I initially considered this radio and its evil Digitech twin from Australia, but the subsequent reviews leave me less than enthused. As this was not an exhaustive retro review of the D-808, I have not gone into the various negatives that every D-808 owner knows to exist. Interestingly, strong signals often make the filter drop out (as described under “SSB reception”) as well. In the Digitech, I see 5 transformer cans – black white, blue, green, larger blue – with 5 associated trimmer caps (4 open-frame types, 1 small pink enclosed type), two loose-wound coils, and another associated trimmer cap (small ink enclosed type). I usually remember stuff like this, but when I first tried the D-808 in Florida back in 2018 I was more focused on assessing sensitivity, audio, and issues such as its pretty slow DSP response when changing modes.

loopstick Skywave model, but that only made me curious about how the same modification could enhance the D-808. And the latter was totally expected; what’s interesting about that is the XHDATA is actually _better_ assembled. XHDATA is (I guess) just one of many Chinese wholesalers and they initially did sell that radio in the US.Being noticeably better than the Tecsun, I then compared it to my old Grundig Satellit 400 (which has an average sensitivity on MW) and the D-808 matches its performance perfectly.

One difference is the coverage: the PL-660 can be switched to cover the Japanese FM band (76-108MHz) only, the D-808 covers the old OIRT band (64-108MHz) on top. It’s doubtful that XHDATA or some other manufacturer will consider competing directly with Tecsun and Sangean. That station occasionally hits the 9+60 mark on my SDR with a dipole and when they’re on, the D-808 has to be tuned far away from these bands or disconnected from the loop to stop the pumping, desensitizing and intermodulation products. Mind you, even if you’re in Europe there are not many stations anymore and the remaining ones are prone to get closed as well sooner or later.I received mine via their reseller in Peterborough near Manchester in less than 24 hours here in Düsseldorf,Germany. This entry was posted in New Products, News, Shortwave Radio and tagged D-808, XHDATA, XHDATA D-808, XHDATA D-808 Manual on December 16, 2017 by Thomas. Well…for those bemoaning the lack of a jack for an external LW/MW antenna, it looks to these old eyes that there is ample space to neatly install a 3. This entry was posted in Guest Posts, News, Portable Radio, Radios, Reviews, Shortwave Radio, Shortwave Radio Reviews and tagged D-808, Dan Robinson, Shortwave Radio Review, XHDATA, XHDATA D-808, XHDATA D-808 Review on May 3, 2021 by Thomas.

The D-808’s Si4735 DSP chip was initially used in the Eton Traveler III Ultralight radio model, which was fully reviewed in the 2015 Ultralight Radio Shootout (where it won top honors for MW sensitivity). The SSB mode operates very similar to that of the Skywave SSB in providing a quick check of carrier strength on weak AM band targets– the LSB mode can be set to +55, and the radio tuned to different frequencies to check fringe station carrier strength. The 660 is very nice to tune but the 808 is with some try outs good enough to tune on the right band and modulation. batteries have a very high energy density at a very low weight, and in the D-808 they meet a radio with a very moderate power consumption.My favorite of the three for SSB and ECSS operation on SW broadcasts is the Eton with its 10 Hz resolution. Just to see what happens, I took the D-808 from a very warm apartment into cold (-5°C/28F) and stormy weather outside.