The new pl 600 is the shizzle its just a great radio,but this ETMS on the pl 390 is way useful.
I used to have to do pan scans in segments on expensive radios to see who was on air.
With ETMS it scans the entire SW spectrum and stores all active signals
SW Ping
How much is it?
What is etms? I’ve got a couple of those hand crank emergency SW/AM/FM receivers. One of them also has the GMRS/FRS transmitter in it. But I’m not familiar with etms.
Thanks.
Old Ham bump
Gotta have my CW. Sure, I have to crank the volume and run it through a processor and shift it into my frequency range, but I want to hear it.
I do pretty well with morse code for an old deaf guy. ;)
/johnny
Good AM reception? Love my Super Radio but size and analog.
I have yet to find as good a SW receiver like my 25 year old Sony ICF-SW1. As I got all the accessories like powered antenna, hard case &c with it, was pretty expensive in it’s day.
If you re-scan, will it erase the stored signals? I’m wondering because, as you know, reception on a given freq varies with weather and time. It’d be nice if it had several different storage banks to account for that.
The signal strength meter is also accurate over about an 80 dB range +- 1 dB (compared with the attenuator/signal from an HP 8640B sig gen) ... for anybody making FS (field strength) measurements, and with a little work, an antenna factor could be worked up and the radio would then be a portable FS meter ...
I have the silver version of the PL-390. For anyone who may have experienced freezing problems, below is a review I wrote on Amazon.
I was really digging the PL-390 radio until I also encountered freezing problems. I played with the different settings trying to see if anything could be causing the freezing. Finally success came with turning off the “charging function” of the radio (with the radio power turned off, press and hold the “M” button until can see “CHR OFF” on the lcd screen display). Overall this has pretty much eliminated the freezing of this radio. I did experience freezing once so far when I powered on the radio, but once I pressed the power button to turn off the radio, then pressed the power button again it successfully turned on the radio without having to remove the batteries. At this time I am still experimenting with this solution, but want to pass this information on to everyone.
UPDATE: (Oct. 11, 2013) Usually when my radio is left overnight, it would freeze in the morning, and would need to have it’s batteries removed and reinserted again before it will work again. This is the first morning it did not freeze and it works perfectly. As mentioned earlier about my experience with my radio freezing the one time after changing the “charge function” to off, it may have been due to an internal switching from “on” to “off” that initially caused a glitch. Once it made the switch, I did not experience any more freezing with my radio. Since I use rechargeable batteries, the downside is now the “battery indicator” meter will not accurately tell me the state of the batteries. So I just ignore the battery meter and my radio is working just fine.
UPDATE: (Oct. 12, 2013) So far so good, have experienced no more freezing. The PL-390 is the main radio I listen to in FM. It receives the stations with no problems, and I also use an external wire antenna (I use a wire antenna from another radio, but this one comes with one). The sounds from the two speakers are nice and easy to listen to, but there is no tone control switch on the radio. It is not a boom box, I keep the volumes between 8-12 (the volume dial is rotated in increments and a volume number is displayed on the lcd screen) which is equivalent to modest to medium levels (don’t want the risk of blowing out these nice small speakers). The two speakers “stereo effects” for what it is works in a small way, but it is pleasing. The sounds from the speakers is fine for the bedroom or smaller spaces. To tune into stations, I just use the keypad, I do not use the memory settings. The battery compartment can accomodate larger sized AA batteries (the other radios I have that have tight fitting battery compartments, I use the Sanyo AA batteries, they are the right size and works great).