XHDATA D-808
Posted: 20 Jan 2019 09:42
My latest addition to the pocket radios is the XHDATA D-808.
It's a very interesting radio, and probably one I'd bring with me on a trip.
FM Reception: 9/10. Very good reception, and FM is stereo via the earphone jack.
RDS Display: yes ! Very nice addition.
MW Reception: 8/10. Quite sensitive, but maybe not as good as my Tecsun PL-380.
LW Reception: 7/10. A lot of people have complained that this radio is deaf in LW. I'm not experiencing this problem although the reception is
not as good as, let's say, the PL-380. Anyway, I'm receiving the main stations here in Belgium: RTL, Europe1 and BBC even though it's weak.
SW Reception: 8/10. Will pull a lot of stations.
Air Band: 7/10. I can hear a lot of traffic around my place and I'm located several dozens of kilometers from the nearest airport. Not bad.
HF Amateur bands: 6/10. will cover all the HF amateur bands, and includes an SSB mode. However, I find it not that easy to use compared to the Degen 1103, for example. Fine tuning an SSB signal is just slow. Also, it exhibits some distortion when a ssb signal is first received. The Degen 1103 beats it hands down on this point.
VHF/UHF Amateur bands: n/a
CB Band: yes
Rechargeable Battery: Use a rechargeable 18650 battery. Not so common as AA or AAA batteries, which I'd prefer. Battery life seems to be good but I didn't fully test it.
Speaker sound quality: 7/10. Not good, not bad, just what you'd expect from a pocket radio. A tad more bassy than the PL-380.
Ease of use: 7/10. Things could be better on this side, but it's not that bad. The thing which sucks the most is the preset pages. Really awkward.
Preset memories: 7/10. Lots of space to store the stations. But you have to store the presets in a particular "page". Not very straightforward.
MP3 Player: n/a
Bluetooth: n/a
Aux input: n/a
Solar panel: n/a
Record on SD card: n/a
My last thoughts:
I warmly recommend this radio, for those who :
- Want a good DX pocket machine
- Want to listen to amateur bands in SSB
- Want to see FM RDS data
- Want a very good FM/AM/SW radio
Things I don't like:
- Usability is not at its peak. SSB mode sucks a little bit.
- Very slow when switching bands (and when switching from normal mode to ssb mode) and when switching presets, sound does not come straight away.
- Uses a "banks" system for the stations presets which sucks a little bit. So, the first 10 stations are stored in bank "a". Stations 11-20 are stored in bank "b" and so on. You'll have to select the bank before being able to select the preset, which is *very* annoying. This is almost a show stopper. being a digital radio, what I was expecting was an easy to use presets memory system. This is not the case ...
This has been fixed in the Radiwow R-108 (but this radio lacks the SSB mode, and is less sensitive).
It's a very interesting radio, and probably one I'd bring with me on a trip.
FM Reception: 9/10. Very good reception, and FM is stereo via the earphone jack.
RDS Display: yes ! Very nice addition.
MW Reception: 8/10. Quite sensitive, but maybe not as good as my Tecsun PL-380.
LW Reception: 7/10. A lot of people have complained that this radio is deaf in LW. I'm not experiencing this problem although the reception is
not as good as, let's say, the PL-380. Anyway, I'm receiving the main stations here in Belgium: RTL, Europe1 and BBC even though it's weak.
SW Reception: 8/10. Will pull a lot of stations.
Air Band: 7/10. I can hear a lot of traffic around my place and I'm located several dozens of kilometers from the nearest airport. Not bad.
HF Amateur bands: 6/10. will cover all the HF amateur bands, and includes an SSB mode. However, I find it not that easy to use compared to the Degen 1103, for example. Fine tuning an SSB signal is just slow. Also, it exhibits some distortion when a ssb signal is first received. The Degen 1103 beats it hands down on this point.
VHF/UHF Amateur bands: n/a
CB Band: yes
Rechargeable Battery: Use a rechargeable 18650 battery. Not so common as AA or AAA batteries, which I'd prefer. Battery life seems to be good but I didn't fully test it.
Speaker sound quality: 7/10. Not good, not bad, just what you'd expect from a pocket radio. A tad more bassy than the PL-380.
Ease of use: 7/10. Things could be better on this side, but it's not that bad. The thing which sucks the most is the preset pages. Really awkward.
Preset memories: 7/10. Lots of space to store the stations. But you have to store the presets in a particular "page". Not very straightforward.
MP3 Player: n/a
Bluetooth: n/a
Aux input: n/a
Solar panel: n/a
Record on SD card: n/a
My last thoughts:
I warmly recommend this radio, for those who :
- Want a good DX pocket machine
- Want to listen to amateur bands in SSB
- Want to see FM RDS data
- Want a very good FM/AM/SW radio
Things I don't like:
- Usability is not at its peak. SSB mode sucks a little bit.
- Very slow when switching bands (and when switching from normal mode to ssb mode) and when switching presets, sound does not come straight away.
- Uses a "banks" system for the stations presets which sucks a little bit. So, the first 10 stations are stored in bank "a". Stations 11-20 are stored in bank "b" and so on. You'll have to select the bank before being able to select the preset, which is *very* annoying. This is almost a show stopper. being a digital radio, what I was expecting was an easy to use presets memory system. This is not the case ...
This has been fixed in the Radiwow R-108 (but this radio lacks the SSB mode, and is less sensitive).
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