Zhiwhis 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 in its products just as it previously began to include 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 wait and see how it’s priced on Amazon.
Features
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 here are some things that stand out:
- Direct frequency entry
- FM/MW/SW/USB/LSB/VHF/UHF/AIR/CB/WB
- Single sideband support
- App control (Radio-C / Radio CT)
- Can record onto MicroSD / TF card, storing date in file name [date _ time_ frequency _ band]. The date gets set through the app.
- Sound equalizer profiles
- UHF band tops off at 999 MHz
- Battery is BL-5C
- Squelch
- Separate volume control knob (top)
- The manual does not mention the W3 repeater
- Computer access to TF card via USB cable
- Belt clip
- CB band supports NFM
- Manual says the display is very clear in daylight
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 This might be an outdated reference to a time when the app manual was separate or a reference to a separate W3 manual.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.
Scanner Radio?
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 (per band). Real scanner radios rapidly scan the frequency band, quickly enough to catch brief transmissions found on CB, ham, public service, GMRS, and business transmissions, moving on when the transmission ends
Reviews
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.
Expectations
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, but I could be fooled.
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.
Operation
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 A330’s “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 almost the same confused mess present on the ZWS/HRD-C919 and HRD-747, except the A330 has NFM on the CB band so the user doesn’t have to go to an extended VHF band for it.
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.
Tracking
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” and notify me by email if there’s a match.
Update: The VisualPing alert worked.