Tecsun Pl880 Portable Digital Pll Dual Conversion Am Fm Longwave Shortwave Radio With Ssb Reception

5.0★★★★★★★★★★19 reviews

• 5 ★18
• 4 ★1
• 3 ★0
• 2 ★0
• 1 ★0

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• GGregory R.14 Jan 2026
  5 ★

  Highly agreeable for travel

  A few months ago, I spent $104 on the Sangean U3 worksite radio and was, in spite of warnings about its bass-weighty speakers, exceedingly content with speaker sound and AM/FM sensitivity. This is not one of those latches that you snapped defective because you breathed too heavily on the hinges. The LB-100's slightly smaller ferrite AM antenna produces a little less sensitivity but produces good overall AM sound. Just a shade less than the U3's.'One thing I don't appreciate about both the Lunchbox and the U3 is that the non-rotation screw-in FM antenna doesn't give you any option to perform fine-tuning when wanting to get in a troublesome station (all worksite radios have such an antenna built like this to be rugged). I was going to utilize the LB-100 in the kitchen but its measurements may make me change my mind and take it to the work office or use in one of the bathrooms.I do want to commend Sangean on the battery compartment (takes 4 C batteries). Not that you need to adjust the antenna much. Recommended.Update: Be aware that this doesn't take rechargeable batteries. As strong as the FM is on both radios, I can't grab the weakest FM station I know of, 88.9, on the U3 and the LB-100 like I can with the Redsun RP-2100 (CCrane CSW) or the Grundig S350.Now for AM reception. 'Unlike the U3, which has a clock, headphone jack, and aux port, the LB-100 has none of these and is, in spite of being digital with 5 presets for AM and FM, a very bare bones radio, a sort of 1980 Ford Ranger truck, which didn't even come with a radio, ironically enough.'You might want to pay an extra $25 and get the added features of the U3 and relish a bigger ferrite AM antenna (though I personally didn't hear any distinction in AM between the two).One thing to consider is that the footprint on the LB-100 is not small at 8x8 inches. 'Even before I acquired the U3, I desired the Sangean LB-100, which had been praised by many, but was unavailable in the US market until recently.So for about $75 and free shipping on Dropy, I bought the LB-100. This hinge uses a big screw and seems appreciate it was built to last.Conclusion: At the $75 value point, the LB-100 has a rugged look, a loud yellow tone, excellent fidelity, and strong AM and FM reception. Very sensitive. The sound is remarkably appealing through the 5-inch speaker, just appreciate on the bigger U3. The FM sensitivity is so nice that such adjusting isn't necessary. Nevertheless, for weak FM stations appreciate 89.3 and 88.9 it would be nice to have a rotating FM antenna. I fretted the possibility that the LB-100's AM might not be up to par with the bigger U3.But a side by side reception comparison results in what appears to be close performance, and extremely remarkable AM and FM.

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• MMargaret G.17 Dec 2025
  5 ★

  Best sounding portable radio - finest bang for the buck

  Reception is excellent. I don't care much for the way the battery compartment opens, but that's just me. Altogether this was a good buy. The sound is great. It's very light and easy to carry too. I adore the style and look of it.

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• VVictor F.15 Dec 2025
  5 ★

  Adore this radio!!

  I live in an area where reception for radio is now and then genuinely poor. After purchasing smaller radios that were useless--I finally found this. I know everyone is using their phones these days, but was looking for a radio that would allow me a broader utilize---appreciate to the beach (don't like to take phone into sand). It gets all of the stations I want, is simple to use---looks solid and is easy to work with.

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• DDan D.8 Mar 2025
  5 ★

  Great Value and Feature Rich

  This very sensitive and selective radio receives AM, FM, Long Wave, and Shortwave broadcasts. Although it is easy to operate, it has a huge array of features. The Tecsun PL-880 is easily the best and most expensive of the small Tecsun radios. See Picture of Tecsun Radios. SOUND By using a better 450mW audio amplifier (thanks, Dan) and an improved 3 watt mylar speaker, the PL-880 has the best sound of these radios. High frequencies are crisp and clear, low frequencies are audible, and the midrange is exceptionally clear. FM Stereo is available through the headphone jack. POWER The unit is powered by a 5V USB port or a rechargeable, replaceable 18650 lithium battery. This is a huge deal. With heavy use and the back-light on, the factory-supplied 2000mAh battery lasts me about 15 days. When it does discharge, I can just recharge it in the radio, or swap it out with another inexpensive, long lasting 18650 battery. I just swapped out my 2000mAh 18650 with a 5000mAh 18650. Note that this is better than using AA batteries to get 4.8 volts, because the amperage isn't cumulative. If you use 4 AA batteries that are rated at 1600 mAh at 1.2v to get the required 4.8 volts, you still only have 1600 mAh, just at 4.8 volts. BACK-LIGHTING Because of the long-lasting battery, the back-light of the display can be turned on indefinitely. Alternatively, you can choose to have it only stay on for a few seconds (after you touch a knob or button), or just turn it completely off. A long press on "5" when the radio is off, toggles the light's behavior. Likewise, you can use a switch on the side. TUNING Tuning for all bands is easily accomplished with separate main tuning and fine tuning knobs. This is a great arrangement, far better than the auto switching tuning speed of the PL-660. Frequencies can be directly entered through the key pad. In addition, you can scan to the next/previous station with a long press to the SCAN button. Direction of scan depends on whether you were last manually tuning up or down. MEMORIES There are 100-250 memories per page per band (FM, AM, LW, SW, SSB), and there are 25 pages (0-24). Since many stations are only available for a limited time, I use each page (0-23) to group broadcasts available at that hour. An auto sort function will sort memories by band and frequencies, eliminating duplicates. Auto Tuning Storage (ATS) will automatically find and remember all stations available for a single band, or search all bands. OTHER FEATURES Many other convenience features include a sleep timer, an alarm clock, 8 band widths, direct keypad entry, simple tone control, line-out for recording, a headphone jack, an internal ferrite bar AM antenna, and an external antenna jack. In addition to the many features listed in the "Operation Manual", techies are delighted to find many more hidden features like Synchronous Detection, Dynamic Noise Reduction, Muting Threshold, Line Output Level, Calibration of SSB, Antenna Source, Firmware Version Display and date, "up" time, and charge time. Accessories include an Operation Manual, a lithium rechargeable battery, a long wire external antenna, a wall charger, and a very nice leatherette case. The knobs turn very smoothly with a nice damped motion and ergonomic placement. INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST BANDS If you follow the reception hints below, you'll find interesting stations like Austria, Australia, Cameroon, Deutsche Vella, Greece, Japan, Radio Marti, Quebec, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, Tirana, Vietnam, etc. You can find these broadcasts in the vicinity of 2300-2495, 3200-3400, 3900-4000, 4750-5060, 5900-6200, 7200-7450, 9400-9900, 11600-12100, 13570-13870, 15100-15800, 17480-17900, 21450-21850 and 25600-26100. When you key in any of these frequencies, the PL-880 will tell you the meter band. AM You can use this radio for DX (distant) reception of AM stations that will surprise you. Get outside. You might even try an external AM antenna like the Kaito AN-200 Tunable Passive AM Antenna for AM radio, Any Brands, Like Kaito,Sony,Eton,Panasonic,Tecsun,Grundig Etc.. Inexpensive and great fun. SINGLE SIDE BAND Single Side Band (SSB) is where the ham broadcaster uses only half (lower or upper) the channel that he would otherwise use. This allows more broadcasters in the same vicinity but sounds garbled without the proper decoder. This radio will allow you to understand them by choosing either the upper or lower side band (USB/LSB). You can then fine tune the broadcast with the fine tuning knob and reduce noise by choosing the best of 5 alternative band widths (4, 3, 2.3, 1.2 and 0.5 kHz) especially chosen for SSB mode. Most digital radios (including this one) are callibrated to the nearest khz. However the PL-880 will display hundreths of a khz on SSB, and you can easily calibrate it so the that ham band SSB transmissions are dead on. Say that most transmissions sound clearest at 0.15 above the khz, for example 7060.15 on LSB. All you have to do is fine-tune it for the clearest sou

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