Blog or Die!

I recently bought and reviewed a portable SDR, a no-name clone of a Deepelec Malachite DeepSDR 101. While I didn’t like the radio, I liked the concept. It has the spectrum display where I can see nearby stations and compare signal strength, waterfall display, and high resolution tuning (1 Hz). My review explains how this didn’t work out in practice on the version I bought.

Genuine radios of this genre have firmware updates and improve over time. The one I bought wasn’t genuine; software is primitive, firmware upgrades don’t work, plus the hardware (MCU, RAM, filtering) are bottom of the line, and documentation is sparse.

There are, however, better, legit, licensed portable SDRs that have features like quick access to settings through the touch screen, separate knobs for volume and tuning, noise limiters, working AGC, filtering, firmware upgrades and less overload. When I looked toward buying something better, I had sticker shock, finding radical price inconsistencies, for example two Amazon sellers with one more than double the price of the other.

What You See Is What You Get

First, obviously, it is an SDR with a spectrum display of 192 kHz and a waterfall. Frequency is displayed to a precision of 1 Hz

Most radios have settings buried in menus or underneath buttons. That’s not the case here. There are only two functions off the main screen and they are a numeric keypad for entering the frequency and one for entering the date and time. There are no hidden options or settings. Perhaps that is why the Quick Start Guide just details the display and the connectors on the sides.

Surprise

The earliest projected delivery date was a week from today, but there it was in my mailbox. It arrived in a plain cardboard box that opened up to reveal:

After weather delays, my shiny new red Sunflash RD-666 receiver / music player is finally in my hands. I bought it at TEMU for $14.73, delivered. Woo hoo!

This is a semi-blind experiment, to try something new after bypassing the new Tecsun PL-520 and MLite-880 SDR. The price from Banggood is $72.99 including shipping, plus tax. They’re also available on Amazon for (gasp) $150 plus tax.

There’s been quite a stir with questions on social media about a new radio model from Tecsun, the PL-520. At first glance, it looks like a PL-330 with rounder corners, gray instead of black.

If at first you don’t succeed, order, order again.

After returning the QFX R-333BT that I paid around $30 for because it was defective, I looked around on TEMU to reorder what I hoped to be a fully working model and came across a very similar device, the only visible difference, the words X-BASS on the speakers and no “disco lights” in the front. With some mystery special discount, plus tax and shipping, this one came in at $14.73. So what I expect, for half the money, is the same radio less the disco lights, one that actually receives MW. The seller said they were “almost out.”

I reordered because I thought the speaker, at first listen, sounded exceptional. I still have to decide how to charge the thing.

Delivery expected delivery: January 23-30. [Update: delivery delay be because of weather. 1/31/26]