One of my experimental projects over the holiday period was to design a breakthrough "travel portable," with unsurpassed sensitivity, selectivity and portability in the hand-held class. This was the new 3" Bar FSL Tecsun PL-380 model, using a lightweight, hard-wired 3" diameter FSL antenna in place of the stock loopstick. The radio's Si4734 DSP chip tunes the highly sensitive antenna, resulting in breakthrough sensitivity in the portable class. A photo of the new model is posted at https://app.box.com/s/bpv03wvwpjbicvytw9euicg1hellda3g 

 

This morning I had the chance to test out the new "science fiction PL-380" in actual TP-DXing, with potent signals from both 1566-HLAZ and 1593-CNR1 during sunrise enhancement around 1545. As a stand-alone portable this hand-held model provided signal quality approaching that of mid-size external FSL antennas-- quite a thrill for a quirky designer of souped-up DXing portables.

 

1593  CNR1   Changzhou, China   Male Chinese speech with S9 peaks at 1546

https://app.box.com/s/snf3u79zi1x5zn49sbfx0gb5tdksxt0z 

 

1566  HLAZ   Jeju, S. Korea   Chinese Christian music with S7 peaks at 1550

https://app.box.com/s/2aqv1067anay5xs3ici9za76fg2fhx42 

 

73 and Good DX,

Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)

3" Bar FSL Tecsun PL-380 Ultralight (hand-held and "barefoot")

(Design photo at https://app.box.com/s/my5xc5sberwuom5w7fir8qfsjr39yiqf )