Hi Gary
Perhaps the new 380s have the
new Ver40 firmware. You would have to strip it down and remove the RF shield
from the Si4734 to read the top of the chip to find out. Are the filter
selections the same?
Roy.
--- In ultralightdx@yahoogroups.com, D1028Gary@...
wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
> For those interested in
whether the newer PL-380 models have the irritating
> "soft mute"
function disabled or not, a recent shipment from Joyce at
> "Anon-co"
may be of interest.
>
> For experimentation (and for forwarding
to other DXers), three PL-380's
> were ordered from Joyce on December
29th. She kindly upgraded the shipping to
> EMS (express mail) at no
additional charge, so that the radios were
> received today.
>
> All three of the PL-380's were manufactured in December, and all have
two
> screws in the battery compartment. The serial numbers are also
similar:
>
> 36920091200993
> 36920091200998
>
36920091201009
>
> All three were tested against a soft
mute-enabled PL-310, to see if there
> was any difference in the soft
mute perf ormance. Similar to the other two
> PL-380 models here,
tuning the new PL-380 models 1 kHz up or down from a
> weak station's
frequency did result in a reduction of signal strength, but it
> was a
moderate reduction, not the very steep drop off in audio like on the
>
PL-310. This was with the DSP filtering set at 1 kHz (typical in TP-DXing).
> The PL-380's were also checked for intermittent signal drop out
during
> weak station reception, but did not have this soft
mute-related issue, either.
>
> Whereas one of the first two
PL-380's received here had instability on the
> SW bands (with
intermittent oscillations, as reported in the PL-380
> review), all of
the three new PL-380's have stable SW reception. One of the new
>
models does have a tuning control which seems slightly stiff, however, and
> one new model seems to have slightly lower AM sensitivity than the
other two
> (I suspect a loopstick issue, which would make this model a
nice candidate
> for a transplant :-)
>
> In general,
there doesn't seem to be any real evidence yet that Tecsun is
>
changing the PL-380's to the full soft mute mode, but any DXer receiving
> one of the official "new models" is requested to notify the group
ASAP if
> soft mute changes are suspected.
>
> 73, Gary
DeBock (in Puyallup, WA)
>
