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In Europe, the PL-600 is only available at some dealers. You can have it sent by EBay from Chinese dealers; that is what I did. For ca. 70 US Dollars, you get a receiver which fulfills almost every desire of a radio listener. The only thing that is missing is a synchronous detector for AM reception. Everything else is fine.
How is reception? Just like all portable radios, the PL-600 suffers from the" strong signal virus". In Europe, you have to be careful when operating the radio with an external antenna. Not every received signal is a" real" one! Fortunately though, the PL-600 has more good than bad sides! I compared this receiver to the Degen1106. By and large, both radios have the same sensitivity and almost the same selectivity. Early in the morning, I could receive Radio Rebelde on 5025 kHz with both radios with the same signal strength. As far as signal processing is concerned, the Degen DE1106 was more flexible and with its synchronous detector, this receiver could suppress a RTTY-signal in the lower sideband. With the PL-600 you could understand the program, but the RTTY-signal could be heard well at the same time and interfered with the other signal. It was no use switching to SSB to receive the station in "ECSS", because the PL-600 is not suitable for this trick, the audio is not clean. What I really liked, is the noise-free tuning with the VFO button, which also has a smooth feel to it. DXing with the PL-600 is limited and only possible, when there are no interfering stations nearby. Around 4 a.m., I could even receive Radio Clube do Para from Brazil and with the telescopic antenna at that. But nonetheless, the PL-600 reached its limit, because the AM- signals in SSB were audible rather poorly. The DE1106 worked very well, on the other hand! FM works very well: high selectivity and very good audio with the loudspeaker and even better with the headphones. For its prize, you really get a very good world receiver, which is also convincing in its constructional quality.
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