Radios I Have Known

Tecsun PL-390 AM/FM/LW/SW DSP radio

Tecsun PL-390

When the Tecsun PL-390 appeared for $55 with free shipping through an Amazon reseller, I decided to get one, even though I have plenty of Tecsun DSP-based radios now. One glitch: the Amazon listing was for a radio in a silver color; what I received instead was in black. I decided that was a minor point.

The PL-390's been available for more than two years and has gotten generally good reviews. I'll keep this review shorter than usual, since there's so much information available about it.

As you would expect from a Tecsun DSP radio, the FM performance is excellent. At my perch in the Oakland hills, I received 54 FM stations, the same as I can get on the PL-380 or Grundig G8 (Tecsun PL-300WT). The antenna is the wrong length for FM, typical for Tecsun radios. Atypically, the antenna is too long, 34 inches. So it's easy to make it the right length. I just extend the antenna except for the last segment. That's about 30-31 inches; 30 is the optimal length for an FM rod antenna.

AM reception is good: I counted 49 signals at high noon, along with effective AGC (automatic gain control) to maintain relatively comparable volume levels for weaker stations. This is four fewer stations than I picked up with the CC Pocket Radio on AM, but the CC Pocket's AGC is much less effective, if present at all. The CC Pocket, though, seemed to be much less plagued by internally generated noises than the Tecsun. Tecsun seems to have had a problem with such noises on all their AM radios. The noise floor on the Tecsun seemed higher than it should be. The CC Pocket also lets you turn off the digital display to reduce noise; the Tecsun has no such option. Maybe it should.

Audio quality coming from the speakers is fair. It's no Sony SRF-A100, whose two-speaker configuration it vaguely resembles, but acceptable. The two speakers also allow FM stereo reception with the speakers as well as headphones.

Not tested were the line-in jack, another feature not found on other Tecsun radios, and shortwave reception, which I don't care about.

Similar to most other Tecsun models, the PL-390 has lots of station memories plus an additional bank of memories for ETM (Easy Tuning Mode), a signature feature of most Tecsun DSP models.

Ergonomics should be good, with a keypad for direct entry of stations to be tuned, and very little repurposing of various buttons. Interestingly, unlike other Tecsun radios, the alarm can have both the radio and a separate alarm tone set simultaneously - for different times.

But this is the part that was disappointing. Tuning with the tuning thumbwheel starts in 1 kHz steps on AM and 10 kHz steps on FM, and then switches too slowly to a more useful 10 kHz on AM and 100 kHz on FM. Buttons are not always responsive without a heavy thumb press. The direct entry keypad sometimes has to be pushed hard. The AM bandwidth button -- to select among 6, 4, 3, 2, and 1 kHz audio bandwidths -- has an odd half-second lag. The numerals on the display are a little spindly, a problem shared with the PL-380. But the PL-380's controls are more responsive than those on my PL-390.

My conclusion: this is a very good radio, particularly for FM listeners, with some nice features not available in other Tecsuns, but you'll have to get used to the sluggishness of some of the buttons. The automatic switchover to larger tuning steps also isn't handled as well as it could have been. For $55, I have no regrets.

Posted January 12, 2013