In fact, in a lot of ways receiver performance and features seem to be converging. There have always been similarities - tuning knobs, keypads and the like - but the reliance on DSP chips in a lot of newer radios not only gives us similar capabilities but similar feature sets. For example there are a whole bunch of little radios out there that all cover the same set of bands, give you the same number of memories, use the same sequence of button presses to enter frequencies, etc.
Still, I have my favorites. I got spoiled. I bought a Tecsun PL680 (nearly identical to the popular PL660) as well as a PL-880. Later I picked up the smaller PL-310ET as a travel radio. And along the way I learned a bit about what I will call "the Tecsun way". Much of this has to do with how the keypad and other tuning features are used for entering frequencies, accessing memories, etc. Let me run through some of the things I like. In later posts as I review radios I'm going to refer back to this stuff.
Tecsun radios have lot of memories - LOTS.
Thousands of presets on the PL-660 & PL-680, even more on the PL-880. Maybe that seems crazy, especially if you have one of the common "500 memory" radios floating around these days. But those little 500-memory buggers actually give you 100 for longwave (wasted for most of us), 100 for mediumwave (maybe useful), 100 for FM (almost certainly mostly wasted), 100 for AIR band (who know if this is too much or not enough?), and the biggest insult is only 100 for shortwave. That's the entire 28 MHz or so of spectrum, all SW bands, including SSB modes. To put it another way, if you think 100 is enough, you probably don't use memories at all.To make matters worse within each band those radios separate the memories into 10 per "page" - basically they want you to be able to do single button presses to recall memories, but you have to switch pages every 10 memories. And there is no other way to recall them.
Tecsuns - by contrast - give you vast amounts of memories, MOST of which are "all mode" memories that can be used for any frequency, any band, and they are usually in pages of 100 memories. That means you can actually put a ton of MWARA frequencies on one page, for example. Or if you're trying to learn Spanish, put a ton on a page.
To sum up this part - most radios force you to think about what's worth saving in memories, whereas a Tecsun gives you freedom to store and organize how YOU want.
Tecsun radios don't punish you for wanting to enter frequencies
Most of these little modern radios default to using the numeric keypad to recall memories. You want to tune in 5000 kHz? Press the "5" and you'll actually recall memory location 5 on whatever page you're on. To enter a frequency you have to hit a frequency button, THEN enter your frequency...and then hit the frequency button AGAIN. If you have found a list of frequencies in an old book or on the web and you want to enter them one by one, that's a lot of extra button pressing.
On a Tecsun, you can toggle the keypad AND tuning knob AND up/down slewing buttons to be used for memories or for frequency entry. In Frequency mode, you want to tune 5000, you just press 5-0-0-0. Done and done. Or spin the turning knob, or use the up/down buttons. If you want to work with memorized stations, a single press of that toggle button puts you in Memory mode - now the keypad recalls memories, but SO DOES THE TUNING KNOB! As you turn the knob it goes from one memory to the next - and so do the slewing buttons. On many modern portables if you had, say 50 memories to go through, you gotta press 0...then 1...then 2...then 3...and when you get up to 9, then you have to press "page" and 1 to go to the next page and then 0...then 1...then 2...then 3...and up through 9 on that page, then change pages again, and on and on. On a Tecsun? Put 'em all on one page and turn the knob.
Tecsun radios don't mute (and the nicer ones don't "detent")
On most modern portables, as you turn the tuning knob it sort of bumps. That is, it resists being turned, then your force overcomes the resistance and it clicks into the next position. This is called "detent" and it's a pain in the rear. Further, on these radios, as you are in between "clicks" or "bumps", the radio mutes itself.The combination of these two characteristics makes "band scanning" a MISERABLE process. Band scanning is pretty much what it sounds like - pick a band, and start turning the knob to move up or down the frequencies. Do it a a slow clip and listen hard and your ear can pick out faint signals that might be worth chasing. But on a radio where the knob has a detent and the radio mutes? Not happening.
Note, it's the nicer Tecsuns that do better here - the PL-660, PL-680, and PL-880. The small units like the PL-310ET and PL-380 have pretty bad detents.
So is there a problem, officer?
It depends. Newer radios do have some pretty nice features. A bunch of them have AIR band, which Tecsun used to care about but which they seem to have abandoned in newer models. Other radios have RDS, a nice feature that shows digital information with FM stations. These little DSP models have lots of selectable bandwidths which can be nice. The Tecsun PL-880 was designed around a DSP chip and has SOME of these features but it didn't implement them all, and in some respects it even stepped backwards from the PL-660 and PL-680.
Still, from an ergonomic (usability) standpoint, I consider Tecsuns to be the gold standard. Models from XHData, Digitech, C. Crane and others need to take some lessons here.
