I improved my D-808 receiver. I removed the magnetic antenna and made the input external on long and medium waves. On all bands the telescopic antenna works perfectly. https://cloud.mail.ru/public/8MpN/5KEdTSpDo About SSB: I think that this receiver is better than the [Tecsun] PL-880 and comparable to the PL-660. I) Amidon 7.5” x .5” ferrite rod, part no. R61-050-750 (MW model) OR part no. R33-050-750 (LW Model), available at http://www.amidoncorp.com/rods-and-tiles/ I tried to remake the input circuit, but there were difficulties with the exact matching of the tuning frequencies and everything was returned to the factory state. 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.

FM stereo / MW / LW/ SW SSB and Air Band radio with high sensitivity, good selectivity, and user-operation friendly LW is poor, better than the PL-660 but still poor, Good on MW and Very good on SW. I hate the soft muting. It is a noisier radio than the PL-660 which is less fatiguing. But due to the differences in the audio/speaker sometimes the D-808 can be more intelligible on weak signals than the PL-880 or PL-660 and even the S8800.

Display/Backlight

The XHDATA D-808 bandwidth filters seem to have excellent characteristics – AM/SW selectivity seems very good while maintaining good high frequency response at all but the very narrowest settings which allow great selectivity and sensitivity for signals at the threshold of audibility. FM selectivity is excellent and on par with the best of today’s DSP FM portables. I was impressed with the sensitivity of the 808, large speaker, and inclusion of AIR band, though I noticed some digital artifacts and agree with negatives such as slight soft muting and chuffing, and slowness of the processor.

What we can glean from all this? It is apparent that XHDATA has been evolving the D-808 over the past few years which seems to be very common today…many radio models undergo internal changes, some of which change performance in ways good or bad. Usually these are cost-saving measures or they may reflect changing parts availability. For whatever reasons, the D-808 has been modified at least twice since its introduction in 2018. It is interesting to note that the interim 2022 version which still had those adjustable coils had a slight volume reduction on AM but it also had that residual hiss, while the newest 2023 version gets rid of this hiss at the expense of another slight reduction in reserve gain. Yet on SW there is a ton of reserve volume which makes me wonder if an internal programming adjustment might be able to increase the gain on AM to match that on SW. If they can do that everyone will be happy, but for the type of listening I do the D-808 remains a great radio for the price and I still recommend it. I’m wondering if other D-808 owners reading this have anything to comment on the legibility of their LCD panels, as I’m not sure if mine was fitted with a mediocre digital display or the poor contrast is the norm. I’m thinking of requesting for an exchange within the first 30 days’ warranty period but the rest of the radio is fine. 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. I found the antenna quite stiff to extend. Lubrication did not help. In earlier versions of the radio, this contributed to antenna failure. What a brilliant, detailed assessment of the D-808! Thank you so much for sharing this! I’m absolutely jealous of your North Sea listening location–looks to be idyllic!

Verdict

The PL-660 is poor on LW and Deaf on MW great on SW and has great Sync Detection I wish other radios had, the wider filters can be an issue with SW DX’ing but changing to LSB/USB can make all the difference. The PL-880 has the dreaded distortion on SSB which can be annoying, on the D-808 it’s hardly noticeable. The S-8800 suffers the same on SSB.

Refer to the photo below. Using the flat Jeweler’s screwdriver, once all of the glue bonds have been broken and the ferrite rod is loose in its slot, lift the ferrite rod out of its slot on one side by prying up under the plastic cover on the end of the ferrite rod. Ensure that the Litz wire leads have either been cut or desoldered from the circuit board, then grasp the ferrite rod with your fingers and pull it completely out of the slot with a slight twisting motion. Tecsun started providing this on small receivers years ago, and in the PL-880, the excellent though flawed portable that also took the listening world by storm, and in the recent 330, 990x and 501x. 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. What about single sideband? These four videos show reception in AM mode only, but rest assured the D-808 is very capable on the SSB modes of LSB and USB! A separate fine tuning rotary wheel on the right side of the radio’s case offers adjustment in 10 Hertz increments. The effect feels very similar to tuning CountyComm’s GP-5/SSB “walkie-talkie” style receiver. The plus or minus (+/-) offset is displayed in multiples of 10 Hz steps as “-1”, “-2”, “-3”, and so on. Soft mute. The dreaded soft mute is present in AM and SSB mode to some degree, but I do not feel it is excessive. Like most radio hobbyists I’m not a fan of soft muting and prefer uninterrupted tuning with no sign of “chuffing” or lowering of noise or audio. The amount of soft mute on this radio seems the same as the Eton Executive Satellit in my opinion.

Performance

Radio Waves: SWL Contest, Shortwave Modernization Concerns, Still Need AM, and ARRL Asks for Comments on 60M Rulemaking Shortwave Single Side Band (SSB) minimum step is 1 kHz, Upper Side Band (USB) and Lower Side Band (LSB) reception independent As mentioned above, signals can increase quite a bit in very close proximity to the water. When conditions were good, I’ve witnessed occasional overloading even with just the whip antenna on the PL-660 there. But the Tecsun has a 3-position sensitivity switch that first turns off the input amplifier and then adds an attenuator, so it can manage these situations by turning off the preamp and it happily digests signals from full size dipoles, long wires and active antennas with the built-in attenuator in the signal path.