Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
The PL-660 has 2 (I think unspecified) ceramic IF filters for SW, which are doing a good job serving 90% of all typical purposes for such a radio. The D-808 on the other hand utlizes the DSP for IF filtering and offers whopping 11 different bandwidths (6 on AM and 6 for SSB), this is even more than the PL-880! This sold the D-808 to me the most, for example I like to improve my very poor CW listening skills every so often, and always having an even narrower filter up the sleeve can save otherwise hopeless DX reception in the ham and broadcast bands. But are they any good?
Charging it from a USB charger or laptop USB port introduces some additional noise on AM/SW of course, trying a cheap power bank worked out much better in this regard. There is much room for improvement though – for example the slightly borked control of the DSP, the chuffing/tuning and AGC issues on SSB let the D-808 miss the title “most stunning cheap little radio ever” by a hair.
to allow FM and AM station to be saved to the keypad and accessed without having to select either AM or FM beforehand (a function of the 7600D). Using the D-808 again after a few years reminded me that this little China-made receiver offers no less than SEVEN bandwidths, in AM mode. Let me say that again: SEVEN (7) bandwidths. Although the XHDATA D-808 is styled differently than the Skywave and is a bit larger, it is based on the same Silicon labs Si4735 DSP Chip, which is used in many radios including the popular C. Crane Skywave SSB, Eton Satellit and Traveler III. And while the D-808 eliminates the NOAA Weather Band of the Skywave radios (since that is a US-service it would make no sense in a radio not intended for the US market), there were a few enhancements which elevate the D-808’s performance up a notch – RDS on FM along with better sound quality and slightly better AM sensitivity. The primary reason for the superior AM is the D-808’s 3 7/8” ferrite rod antenna versus the 2 ¾” ferrite in the Skywave radios…this larger ferrite rod easily accounts for the difference I hear. The review states the PL-660 doesn’t save bandwidth and other settings when storing in memory. Mine does. It stores USB/LSB, bandwidth and even Sync settings. Maybe this happened with later firmware versions.
The manual says the radio has ATS, but says nothing about what ATS is, or how it works. The manual talks about SSB, USB and LSB, but never says what those letters stand for, nor does it explain how to tune SSB. “In SSB mode, rotate the fine tuning knob to adjust the level of fine tuning” doesn’t tell the user anything useful. It’s doubtful that XHDATA or some other manufacturer will consider competing directly with Tecsun and Sangean. But the D-808 carved out a place for itself in the small portable category, at an extremely competitive price point. In addition, the R-108 includes longwave frequencies. Something I know will please a number of our readers.Taking all this in consideration, I rate it "O.K.". For a good rating it would have to be good, e.g. offering good reception also on MW, LW and AIR bands. What I love about this particular one is the size. It’s almost similar to one of the popular tecsun shortwave. For anyone interested making a LW induction antenna as shown above, here is a link to a video that has basic instructions & further results. It may be a very simple build & finish what I did, but for me the most important thing is that it works.
Then I got the 2023 version which deletes the variable coils and replaces them with fixed chip inductors. The new model now has a USB C port but otherwise looks like the 2022 version. The loss of reserve volume on AM was slightly greater than on the 2022 version although on some signals at the top of the AM band the difference was slightly less. I could no longer describe it as subtle…it’s clearly quieter on faint signals. I must add however that I could hear everything on the new radio I could hear on the older one but at reduced volume although I suppose if a trace of weak carrier was just barely detectable on the original model it might not be there at all on the newest one but that would be a very faint trace of a carrier…not any kind of listenable signal. I should also say that for slightly stronger listenable signals there was always enough reserve volume to drive the radio into distortion, so it appears this reduction of reserve volume is of more importance to the faint signal DXer than to the program listener. Yes, the original model is preferable but the difference won’t affect you unless you like to chase down very weak signals. On the other hand, tuning through the bands is a pain. Every tuning step mutes the receiver for some tenth of a second. This is nothing I want to see in a radio of the 21st century. Pressing a button gives a "brrp" sound in the speaker. Not very nice.is an identifier on key 5, similar to a number keypad, making it easier to select a particular number key and preset station. Absolutely amazing! Thank you for taking the time to put this procedure together and describing the process in such fine detail, Gary! Hats off to you! I acquired the D808. The original battery or XHDATA 2000ma battery was at two bar mark instead of three bar full charge level. Recharged it. After using the radio.for a few hours for around two days the battery level has gone to two bar level. It is more than a week it remains at that level . I measured the current consumption when the radio is at sleep mode. On the 20ma range it showed 0.12ma. Quite a reasonable consumption. Even after seven nights, it is at two bar level. Not completely drained as experienced by some of our users.
The Antenna input on the S-8800 also works on LW/MW but does not disconnect the internal ferrite but once you’re aware of it it greatly improves lw/mw/sw with my Bonito MA205 Whip. Solution 1: Use a battery operated headphone amp. Keeping the volume on radio to moderate/high use the volume on headphone amp to reach desired level. This will completely eliminate the noise. This works because the audio signal to noise ratio increases so much with moderate volume that when you reduce the audio through the amp the noise levels become absolutely inaudible. I use FiiO Q1 amp which has a digitally stepping volume control which eliminates any stereo channel imbalance at low volume. This imbalance issue is also there in d808 because it has analog potentiometer vol. control.The D-808 is a sensitivity monster on SW. With very weak and fading signals it has a slight edge on the PL-660. But if I can get the sync to engage without screeching the PL-660 can on occasions better the D-808 on this score. The D-808 really is good here. The audio is very intelligible with weak signals. The manual claims that the D-808 can’t be charged when it’s on but I found that’s not quite true–it sure takes much more time but I could top off a slightly discharged battery just fine. The portable radio manufacturing industry has changed pretty dramatically over the past few years as much of the advanced technology used by foreign companies in their radio factories in China has been “appropriated” (to use a generous term) by new Chinese competitors. Without getting into the political ramifications of such behavior the obvious fact in the 2021 portable radio market is that all of the top competitors in this Shootout come from factories in China, and four of the five have Chinese name brands. For those who feel uneasy about this rampant copying of foreign technology the American-designed C. Crane Skywave is still available, although even it is still manufactured in Shenzhen, China—the nerve center of such copying. If your new review has not been Approved after several days you can assume that it was found to not be within the product review T's&C's shown below during screening. The D-808 is at least as sensitive as my Alinco DJ-X11 scanner and skunks the rather deaf Tecsun in this band. Unlike the PL-660 and most other small receivers covering that band it has a squelch, which is by the way active on all bands.
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