Zhiwhis ZWS-C919 Product Review – Part 2

Performance

MW/FM

The Daytime Band Scan had surprising results:

Given the nearly 1-meter long telescopic antenna, I fully expected superior FM performance, and I was not disappointed — it delivered a top scoring 88 stations, but given the radio’s size and price range, I was not expecting its mediocre MW performance. A teardown by ElectricBananas of the Zhiwhis ZWS-C919 (henceforth called the C919) showed a very long ferrite antenna nearly as long as the radio is wide, perhaps the longest loop of any radio I have. Nevertheless, it got only 15 stations.

I tried it with the included external MW loop antenna with no improvement in results; however, the Antenna Tuning knob did have some small effect with the external antenna, just not more stations. The external loop is the same size as the internal loop, by the way, so its only advantage would seem to be the ability to turn it instead of the radio.

I found a birdie at either 1700 or 1710 kHz, depending on the day. The following videos show stray artifacts on MW:

The Si4735-D60 chip supports FM RDS, but it is not implemented in this radio. I presume this has something to do with the display screen choices.

LW

Paul (OM0ET) has a video about LW on this radio, concluding that it works and is better with the external loop antenna than the internal loop. This is his video:

The radio in the video was set to turn on the loop antenna (switch on top) and the display showed “EXTERNAL” according to the narrative.

I, however, got nothing on LW, despite receiving LW on other radios. If you want to know more about my LW trials, keep reading, otherwise just skip to the next section. Perhaps Paul is receiving a much stronger station than my local non-directional beacons.

It appears that the only way to connect a LW antenna to the radio is through the jack at the top of the radio where the external loop goes. The manual clearly shows a mono 3.5mm plug (or the equivalent stereo plug with the sleeve and ring shorted together) with the signal at the tip.

The radio comes with a separate reference card about this showing standard mono phone plug wiring.:

Fine, but in reality the radio internally shorts the tip and ring together, meaning that any cable compliant with the manual shorts the antenna to ground and makes it useless. The radio should have been recalled in my opinion, but they didn’t fix it. It’s still broken a year later and the latest updated documentation is still wrong.

The external loop antenna supplied with the radio, unlike the documentation, is a stereo plug with the ring not connected, avoiding the issue.

I went outside to test LW. I got nothing on the internal antenna or the supplied loop antenna — no big surprise there because there aren’t any strong LW stations close by; however, using my 20 foot wire up a tree, I get a number of non-directional airport beacons on other radios, including MSQ about 43 miles from me broadcasting on 351 kHz with 25W.

Clipping the long wire to the telescopic antenna doesn’t work either. Standard products like a Sangean ANT-60 reel antenna have mono plugs and of course won’t work. It looks like a custom cable is required, so I built a custom cable, a stereo plug with the tip connected to one wire, the sleeve to another and the ring not connected. I clipped the 2o-foot wire up a tree to the tip side and a ground wire to the sleeve. I plugged it into the back external antenna jack and got nothing. I turned on the top jack and plugged my cable in fully expecting the beacon, but nothing, nada, zip. I pushed the antenna selector button, making sure it was set to external and loop. No signal. Nothing I tried worked.

I plugged the same cable into my Qodosen DX-286 and I got a strong signal.

I decided not to give up, but to try an alternative, an inductively coupled antenna. It’s a roll of wire connected on one end to the 2o-foot wire. This is what it looked like hooked up to the DX-286

Here’s something similar with the C919 — both with the internal loop and the external loop — and yes the external loop switch was on when testing that.

I did further testing with radios I have that allow external antennas on LW: Tecsun PL-330, PL-990, Si4732 Mini V1, Deepelec DP-666, Qodosen DX-286 and Raddy RF760. They all received the station with a strong signal except the RF760 that had a weak signal. Some radios also received the beacon with their internal antenna. But nothing I tried produced anything on the C919.

To make sure that LW wasn’t simply broken on my unit, I got out an RF signal generator and tuned it to 351 kHz. I hooked it up to a loopstick antenna and then positioned a Tecsun PL-330 about 5 feet away. It got the signal clearly with its internal loop antenna. The C919 barely received it buried in noise with its internal loop. So the conclusion is that the C919 is just grossly insensitive at 351 kHz. The ElectricBananas teardown shows a separate internal ferrite bar for LW, one that is much shorter than the one for MW. The supplied external loop antenna isn’t labeled for a band, but its inductance is 132μH according to the manual. The recommended inductance for an LW antenna according to the reference card is 2.2 mH (or 2200μH). Although Paul (OM0ET) found improvement using the external loop on LW, my signal generator experiment did not. The On/Off switch at the top of the radio made no difference, nor did switching the internal and external antennas.

I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that my radio is defective, and that perhaps the mediocre MW performance could be related.

Weather

Weather band picks up my local station, and had good reception on one distant one. This was with the telescopic antenna. I was able to start the scan for alerts, but there won’t be a test until next Wednesday and I won’t be here to test the radio on that day.

I also tried the radio using an ABBREE AR-771 GMRS antenna in the walkie talkie slot. One uses the antenna selector button to pick “WT ANT” and “INTERNAL”. It worked well.

C919 checks the box for weather.

Air

Air band worked well. I even got air traffic without an antenna extended. It appears that the telescopic antenna and the external jack on the back (since it’s electrically connected the same way as the telescopic) is the only antenna option for Air band. Pressing the Antenna Selector button doesn’t change the antenna display icon selection.

I also tried the squelch; setting it to “1” provided satisfactory performance on Air band except for one problem I’ve encountered with other radios as well: when the transmission ends, the radio rockets up the AGC looking for signal and the hiss gets nasty loud for a bit until the squelch kicks in.

It would be really cool if one of the displays turned on when the squelch threshold was reached but it doesn’t. The radio makes sounds but stays dark.

The squelch state seems to be band specific, so that it can be turned on for one band and off for another.

VHF/UHF

VHF and UHF are not within my area of expertise. The C919 is supposed to cover the frequency range up to 999 MHz. Given its performance on FM, Weather and GMRS, I expect it to work well in general.

This radio includes 20 – 30 MHz as part of the VHF band (as well as the SW band), making it possible to receive NFM on the 11m CB band; however, it is not possible to set the frequency step to 10 kHz on the VHF band, the spacing for CB channels.

UHF covers 250 – 999 MHz. Legally in the U. S., monitoring cellular traffic is prohibited, and manufacturers selling domestically must block those frequencies, specifically 824 – 849 and 869 – 894 MHz should be blocked in the case of the the C919. But it’s all encrypted these days. 🤖 Technically: The C919’s front‑end and DSP aren’t optimized for modern LTE / CDMA / GSM anyway, so even though the radio tunes those frequencies, you won’t decode intelligible cellular audio. At best you’d hear bursts of digital noise.

GMRS / Personal Radio Service (part of UHF)

The C919 knows about UHF personal radio services. It’s programmed for 3 of them, including GMRS / FRS in the US. Once tuned to UHF, a long press of the SUB BAND button displays a new version of the main screen showing a designated service (like “FRS USA”), a channel number, and a Squelch level. Either of the tuning knobs progresses through the channels the same way.

Repeated presses of the SUB BAND button access the personal radio service in other regions.

I don’t usually receive GMRS — nothing on the air, but I got lucky when tuned to a repeater on Channel 15 and I was able to get some traffic. I got this with the antenna retracted. I also got it with a dedicated GMRS antenna in the Walkie Talkie antenna jack.

CB Band

Just about everything that could go wrong is represented in the design of the CB Band.

CB consists of 40 standard channels (26.965–27.405 MHz, spaced at 10 kHz), plus six mostly obsolete RC channels. You’d expect the radio to scan just those frequencies. Instead, it covers a bloated 25–30 MHz range in 5 kHz steps. The user has to advance two frequencies to move one channel. Remember, this is a dedicated CB band.

Scanning is inefficient, not only having to scan 5 times the frequency range, but double that for the 5 kHz short step. That’s ten times the scan duration for no practical gain. Worse, unlike GMRS, the C919 doesn’t display CB channel numbers—just raw frequencies—making navigation needlessly opaque.

CB supports AM, FM, and SSB in the real world. The C919’s CB band? AM only. Want FM? You’re forced into the VHF band where NFM is available (and no 10 kHz step). Want SSB? You’ll need to switch to the SW band. These detours aren’t just inconvenient—they likely involve different antenna paths, further complicating reception.

The radio allocates 200 ATS memory slots to CB. That’s four times more than the 46 actual CB frequencies (including RC).

Shortwave

The C919 covers shortwave from 2.3 to 30 MHz. I was up early in the morning and tried the C919 indoors with its telescopic antenna. I didn’t have 15 minutes to waste on an ATS scan, so I used my Qodosen DX-286 for that and picked a weak station to try, Estación 4940, on 4940 kHz from Colombia, a station with a reported output power of 1 kW.

The C919 speaker, or course, has more low tones, but I think the signal was a little better on the DX-286 with an antenna half the size.

Serious SW listening will likely involve an external antenna. As documented in the Antenna section of Part 1 of the review, antennas are a complex topic that I won’t duplicate here. My general advice is to stick to Automatic mode. As best I can tell, in Automatic mode, the band selector switch next to the rear antenna jack is not used.

SSB Tuning: Off by More than a Hair

I’ve always found SSB tuning a bit finicky, but lately, when chasing known signals on known frequencies, it’s become manageable: set the mode, dial in the frequency, and make a micro-adjustments to clarify the voice.

Not so with the ZWS-C919.

Here, you set the mode, tune the frequency, and then turn the knob a few times to find something intelligible. In repeated tests, I found the C919’s SSB display to be about 250 – 300 Hz too high. That’s not a rounding error.

One way to test calibration is to take a known AM station, like WWV, and zero-beat the signal. Here is that process:

On a good radio, the frequency is accurate. Other radios are better on frequency, or provide the user with a way to calibrate the frequency.

ATS

Quite a few of the lower-end radios join this ill-conceived implementation of auto tune storage (ATS) on shortwave — scanning the entire spectrum (see my article, Radio Memory Systems). It takes 15 minutes with the C919, compared to 1 minute and a half on a radio like the Qodosen DX-286 that just scans within the international broadcast bands. Scanning the rest of the shortwave spectrum is pointless because the rest is largely comprised of short communications and stations may well not be broadcasting during their quarter second of fame within the 15 minute scan window. ATS not only makes no sense on the ham bands, etc., but ruins the feature for the broadcast bands because it’s so slow.

I did an ATS scan outdoors around 10:10am local time, when not much is on the air. I started the scan, enjoyed the scenery, got bored, went indoors to get a radio to listen to, and the C919 manual to see how to look at the ATS results. I ran an ATS scan on the other radio. I opened the C919 manual on my Kindle and read the section on ATS, after spending some time remembering how navigate the Kindle. After all that was completed, the C919 ATS scan completed, finding 18 stations: 17 broadcast stations and 1 RTTY station. They were all strong signals. The other radio with a telescopic antenna half the length, found 29, some weak. It also found two ham radio operators on SSB in the shared spectrum around 7 MHz.

Because it takes so long, nobody is going to use ATS on the shortwave bands, so the fact that it seems to skip weak stations really doesn’t matter.

Also the ATS memory allocation doesn’t make much sense, for example 200 channels for CB (overkill) and 200 for SW (insufficient, particularly lumping in utility stations).

While ATS isn’t useful, the automatic scanning function does work to some advantage. A long press of the up or down tuning button instructs the radio to scan for the next station. When the SW band is selected, repeated presses of the SUB BAND button cycle through 15 international broadcast “meter bands.” When you arrive at the band of interest, long press the Tuning Up arrow to find the first/next audible station.

ATS on FM is mostly useless because it skips about 75% of the audible stations.

Audio

This radio has the best sound of any portable radio I own. Independent analysis shows the radio capable of 4.6W driving its 20W speaker. The radio dedicates considerable dimensions to the speaker chamber and the rubber “SUPER BASS” port on the back. “Super bass” is a fair description, and I particularly enjoyed string bass sounds in orchestral music when the equalization was set to “CLASSIC”.

Like many modern DSP radios, this one provides audio equalization profiles. Some profiles are limited to certain modes. This is from the manual:

I was curious about what “DAC-ANALOG” meant (no description in the manual), so I asked 4 AI programs, and got 4 different answers. The one from Google Search AI made the most sense:

🤖 The “DAC Analog” equalization profile on the Raddy RF919 (ZWS-C919) is not an audio effect. Instead, it is likely a setting that bypasses the radio’s Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and plays the audio directly from the Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC). This profile is likely intended to produce a flatter, less processed sound for radio reception.

The App

Several radios from the HanRongDa company support a remote control app, Radio-C (Android) or Radio-CT (iOS).

I think it’s cool although I don’t regularly use any of the radios I have that support it, specifically:

• HRD-908
• HRD-757
• HRD-C919 (ZWS-C919)
• HRD-787 (Raddy RF75A)

While the user interface for the app looks similar for all the radios, closer examination finds that it adapts to the unique features of each radio. If one were going to be using one of these radios regularly, the app interface might make sense, particularly in low light situations, and especially for the HRD-908 and HRD-787 where it adds direct frequency entry to a radio that has none.

Press the Gear icon upper right to display the firmware version, not only of this radio but others.

Conclusions

Let’s cut to the chase. I really wanted to like this radio. I watched reviews from people I respect who spoke highly of it (all of whom got theirs for free). I paid for mine. It didn’t work out. I’m not a fan of this radio. In the over $200 price category I expect a product that’s physically attractive, mechanically smooth, operationally sophisticated and top notch performing. This radio is none of those.

Appearance

I think the finish on the radio looks cheap. I’m not a personal fan of the retro military design, but if I were, the glossy shine and the candy apple red on the speaker and tuning knob spoil the mood and make it look more like a toy. After writing that, I ran across my Raddy RF75A that looks like a “Mini Me” version of the C119, candy apple red included.

Controls

The main control is a tuning knob that looks and feels cheap. It has an indentation for a finger to twirl, but the pressure necessary to turn the knob presses it against the case and it drags, not just a little, but drags significantly. The user basically has to grab the knob by the edges to turn it, or roll it with a finger on the side, and since it’s so big, that’s inefficient. It’s a bad design on a central component. I’m tempted to try and remove the knob to see if there is a defect, given that other reviewers praise the knob. And forget about the conventional concept of coarse tuning outer ring with fine tuning inner. Either one can be fine or coarse, and they can also be the same! Here is how it works:

• To set the outer wheel step, rotate the wheel so that it becomes the “current” control. Then press the center wheel. With each press the step advances and the step value is displayed on the main display under “STEP”. Step values are limited to a preset list for each band.
• To set the inner wheel step, rotate the wheel so that it becomes the “current” control. Then press the center wheel. With each press a different display digit flashes. The flashing digit is the one that will increment when the center wheel is turned. This technique allows some step values that cannot be set on the outside knob.

The antenna switch on the top of the radio feels cheap; a knob to implement an off-on switch makes no sense. The detents are not sharp, but hard spongy. It is not possible to tell what position the switch is in by just looking at it since the two positions are very close together and the pointer lands in between. It also feels flimsy and that it will easily break off.

On my radio the top antenna jack isn’t installed level and the external loop flops to one side. Pressing it in firmly levels it out, but as soon as it’s rotated it flops over again.

Overall I like the buttons, but 4 of them are crammed against the tuning wheel and the raised case edge prevents access from the sides making the buttons awkward to press. You have to think about how you’re going to approach the button before pressing it.

There is a “tuning knob” on the side that doesn’t change frequencies; it’s some sort of an antenna trimmer. It makes little difference in the manual mode where it is supposed to work. I did finally get some “results” tuning MW with it using the external loop antenna, but no improvement in the number of stations received. Other prominent reviewers said they thought it was broken.

Display

Some of the icons on the display, particularly those associated with the antenna, are very tiny. This is a huge radio and there is no excuse for tiny icons.

There are three sets of back lights: two for displays plus key backlights. They automatically turn off if keys are not pressed within an allotted time. Each has its own separate timer setting, allowing each light to be set to stay on up to 30 seconds, or stay on indefinitely. That would be OK, but the implementation of “always on” keeps the light on AFTER THE RADIO IS TURNED OFF. That’s just wrong. I’m sure there were complaints because with V1.706 of the firmware, a long press of the DISPLAY button will turn the lights off after the radio is powered off even if it’s set to stay on. When manually turning the lights off, press for a couple of seconds and release; the light will stay on until you release the button.

[Update] I tried turning off the lights manually a few times. On one instance I went to bed with the lights off and got up the next day with the key backlights on. I set the backlight time setting back to 30 seconds. A few days later when I tried to use the radio, the batteries were dead. I thought perhaps I had left the radio muted, but a couple of days later I found the radio batteries almost dead, and the radio was not muted, but in the “clock state.” So I have set the display light timers back to 30 seconds in hopes that the unwanted battery drain while off will stop.

What they should have done is turn the display lights off when the radio is off like every other consumer electronics device on the planet. The display timing should be implemented as timed off after no key press and a button that says to lock the light on — not a setting, but a control. And the display should always go off when the radio is turned off.

I did finally sort of figure out the second display. For LW, MW, FM, SW and Air bands it shows two values, SNR (signal to noise radio) and RSSI (relative signal strength indicator). With the other VHF / UHF bands, only RSSI shows. Or you can display the clock instead. You’d think with all the massive display space on this radio that it could show the time and the signal strength at the same time. There is a way to display the alarm set time also; it’s in the manual. One nice feature of the radios that use app control is that a single button on the app will synchronize the radio clock with the phone clock; however, there is no way to specify the time zone. I would have thought someone who bought a radio like this would want UTC, but that would have to be set manually.

The graphic display of signal strength is too jittery to be useful — it’s certainly useless for tuning purposes. It’s eye candy. I have no idea what the orange curved figure with a gear icon in the middle is supposed to indicate. Nevertheless, whatever this display is, it has pretentions of showing signal strength, and the only control on the radio that affects signal strength in real time is the antenna tuner knob — one which does not count as a control access for keeping the display turned on.

I don’t recall any other radio with a thermometer I’ve owned, no matter how cheap, that can’t display degrees Fahrenheit. The closest is the HanRongDa HRD-757 that automatically switches to Centigrade, regardless of how it was set previously, but at least Fahrenheit can be viewed on demand.

Other problems

It doesn’t support high-speed USB charging that would have been nice given battery capacity.

The walkie talkie antenna SMA connector cannot be used except for signals over 30 MHz, meaning a simple connection from an antenna using an SMA connector like the MLA-30+ has to be plugged into the back with an adapter cable. The WT housing is a bit small making it difficult to connect some walkie talkie antennas. Also the rear antenna jack housing is unnecessarily small, requiring adapters for some cables with big plugs.

There is a large hand grip area in the back of the radio, making it easier to carry — easier, but not easy. Carrying this radio any distance one handed is inconvenient. It needs a proper handle. It comes with a shoulder strap that makes carrying easy, but gets in the way when using the radio. The best solution, I think, is to shorten the shoulder strap so that it becomes s handle, just long enough to allow connection of the external antennas on the top. I do not recommend carrying the radio with its external loop antenna attached.

The C919 shares a problem with every other radio I have used with a record capability: even though this radio has a clock with date, recordings onto the MicroSD card aren’t date/time stamped. All my recordings are dated July 18, 2025 at 7:23pm. Some other radios just leave it blank. This is makes it very difficult to identify a recording or to assist in logging stations. File naming on the C919bis curious, with every file name ending in “1”, so that files are named RAD0001.MP3, RAD0011.MP3, RAD0021.MP3, etc.

The Bright Spots

Despite some misleading advertising about the audio output power (20W speaker with a 4.6W amplifier), it is still a superior performer, probably the best classical music speaker I’ve encountered in a portable radio. Its strong FM reception adds to the package, making this an excellent choice for music entertainment purposes. (I wish I still had a PL-880 for comparison.)

Add MP3 play on large MicroSD cards with several formats and equalization profiles to FM performance, then tack on app support for Apple and Android phones for remote control, and you have a solid entertainment platform. The phone provides the internet streaming part.

Direct frequency entry is mechanically excellent, even though it does require punching an EN key before each frequency and after most. (It defaults to PRESETs.) Back-lighted keys are a plus. The lock switch is solid.

The telescopic antenna is both long (98 cm) and sturdy. It tilts a little, but not enough to make the antenna vertical when using the kickstand. And there is a carry case with a bit of padding.

Alternatives?

I’m at a loss to come up with another single radio that checks all the boxes: LW, MW, SW, FM, VHF, UHF, Weather, Air, SSB, Bluetooth, MP3 Play and Record. The one that gets almost all the way is the HanRongDa HRD-757 (Zhiwhis ZWS-757) that even supports FM on the CB frequencies — but alas no SSB and no pretention of LW. SSB is the challenge. The buyer could save a bit of money and buy two radios: the HRD/ZWS-757 for app support and UHF/VHF bands, and the Tecsun PL-330 for SSB, LW and superior ATS for less than than one C919. With that deal, you get a flashlight!

For about the same money, one could purchase a Choyong LC90 that has stereo speakers and FM RDS; it also handles SSB, but not the VHF/UHF channels. Popular wisdom says to get a scanner radio for UHF/VHF anyway.

Upcoming

Certainly the new radio deserves a visit to the park and the opportunity to make some friends. I may take a look at the music play features and Bluetooth. Readers, do you have any questions?

Right now, I’m considering comparisons with:

Radio	Reason to Compare
Tecsun PL-990	It’s another radio that lists for over $200 new
Sangean ATS-909	It’s another radio that lists for over $200 new
HanRongDa HRD-757	Same manufacturer and app / many similar features
Raddy RF75A	Same manufacturer and app. How much difference would a longer antenna make?
Qodosen DX-286	Very good radio
XHDATA D-808	Popular radio that doesn’t get much attention here
Sparkelec DP-666	It’s new
Tecsun PL-330	Very popular radio

OOPS!

What was I thinking? There’s no big feature comparison chart! Let’s fix that.

Feature	Zhiwhis ZWS-C919	HanRongDa HRD-757	Raddy RF75A
Flashlight	N	Y	Y
App Support	Radio-CT	Radio-CT	Radio-CT
Tuning Knob	2	Y	N
Direct frequency entry	Y	Y	With App only
FM	Y	Y	Y
FM RDS	N	N	N
FM Stereo	Y, with headphones	Y, with headphones	N
Local FM Stations	88	77	49
MW	Y	Y	Y
Local MW Stations	15	4	8
SW	2.3 – 30 MHz	3.2 – 30 MHz	4.75 – 21.85 MHz
Air	Y	Y	N
LW	Maybe	N	N
VHF	20 – 250 MHz	25 – 300 MHz	30 – 199.975 MHz
Weather	Y	Y	Y
Weather Alerts	Y	Y	Y
UHF	250 – 999 MHz	301 – 999 MHz	N
CB	Y	in VHF and SW	N
ATS Memory Slots	1600	1000	396
Telescopic Antenna length	98 cm	61 cm	33 cm
External Antenna jack	Y	Y	N
Clock	24H	24H	12/24H
Alarm	2	1	1
SOS Alarm	N	Y	Y
MP3 Play	Stereo	Stereo	Stereo
Bluetooth Play	Stereo	Stereo	Stereo
Bluetooth Record	N	N	N
AUX Input	Y	N	N
Battery	2 x 18650	18650	Unspecified internal
Audio Output	4.6W	3W	3W
PC Speaker	Y	N	Y
PC Card Access	Y	Y	Y
Charging	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C
USB Power Distribution	N	N	N
Amazon Price (10/14/2025)	$206.09	$65.77	$39.09

Footnote

This review may take the record for the longest time I’ve spent on a product review. It’s October 16 and I started Part One on October 9. I’ve lost count of how many drafts Part 2 has gone through. I struggled because my conclusions are largely negative and I really don’t like to bad mouth products (except manuals). I want to be fair and I know I’m not perfect. I did find a couple of significant mistakes that I corrected. If you disagree with this review, leave a comment or use the contact link to send an email.