This just popped up on Amazon (no commission on this link):
I’m probably not ordering one because I’d never use it — too many other radios in the box already. I’m trying to focus on more serious models for the shortwave listener, but I was still impressed by this offering.
Continue readingZhiwhis sent me an email in reply to some manual corrections I provided them about their ZWS-802 radio and they thanked me for my input and reviews with a gift card. They also included a note about a new radio they said would be available soon on Amazon (hint, hint). Well of course I’m going to use the gift card to buy the radio.
They included this product photo:
I reasoned that if it was coming soon to Amazon, it was probably already available in China, and a quick visit to AliExpress uncovered the HanRongDa variant, the HRD-A330; and then things became more interesting. The HRD-A330 comes in two options: the radio, and the radio + W3 repeater — yes the same W3 model repeater that came with my ZWS-802 radio. This hints that perhaps HRD will start including repeater support its products just as it previously added app support across its product line.
The HRD-A330 radio itself is priced at $85.20 (less $12 coupon) with free shipping. The version with the W3 repeater is $109 (less $12 coupon). We’ll just have to see what Amazon says.
This radio is definitely interesting, even though it lacks a flashlight 😲. I found a 32-page Operating Manual deep in the bowels of the Internet and some things that stand out:
It comes with an external MW antenna:
I immediately noted “LW” on the antenna diagram, a band the radio doesn’t cover according to the manual. On the HanRongDa HRD-747 radio, LW is a “bonus” feature that appears as an extended lower end to MW when the external antenna is plugged in. There is nothing in the manual for the HRD-A330 suggesting LW support. Also, there is nothing in the manual that suggests the antenna jack can be used for any band beyond MW.
There was one curious thing in the manual’s list of package contents. Under “Manual”, it says quantity 2. This might be an outdated reference to a time when the app manual was separate or a reference to a separate W3 manual. We’ll have to wait and see.
One might think that something advertised as a “Wide Frequency Scanner Radio” would be a scanner radio, but this appears not to be the case. “Scanning” for this radio is nothing more than garden variety auto tune storage (ATS). It makes one pass through the band and stores what it finds in one of 200 memory slots. Real scanner radios rapidly scan the frequency band, quickly enough to catch brief transmissions found on CB, ham, public service, GMRS, and business transmissions.
There were 3 reviews at AliExpress, a 3-star review and two 5-star reviews. The lower review focused on build quality and said: ” if you drop this thing it will break, period. the antenna is perhaps the most fragile i have seen and i doubt it will last.” A 5-star review noted the operational similarity to the HRD-747 (the same as my Raddy RF760), and praised the recording feature.
I’m expecting something along the line of the HanRongDa HRD-747/Raddy RF760 with the addition of app control, direct frequency entry, music play/record, Bluetooth and maybe W3 repeater support. The A330 is bigger at 136 x 60.46 x 35mm, compared to 111 x 60 x 20mm for the RF760. I would also compare it to the Raddy RF886 at 124 x 67 x 29mm, a radio that I thought was too big at the time, and the A330 is bigger than that.
The RF760 had an awful speaker and I don’t expect much better here.
The manual is full of controls to fine tune step and bandwidth. It looks like normal use cases are covered.
What I don’t know is how noisy the electronics will be and how sensitive the radio is. That’s what testing is for.
I’ve been reading the manual and came across 2 concerns. The first is the so-called “CB” band. The frequencies of the actual Citizen’s Band band exist within the radio’s 25 – 28 MHZ “CB” band, but the radio’s band is much larger, and while real CB channels are spaced 10 kHz apart all over the world (except for Japan where they’re 12.5 kHz), the spacing on the for the “CB” band are 1 and 5 kHz. Add to that the fact that SSB is used in for CB transmissions, but this radio would have to be switched to the SW band to support that. This is the same confused mess present on the ZWS/HRD-C919 and HRD-747.
The other concern relates to the external antenna jack. As best I can determine from the manual, this jack is for MW only, leaving the flimsy and short telescopic antenna the only option for FM or shortwave. I sincerely hope this is just a documentation ambiguity.
With a little help from AI I found a website that will ostensibly track Amazon for a new product daily and send me an alert. The site is VisualPing.io and the query I used there is “https://www.amazon.com/s?k=zws-A330”. Their free tier will supposedly search once a day for a product matching “ZWS-A330.”
The developer says:
[SDR Oxide is a] powerful SDR transceiver client with a GPU panadapter, dual VFOs, neural noise reduction, built-in skimmers, a full stack of digital modes, Winlink radio email, hands-free satellite operation and a live 3D space-weather globe — running native on Linux, macOS & Windows, or streamed to any browser.
It’s still early in the product evolution, but I’ve heard good things, including that it works with my RTL-SDR Blog V4 SDR and that it runs well in emulation mode under Windows with an ARM64 processor. Note: this software also supports transmission, but I don’t have equipment or license for that.
Check out the main review here: Product Review: LiJiANi RD-239S + W2. This post is some accumulated notes.
The W2 repeater comes with a 4.2m antenna, terminated in a 3.5mm plug. The other end is terminated with an alligator clip that’s electrically connected to the antenna. This is interesting because the clip not only provides a mounting point end of the antenna, but also a convenient way to extend it.
If you want to make your own antenna with its own plug, check the diameter of the plug. There’s a rim around the W2 connector that might be too small to get the plug in. I’m using the supplied antenna and then clipping it on to whatever I’m adding.
This little experiment uses an aluminum sailboat mast as an antenna. I’ve used the mast antenna before in an experiment with another radio. In that video I had to keep the radio in a location in full sun within the length of my antenna lead, but with the W2, of course, the location of the radio is flexible. I can sit on a shaded bench and the W2 can be close to the mast.
I was excited about this one — my old friend LiJiANi Rd239, now with SSB. While that’s true, there is more going on. In addition to to SSB, there is app control, bandwidth settings and a new UHF band.
Check out First Impressions: LiJiANi RD-239S + W2 Repeater for the shipping box and contents. One might want to look at my review and comparisons of the original Rd239 later:
The USPS delivery site said they were returning it to sender, undeliverable because of insufficient address. They delivered it anyway. The address was mangled by jamming it together with no spaces between street number and name. Disaster averted.
My first impression was the radio, from seller CLOOBLUT, was in a real shipping box, and the internal product box wasn’t crushed at all.
I’ve hurried through this review because I really don’t think much of the product. I refer the reader back to my prior articles for some details:
It’s a cheap (under $23 with shipping) radio and music player. It’s not defective. Some observations and usage note follow.
It’s a plain MW/FM/SW radio and not a weather radio, despite the misleading “W” on the model number, “ALERT RADIO” printed on the front panel and WB specifications in the manual. Further, I have not been able to locate the purported “WB version” for sale. I’ve marked up the manual’s specifications table to emphasize this.
