SSB and the sad thing is that many People will never have had an Analogue radio with no DSP and might think this poor audio quality is "normal" ! What's really remarkable about the PL-330 is how well it handles strong signals with external antenna, it does have it's limitations and there's no attenuator but if you compare the PL-310et with the 330 especially at night with external antenna, the PL-310et falls to pieces with strong signals, the 330 can handle much stronger signals. For long term use the 330 tuning muting would drive me insane especially for listening to radio Hams, the auto tune function does work well though and the neat thing about the auto tune is that it remembers the time of day you do a scan so when you recall in the afternoon it recalls the stations that were scanned in the day and when you do a night scan when you recall the stations in the night it will pull in the stations it scanned whatever night you scanned them. When doing auto tune/scan "ETM" the bandwidth determined the sensitivity of the scan, for example, if you have the bandwidth set at 1 Khz that's the most sensitive, 6 khz would be least sensitive and pull in only the stongest stations. The Belka is a really good receiver and it's incredibly small with none of the distortion or bass cut off in the audio, the only real negatives I would give it is that the audio filters are limited to 4 Khz even on AM which is a shame but ECSS really does sound good on the Belka. Another thing with the Belka is the tiny design means less buttons and more multi function buttons but it's understandable due to it's tiny size. The best sounding would be the Malahit DSP 2, the DSP 3 is available to oder now, the Malahit is really amazing but it really needs an external antenna. It's an amazing radio though, I just wish someone would make a similar radio in a big box with big forward facing speakers, knobs and buttons. One of my favorite radios is the Tecsun PL-680, due to it's pure analogue design, the audio is as you would expect, "pure" free from bass cut-off on SSB and free from distortion, there is no way I would recommend a DSP radio over a PL-680 because the PL-680 allows proper SYNC detector and ECSS works amazingly well, ECSS on DSP radios sounds awful and for the serious DX'ew and SWL enthusiast ECSS is essential. The Pl-680 and a good external antenna like the Bonito MA305 will make an excellent DX SWL radio that sounds great. On a positive note, the 330, 990x and H501x work well with external antennas on LW/MW once you enable the function in the hidden menu. The 680 has no connectivity to external antenna on LW/MW.

This was very informative. My Tecsun PL330 arrives tomorrow. Cheers!

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 Muchas gracias por esta comparativa que me parece muy interesante,, para principiantes como soy yo!! desde Málaga, España te mando saludos!!

Thanks for your helpful video. I think I found two other 'Hidden Functions': When the radio is ON, pressing the number 7 on the keyboard activates a type of RF Gain that can be set from 30 up to 63. Additionally, when in SW and ETM modes on the screen, pressing and holding key 6 for about 5 seconds enables a sensitivity scale from 1 to 4 for the ETM scan.

Thanks for making this video!

All Tecsuns are pretty much the same. But this one has a really cool size. Thanks for the great video.

More power to you sir paul, i like the way you explained things, your new subscriber from the philippines..

Thank You I plan to buy this radio the initial start up programming information you provided will be very useful.

Excellent review of this radio.

Thank you so much! My TECSUN PL-330 (firmware 3306) with tipe-C and 1200ma battery. Very good works. I just soldered a 4F and 5.5V supercapacitor in parallel to the battery. This way the battery lasts longer.. I also have a Retekess TR-110, but it’s a very dull sensitive baby, a toy and not a radio.

Very helpful. Ordered it.

Thanks Paul. Have just reset FM to our NZ range!

Nice sounding radio

Thanks Paul!

Thank you so much great information.

The radios do very well with an external antenna. Even a simple length of wire will help. I use from 30 feet, up to 75 feet or so, for my "Long Wire" antenna. The socket on the left side seems best.

thanks Paul great receiver

Hallo Paul! I have this radio, and your video helped me a lot! Thank's for that. It shoud be fun if you made a video trying the difrence between the internal antenna, and your magnet loop antenna. I tryed this with mine Tecsun 330, and it a huge difrence! (I used a longwire). The best from LB1NH. 🙂

bandwidth change, TY for the lesson.

Great video. Thanks for sharing with us. I would like to ask if you could make a new video, showing us how to use the SW, LSB/USB, SYNC, ATS and Step functions. Thank you very much. 73 from Brazil. 🇧🇷

Thanks for this!!!!!

I love my PL-330. I have looked at review after review on the more expensive models, and except for the muted tuning the 330 does with the VFO, the receive and features are so good (especially on my outdoor antenna). I would easily buy another rather than 'upgrade' to a more expensive one.

I also have this radio. But I do not use it in detail. Your video increased my interest in this radio. I will usually use it. Thanks for the informative video

Good video, I just bought the 501x and I think it has hidden features as well. So far from west coast of US I have only picked up a few SW broadcasts.

This is one of the best videos on the PL-330 that I've seen, I learned so many of the finer nuances to this radio. However, I must say, you still need to peel off that damn sticker covering the bottom left of the speaker, lol!

Thanks for this fine review! I just bought one and am waiting for it to arrive. Meanwhile I have set up a 140 foot long wire for reception. I'm going to bookmark this video so I can enable the features that you showed. Thanks again! de K7SU

The PL880 is nice too

Great 👍

Muito top seus comentários vou comprar um pl 330 parabéns

Reminds me of the old Sony silver receiver radios of about 20+ years ago

Good and inexpensive receiver, especially for amateur radio reception. But it also receives broadcast stations quite well. I made some tests of this receiver on my channel.

Good video

From end best vedio and amizing hehhen fetuers thanxx frend handred like

😂Thanks for the recommendation

Hello friend, it has temperature on the display, because the simplest ones have it. Thanks!

Thanks for all the info and demo. I have the 330 and the 600 but also want the 660 for Air. I won't be buying any higher models, I don't think they are good value for money unless I find a good second hand unit. Have fun with it. :)

Mine should arrive tomorrow

muted tuning can be overlooked the tecsun pl-330 is an excellent receiver and beats out many other radios

Thank you. My tuning steps were wrong.

Excellent video. Thanks. Do you have a link for the stand/clamp used at the end of the review please?

I took one of these radios outside where it got a few drops of water on it and quit working. I was very surprised at how fragile it was.

those little radios are plenty..

Show

👍👍👍

You should try the Xhdata D-808...

I find the external antenna goes up like 35 on the radio when using like a tecsun an200 or similar.

Is this something you could listen to numberstations and other stuff? Seems like a nice gadget and see if this is something of a new hobby. Cheers

Hey OM0ET do you have firmware 3306 on your PL330? Thank you!

The long waves button works on mine.

To use the external antenna jack, which contact (tip or which ring) on my 3.5mm plug does my wire need to be soldered to?

What turns on and off when using the 9 key on the Tecsun PL 330, when the radio is off?

This might be a little late, but you might find an English or other manual online.

can you listen to act communications with this device?

When you put in music on the SD card, does it say what the track is? Like "Beatles - Penny Lane" or just a number?

Tecsun PL330, is it enough for listening to radio amateurs or does it need some malachite........

Hi, thanks for the video . Do you believe this would be work satisfactory in the middle of the ocean?

When the 330 is turned off I see "TIMER A" in very small letters toward the top of the screen.What is that?

How to cancel the sleep function? Thanks

OM0ET do you know what the display is telling us when you hold the USB button down continuously and -10 comes up in the signal area and 00 when you continuously hold down the LSB button?

Wat kind of stand?

23:00 what antenna is that? 📡📶

Not bad radio, but two years after boght it, the charging socket begins to fail contact. With the Tecsun PL310ET the same problem was happens. Tried with a two new cable but problem persists.

Most, if not all 'hidden' features are explained in the owner's manual.

there is no way to turn off the soft mute ?

Is the battery easy to replace if it is broken?

a czy obsluguje pasmo lotnicze i te co baofengi 136-520 Mhz ? Jesli nie to ktory to wszystko obluguje ?

There might be new firmware for that radio.

Where can I get the TRIPOD that you use to hold the radio? 73 DE W8LV Bill

Great show Paul thank for sharing de 2e0ree

I just received my pl330 on Sept. 1...followed instructions but encountered a problem...I cannot enter any frequency below 3.000Mhz. If I enter the Coat Guard frequency of 2182 the display just goes back to previous entry above 3.000Mhz. What should I do? Return the radio? Help, please?

Cost friendly for a SSB SW

Your call sign is not in the database.

No graphical S-Meter ist the first thing which is a no go for me.

Godzilla

If I long press the 9 key with the radio off, it toggles something on/off, but I don't know what it does. Does anybody know? I left it on. 😄 Also, if I long press the 9 key while the radio is on, I can adjust something from 01 to 30, but again I don't know what it is for.

It's not middle wave. It's medium wave, always has been.

sw 15370 khz it,s romania radio

Most of these "hidden features" are clearly labeled on the keypad.

Just a tip, NEVER EVER pull a screen cover on an electric device when its turned on. You can actually kill your device with electric shock if you're unlucky. Cheers!

16:44 "75 µs for Europe". Not for Europe, for USA... (Je to jen přeřeknutí)...

A real toy, the knobs wobble and the buttons are bad!!!

Soft mute ruins this radio, for me. Scanning is no fun at all. Otherwise it could be an amazing radio. I prefer the Belka.

No AA batteries, not for me. Those batteries that come with these are pure junk. Most cant last overnight.

The only thing hidden here is the hidden features. This guy is making an unboxing review and the video has nothing to do with hidden anything!