A Look Inside the XHData D220 Radio (with a small modification)

[@WilliamParmley]

Very interesting and informative, thanks! I think I held my breath the entire time you were trying to reattach the dial cord. 😁

[@F4LDT-Alain]

Thanks for the very interesting and informative video. I've been eagerly waiting for someone to go look what's inside this little radio. Thanks for sharing it. Pretty lame of XHDATA to have erased the markings on the chips IMO. It's an excellent little radio, I like it. I use it for SW mostly and even on its short whip antenna, it catches a lot of stations. I actually did a SW daytime outdoors shootout between it and my PL-330 lately (built-in antenna only) and it turned out to be almost a draw. The PL-330 did better only on signal stability with less fading. But on signal/noise it was a tie. When connected to a long wire, the D-220 doesn't quite overload in my experience but it lacks selectivity and stations step on each other up to the point of not being quite hearable. That's my main gripe with this radio, with the single SW band scale that requires fairy fingers to tune it. This plus the fat needle provide almost no usable information on the frequency you're listening to.

[@ominkan3129]

Nice video and you are good at getting the radio back together. Seems like a good radio especially for the price. Nice mod for the dial. Take care and see you in the next video,

[@DCDura]

I'll leave my pointer orange and struggle less than taking it apart and hoping it goes back together.

[@k5wxp22]

Me too! I have the new 221 in orange with NOAA, and it is hard to see the indicator. Wish it was black so I could see it better, but honestly, I play with these radios at night and just tune around in the dark anyway. 😂

[@chriscampbell9191]

Excellent video, especially for those of us who wanted to know what's inside their D-220 but didn't want to risk stripping the little phillips heads on the screws. :-) Looks like the loopstick is 50mm and the whip is 35cm / 14 inches, with 3 inches buried in the body, making the 'short' whip actually more effective than it looks. I also recently got an orange D-220, I've found that the pointer is still decently visible, because the LED acts like a backlight because of the orange plastic allowing enough light through (especially at night). My D-220 works decent on SW off the whip, and will accept a 25 ft indoor wire without overload. MW is OK unaided, and it will indeed DX with an external loop. Just have to tune carefully. Fun little radio, and as you said, would be great for emergencies. Mine has a date strip inside the battery compartment, looks like it was made in August 2024. Also not sure but they may have slightly altered the placement the loopstick at the bottom of the radio, because the shadow through the plastic doesn't look as if it's oriented the same as yours, but it could be just the way it's appearing. Either way, thanks for posting this, as well as your previous vids on the D-219 & D-328.

[@johnbeckham1483]

I am intrigued by the XHDATA D-220 radio!

[@Steven-re7xt]

Warm at low setting the face plate came off. With careful action. Then painted mine with silver nail polish. Then used a bit of glue to return the face plate keeping clear of moving parts. I got lucky PS turn both as in 0523 to 1700 to make easyer reconnection😊😊😊 ps#2 put some packing tape on said face. To avoid scratches. 😮😢

[@atulpahurkar9153]

how is reception in home? clear or just mediocre

[@sfred]

I haven't evaluated it carefully, but there are lots of reviewers who have. For shortwave, it would be best used outside.

[@michaelcranstoun8296]

Reception is excellent inside my apartment. Very impressive. Able to get 40, 30. 20, 17, 15 Meters and hear Hams on cw. Also WWV 10, 15, and 20 Mhz. Even low end of SW is sensitive. There's no B.F.O. but you can still decipher cw signals on while tuning in AM. Tuning very slowly is important, because you'll usually only hear cw on one frequency because of the broad step tuning. I like the audio, no complaints there.

[@paul.steckler]

The D-220 does not come in separate 9- and 10-kHz tuning step versions. According to Jay Allen's review, the tuning step is 1 kHz on medium wave, making the radio suitable for use worldwide.

[@sfred]

@@paul.steckler That’s interesting because this one was specifically sold as the 10 kHz version.

[@paul.steckler]

@@sfred I see that indication on the Amazon pages. On XHDATA's site, there is no suggestion that there are two different models. I'll ask XHDATA for clarification.

[@paul.steckler]

@@sfred I received a response from XHDATA in China, who confirm that the medium wave tuning step is indeed 1 kHz, and that the radio can be used in countries that use 9 kHz station separation.

[@sfred]

@@paul.steckler That's good news. I had noticed when I took the D219 apart that the chip has that mode on its datasheet.

[@nooneinpart]

It’s good to hear there is no longer overloading, I was incredibly disappointed when I got the D-219 after hearing all the hype only to realize that it is completely unusable in my area for SW. Still a little disappointed that FM isn’t great. The D-219 had zero bass when listening through earphones, and I’m guessing they have FM de-emphasis set to 50 microseconds instead of 75 as used in the Americas (there was a photo of the resistor ladder used for band switching on Amazon and I attempted to decode it). It makes my Sony ICF-P27 sound Hi-Fi in comparison, even with its mono output. You’d think they’d have that sorted out since they bothered making a 10K stepping version, but I guess not.

[@F4LDT-Alain]

Funny you write that. I never had much overloading problem with my D-219. The worst offender my in collection of radios is by far my D-608WB. Pretty much unusable when directly connected to a long wire. I had to design a coil coupler that I sleeve over its antenna.

[@nooneinpart]

@@F4LDT-Alain It’s because I happen to live 4 miles from KGO-AM. 50 thousand glorious watts of sports betting content.

[@sfred]

It depends a lot on your location. My D219 overloads badly at my house but is fine at the office.

[@chriscampbell9191]

MW on the D-219 is really good, though. I get some overloading with an external antenna with my D-219, though. Off the whip it varies. Up here in the PNW the SW signals aren't usually very loud, except Asia in the morning.

[@nooneinpart]

@@chriscampbell9191 I picked up a Sony ICF-506 after returning that (and a Tecsun PL-330, I was not impressed with the crooked tuning/volume dials scraping against the radio), another SiLabs DSP radio. They really are pretty good tuners. It has no SW but after some consideration I realized I used the previous radios to listen to the broadcast bands 90% of the time anyway. I wish XHDATA would rerelease the D-219 again but with a better RF front end (and maybe fix the headphone output, funnily enough the ICF-506 sounds the exact same through headphones), it would make it a perfect radio. They can double the price if they want, $20 is still a very good deal.

[@ebonitepens]

Thanks for this teardown. Have they lifted pin no 5 of the Radio IC using a piece of paper underneath it?

[@newsnetworkz]

Thank you for tear down, I just placed an order for one It could be Si4836 chip? Edit: I returned this device as I was not sure if I should be using it with that "unknown " chip in it 🤔

[@ingramli7733]

Si4836 is a stereo chip, since d220 is a mono radio like d219 (which use Si4825, a mono DSP), the chance is close to zero (why pay more when a cheaper mono chip could do the same?)

[@robcue4543]

This Radio in Junk on AM!

[@sfred]

If you're in the US, you may have the 9 kHz model, which wouldn't be very usable. Otherwise, its performance is limited by the small ferrite antenna.

[@generator6946]

Mine are amazing AM radios!

[@chriscampbell9191]

Mine works well, similar to a decent clock radio. But you can DX quite well with an external loop. The selectivity is good enough for DXing, with a loop. Maybe, as was suggested, you got a 9 kHz version radio instead of a 10 kHz one?