First Impressions: Zhiwhis ZWS-C919

I picked the Zhiwhis ZWS-C919 out of the 4 available brands, because it had best sale price on Amazon (and a little because Zhiwhis bought some good will by offering to send me a free updated version of the ZWS-603).

HanRongDa is the OEM manufacturer for all the branded versions, and today they seem to all have the same firmware and accessories. Raddy, however, has the best manual, but that’s not a deciding factor since they make it available online for free. All the ones I checked online also are advertised as having latest 1.71 firmware (mine ended up with 1.723).

Please keep in mind that these are first impressions. I may not be using some features right and I might not understand some things. I could change my mind. I’m going to mention comparisons to the Tecsun PL-990 throughout this post because it happened to be nearby and as my other higher-priced upper-tier radio, I intend to make more comparisons in the future.

Unboxing

I don’t have much to day about unboxing beyond the fact that the radio shipped in its zipper case and everything was well packaged. The photos will speak for themselves:

First Impressions

Paul (OM0ET) said in his video that the radio was not portable. I might not go that far, since it comes with a shoulder strap and a carry case, but it’s not going into the luggage on my next vacation.

I was expecting a big radio, but my first impression was not how big it is, but that it made the Tecsun PL-990 on the desk next to it look bigger:

Also I expected to be bowled over by how long the antenna is, and it is quite long, a towering 98 cm, but the PL-990 antenna is exactly the same length, although not as thick and strong.

The first negative appeared when I went to turn the radio on: I didn’t remember how to turn it on. I bet most readers could tell me right off the bat how to turn on the PL-990 in the picture above. On the C919, it’s the small SLEEP button, up and to the right of the large tuning knob. The radio came with batteries installed, so the lock button set to prevent the radio from accidentally being turned on (I spotted that immediately).

Also the 8 bands can’t be simply switched by pressing the Radio Band button — that only gives MW, LW, SW and FM. Weather band, CB, UHF and VHF are under a separate UHF/VHF button, even though CB overlays the SW band. There is a SUB BAND button that does different things on different bands. It picks the start frequency and step (9 / 10 kHz) for MW; it picks the start for FM. It also picks national free communications bands for various parts of the world, including 460 MHz somewhere near the start of FRS/GMRS in the United States.

The second negatives relate to the antennas up top. While the photo above shows the installed AM antenna as level, that’s because I pushed it down very firmly. As soon as I tried rotating it, it leaned to one side. I presume it’s a manufacturing defect. I tried one of my GMRS radio antennas in the SMA slot, and first thought it didn’t fit, but it just had to be pushed in with some force and firmly rotated to install it. A little more clearance would have been appreciated.

I noticed that the antenna selector switch on the back felt good to operate, unlike the observation from one of the reviewers. He just had a bad one, or I have an updated model.

The first disappointment was calibration. While setting up the photo, I accidentally turned on the PL-990. It came on already in USB mode and tuned to WJHR, 15555 kHz in Milton Florida. It was a strong signal. What I noticed was that I was tuned exactly to the scheduled frequency and the signal clarity was top notch. When I tuned the same station on the C919, it was Donald Duck. I had to tune about 300 Hz off channel to clarify it and it didn’t sound as good as the PL-990. This is a very preliminary first impression, but I expected much better.

I also would have preferred a volume wheel instead of just buttons. I love the buttons though. They’re big, easy to read and so far utterly reliable. The Tecsuns don’t excel with their buttons.

The Morse Code tones when the radio comes on and goes off are annoying and pretentious. Later versions of the firmware allow shutting them off, which I will.

I was expecting the tuning knob to be a plus, but it is not for me. I have big hands (I wear XL gloves) and the tuning knob doesn’t fit me. There is an outer wheel with a scoop out for a finger so that the radio can be turned quickly with the finger. My finger doesn’t exactly fit and as it moves around the dial the finger catches on the inner fine tuning knob that is too big and sticks out too far. I’m not saying the knob will be a problem for everyone, but it doesn’t work well for me.

Direct frequency entry requires prefixing every entry with the EN button and then following with another press of EN. Totally unnecessary, but lots of radios require it.

The carry case seems nice and provides room for some accessories.

Radio-C / Radio-CT

One of the big deals about this series of radios, the Zhiwhis ZWS-C919,HanRongDa HRD-757, Raddy RF75A and others I don’t have, is that they may be app controlled. Bluetooth pairing is simple and one nice feature is the ability to automatically set the radio’s clock to local time using the phone’s clock. The app can also initiate recording. The apps have a fairly uniform appearance, but make small allowances for the difference in radio features. The display expands on what can be displayed, such as the file name of an MP3 file being played.

Aesthetics

I can take or leave the military design echoes, but the case is all too shiny for something with a military green color. The photos didn’t pick up the shininess. Also the red spot in the center of the speaker is to me tacky.

Things to test

If I recall correctly, Jay Allen in his review said that the antenna tuner, a knob on the upper right side of the radio, did nothing. He didn’t know if it was defective or ineffective. I’ll be interested in comparing the internal MW antenna with the supplied external one. Perhaps I should do two runs of the Daytime Band Scan.

Does it detect weather alerts?

The elephant in the testing room is antennas: internal plus 3 external. How well does the antenna tuner work.

Interesting Features

The radio has 8 bands: LW, MW, SW, CB, AIR, Weather, VHF and UHF. This parallels the 8 bands on the Raddy RF760, only substituting LW for its “user defined band.” LW on the RF760 exists as an extension onto the MW band when an external antenna is attached. That’s one radio I’m using to anchor the new info on the ZWS-C919, but I must say the the C919 doesn’t seem all that complicated on the surface. The complication comes in things like switching in and out the Low Pass Filter and the Low Noise Amplifier.

One feature that I routinely ignore on a radio is its equalizer profiles. One reason I do that is that on most radios, it only applies to MP3 playback, but in this case it works with the radio, giving something to fool around with to improve clarity. The classical music profile works great on classical music.

I’ll need to learn more about the settings

Physical Factors

The built-in stand makes it extremely stable. The inability to extend the telescopic antenna into a fully vertical position when the radio rests on its stand is a negative. This isn’t an unusual problem.

The Sound

I expected to focus on that, but didn’t on my first impression session. FM music from the local classical station sounded good and when using the Classical Music equalization profile, the low bass from plucked strings was clear. I quickly turned on my PL-990 that I previously considered my best music speaker; I think the C919 is clearly better. It can be turned up quite loud, but with some distortion.

Questions

These will come and hopefully be answered.

1. Is it possible to display the firmware version? [Yes, but it requires the Radio-C / Radio-CT app. Mine has firmware v1.723.]
2. Can the radio be calibrated?
3. Can the thermometer display degrees Fahrenheit?

Finding Its Place

I have other radios that venture into the UHF/VHF range. I don’t usually go there. I have radios with weather and air band in abundance. I have better radios for SSB. The C-919 doesn’t have RDS/RBDS. It does have very good sound, making it a candidate not only for listening to FM music stations, but playing MP3 files and sounds from other radios via the supplied AUX cable.

It remains to be seen how good it is on SW, FM and MW — on all the bands for that matter. The antenna tuner could be a breakthrough on MW [Update: It isn’t.]– something I don’t listen to much now.

I’m primarily a broadcast band listener so it’s convenient for me for ATS scans on a radio to only cover the SW broadcast bands. The C919 covers the entire SW spectrum and what takes a couple of minutes on some of my portables takes 15 minutes on the C919.

We’ll see where it ends up.

Update: Second Impression

This thing is very complicated and I am spending far more time trying to manage the 6 antennas and 4 antenna controls, high and low pass filters, low noise amplifiers plus all the settings, than I am listening to radio.