Hiya :-)

My Tecsun PL-550 arrived yesterday. My initial impressions of the radio are
extremely favorable. The radio's performance and quality has surpassed my
expectations. The construction of the radio is good to excellent. The
ergonomics and keypad arrangement is also excellent. The audio quality from
the internal speaker is very good to excellent. The audio in MW and FM is
defined, rich and easy to tolerate. As you would expect, when you use it in
FM stereo mode with the ear buds, it sounds tremendous.

The buttons on the PL-550 have a similar feel to that of my KA-1102, another
Chinese radio. They have a "clicky" quality, but they have good feel and
they are responsive. The dial knob tuner if you prefer to use it over
keypad entry has the "notch" feel to it when you tune it with the "notches"
correspond to the kHz steps as you tune up or down. It has great feel and
you can set the radio to either "fast" or "slow" steps as you turn the knob.
The volume control knob and the antenna fine tuner do not have the "notch
feel" to them. They are smooth, and have just the right amount of tension
for a great feel.

Although I have no way to scientifically measure the sensitivity of the
radio, I can say practically speaking that the sensitivity of the radio is
good to excellent. I did a few side by side comparisons with the PL-550 and
my big boy, the R-75. Without question, the PL-550 did wonderfully.

With my R-75 going on the 200ft roof wire, I searched for a few weak signals
to use to test the PL-550 on. Off of the whip, the PL-550 was able to give
a good account of itself. Although it did not pick up weak signals as well
as the R-75 off of the 200ft wire, the PL-550 was none the less hearing them
good enough to listen too. Once I plugged in the external reel antenna that
was supplied with the radio, the signal strength increased by what I would
estimate to be about 30 % or so. Again, it did not pull it in as good as
the R-75 off of the 200ft wire, but it pulled it in respectably and was
listenable. Then, I disconnected the 200ft wire from the R-75, and hooked
that into the PL-550. The PL-550 was then receiving most every weak signal
with similar strength as the R-75. The PL-550 does not have the features of
a top notch table top like the R-75 such as the ability to use ecss tuning
on messy signals, noise blanking, noise reduction, twin pbt... etc... etc...
etc... So, the PL-550 is by no means a hard core DX'ing rig. But, as a
portable for listening to shortwave broadcast on all but the weakest
signals, it is outstanding.

The narrow and wide bandwidth selections that they chose for the radio seem
to be well considered. The PL-550 also has an IF button to change it from
455k to 450k. I have seen already that it is a big help to clean out
images. Like the KA-1102 that I have, the PL-550 also has an internal
battery charger. I find that to be quite handy and desirable.

I initially became interested in buying the radio to try out the built in
antenna tuner that it has. Thus far, I haven't spent enough time with it
under the conditions of two close signals with one being splashed by the
stronger signal. When I do turn the antenna tuner all the way up or down, I
can see that the signal strength meter on the PL-550's goes up and down in
as you would expect it to do. I have no idea of what the measured
difference is from how it works when it is set dead center vs. what it's
doing when you turn it all the way up or down from the center. I also have
no idea at this point if it is going to be effective. As of right now, I'm
still in the dark about selectivity and overloading. I haven't noticed any
glairing deficiencies yet, but I've only been using it for a few days.

The PL-550 uses what I would call a "flexible page system" for memory
presetting. That meaning, you can set it to have: 10 pages of 50 addresses,
20 pages of 25 addresses, 25 pages of 20 addresses or 50 pages of 10
addresses. It should be more then adequate for even the most demanding of
memory options. The PL-550 also has a dual timer capability that could come
in handy at times.

If I could change or add to the radio I would like it if it had a line out
jack. You can still use the headphone jack to tie the PL-550 into a sound
card, but it is still an amplified output and it is not ideal to use it as a
line out. Also... If this radio had SSB, it would be in the same league as
the 7600gr and the YB-400 for about 1/3 of the price. An AM sync on this
radio would be tremendous to have also.

Aside from that, I really like this radio. It is sturdy, has great features,
so far has proven to be very sensitive as a sw radio, has wonderful audio
and it comes at a great price for $60.00 plus $20.00 shipping from China.

--

Respectfully,

Michael

Location: Northern NJ
Primary Radio: R-75 with full Kiwa mods.
Antennas: 200ft "Frankenstein" roof wire, G5RV
Additional Radios:GE Super Radio III, KA-1101,
KA-1102, Kaiwa KA-989, Info-Mate 837,
Westinghouse H-104 (seven tube)
Home Page: http://md_dxing.tripod.com/