SIHUADON D808 Portable Radio Transistor AM FM SW LW SSB Air Band Multiband Radio Loudspeaker Alarm Clock Sleep Timer Black

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Below are four videos showing the D-808’s reception of three weaker daytime medium wave stations from indoors at my suburban Seattle-Tacoma (WA) home, plus one video of a shortwave reception in the 41 meter band. The XHDATA D-808 is compared to C. Crane’s newest Skywave radio, the SSB model, and the Eton Executive Satellit. Although brief, these tests show how the new XHDATA portable is a welcome competitor to the field of modern, compact SSB-capable radios: I owned many portable radios over the years and still I like to try out some new ones. I played around with this radio for many months now and found my personal interpretation for the advantages and disadvantages. Doingmanual tuning across RF bands results in muting/chuffing sounds when changing eachRF step.This seems to be a design characteristicof DSP based radios. In this model the volume drop can be reduced by seleccting the Slow tuning mode. Some have reported that the squelch is not fast enough to unmute resulting in loss of the initial conversation. I can confirm this to be true, but it loses just a small fraction of a second, not really an issue.

Every company that’s still manufacturing receivers makes its own decisions. It’s as important that we voice our gratitude to Sangean for its latest (possibly last) effort to revise the 909xxxx series as it is to Tecsun for offering no fewer than THREE superb world band receivers. FM stereo / MW / LW/ SW SSB and Air Band radio, with high sensitivity and good selectivity, and the user-operation friendly SW AM listening was very good; good audio, great selectivity. I suspect that the bandwidths given are AF bandwidths as even the most selective were not too much muffled. If it was IF selectivity, the AF bandwidths would have been half the values and much muffled.About SSB: I think that this receiver is better than the [Tecsun] PL-880 and comparable to the PL-660. I also have a Grundig Satellit 750, if I hook that up to the external antenna that came with the Sihuadon D-808, it blasts in with a signal of 20-25. Radio Waves: SWL Contest, Shortwave Modernization Concerns, Still Need AM, and ARRL Asks for Comments on 60M Rulemaking LW band seems to show poor sensitivity on DSP radios like this model category, due to a poor design of the RF analog passive components that favors the MW band.

When I really get to dreaming, I think of XHDATA or some other maker designing a portable like the 808 – why not call it the 1000 Super DSP – that actually has continuously adjustable bandwidth control. This will never happen. A DW01A (IC2) & a 82015A MOSFET (IC1) do overcharge protection, while a TP4056 (U2) charges the Li-Ion battery at 400mA until it reaches 4.2V. In short, this is an amazing receiver for its price. Where the Sangean falls short with no variable selectivity in SSB, the XHDATA kills -- multiple bandwidths in SSB and fairly stable SSB fine tuning as well, which is, in fact, more stable and without any "warbling" than the Tecsun sets. Yes, there is a bit of chuffing when using the main encoder knob, and a bit of soft muting. But compared to some other portables with these issues, notably the Eton Exec, it's not that bad. Sensitivity on SW is excellent, the speaker is excellent, and this has quite good AIR band reception. Products to be reviewed typically should be tangible ham radio related items such as radios, antennas, towers, test equipment, feedlines, etc. I am currently located in the Northeast of Portugal, at an altitude of about 1000 meters, and I can receive radio transmission signals from the various passenger planes that fly over the area, using the telescopic antenna and being indoors at the window.Notwithstanding some duds, the PL-660 is known to be a little sensitivity monster on shortwave. When I don’t feel like putting up wires etc. for my SDR, I just take the Tecsun to the beach and through the years I own it, I’ve logged plenty of true DX (JA, VK/ZL or WWVH on a regular basis) with it there, just using the telescopic whip. Thank you, Georges! Excellent thoughts on the D-808. Your note about squelch control working outside the AIR band reflects what the Digitech AR-1780 does as well–hinting that firmware is very similar. In late 2022 a new version was quietlyreleased, despite the only visible difference to the previous versions being the use of a USB-C port instead of the older Micro-USB type. Otherwise the advertised features and performance remain the same. For me, the unique combination of size, sensitivity and selectivity is making up for the shortcomings, it certainly remains a very interesting radio and I can’t remember carrying one around that much, ever.

As for shortwave, again it’s deaf as a post, I tuned in to Shannon Volmet on 5505 USB. I couldn’t hear anything at all on the telescopic antenna, I tried it on the long wire, then you could hear it very faintly.Unfortunately, memories don’t keep the mode on SW–only the frequency and selectivity. After calling a memory, you will have to choose between AM, USB and LSB. So far I couldn’t find birdies anywhere on the D-808. The PL-660 is pretty clean on shortwave too, but it has hefty birdies around 100, 200 and 970kHz, despite the efforts Tecsun has put into shielding and clean PCB design. This audio stage noise is more audible thru the speaker than on earphones, what seems to make no sense. But when looking to the circuit we see the reason. The earphones are driven thru a series RC network with 100uF and 100Ohm. Depending on the earphones impedance, the noise will be stronger for higher impedance units. However the common earphones would present 32 Ohm, a low value when compared with the series 100 Ohm resistor. When switching to SSB a “loading bar” shows up first, the entire process between hitting the “SSB” button and getting reception again takes 5 seconds. Actually, these radios basically consist of a “radio-on-a-chip” and a microcontroller so it really might be a loading bar we see there. This controller seems to be not exactly fast in the D-808 anyway, so even using the tuning knob comes with occasional hesitations – I advance the main tuning encoder one indention and the frequency changes only 1-2 seconds later. Changing bands is not exactly fast either but at least toggling between USB and LSB works instantaneously.

While I really, really loved the look and feel of the radio along with the outstanding FM performance, I kept thinking that the X2 really didn’t live up to being a radio worthy of its current pricing in 2021. Sangean made some basic decisions with the 909×2. Many of them are quite positive over the old 909x. For many users the 909×2 has more than enough features to justify the higher price of the receiver. The PL-880 is decent on LW, Good on MW and very good on SW, it’s a joy to use. Audio is ok. I find the Audio on the PL-880 better to my ears in general.My 2021 unit came with 3.81V in the battery (still a XHDATA 2000mAh device) and the battery level indicator had 2 bars. You can add to or update/edit your existing review's content including the Rating and Time Owned with the Edit button on the right side of the review text body. Edits will go thru the review Approval process. Due to product quality problems within 3-12 months of receiving the product,we can repair it for free, but the customer pays for the logistics costs incurred. Shortwave Single Side Band (SSB) minimum step is 1kHz, Upper Side Band (USB) and Lower Side Band (LSB) reception independent