Blackswan73
Active Member
Who is this Tecsun company that has been building and selling shortwave radios that compare to high end radios of the 80’s and 90’s, and taking over the SWL community? Ten years ago this company was not even heard of, or was they? Formed in 1994, Tecsun was a little known company that R. L. Drake contracted to build a new generation portable shortwave radio for the 21st century. Drake, one of the most respected names in amateur radio, would design a high quality, portable shortwave radio that would change the concept of portable shortwave for years to come. Marketed in the US as the Grundig Satellit 800 Millennium, and built by a newcomer company in the radio industry called Tecsun, the 800 took the SWL community by storm. Dubbed a “Portatop” receiver, it was a cross between the portable shortwave radios of the time and the popular desktops. Tecsun was given permission by Drake to market the 800 overseas as the Tecsun Ham-2000. With the decline of shortwave sales in the first decade of the 21st century, Drake, along with several other long established companies, stopped producing shortwave receivers. Enter Tecsun. Already building radios under the Grundig,Eton, and Kaito names, in 2010, Tecsun introduced the PL-660, and took the SWL community by storm. Selling for a paltry $109, the PL-660 earned high marks from several well respected reviewers. The PL-660 introduced digital signal processing a feature heretofore only found on expensive top line receivers. Capitalizing on the success of the PL-660, Tecsun introduced a succession of new radios with more and more features and technological improvements, but with the heritage of the 800 evident. Today, Tecsun is one of the most respected names in shortwave receivers
B.S.
B.S.
