Product Review: Zhiwhis ZWS-A330 — Part 1, Features

I’ve had an opportunity to use the Zhiwhis ZWS-A330 and here are my thoughts.

Use Cases

The A330 is a shirt-pocket-sized radio. It covers frequencies from 520 to 1710 kHz, and 2.3 MHz to 999 MHz. It has specialized bands for CB, Weather and Air, in addition to SW, MW, FM broadcast, VHF and UHF bands. GMRS frequencies are included.

The speaker is fairly good and can be turned up uncomfortably loud. There is no booming bass.

It can be used as a USB computer speaker, a Bluetooth speaker, and a media player. It can also record with time/frequency stamps.

This collection of features makes the radio flexible. It can be used by the shortwave listening hobbyist, as a camping radio, as a travel radio or just a convenient device to catch the local news and listen to music.

Compared to What?

I hope to present some test results in Part 2 that will be meaningful to the reader, comparing the A330 with something the reader might be already familiar with, some other wide band portable with SSB. The first thing that comes to mine is the HanRongDa HRD-747 / Raddy RF760. There are obvious similarities in display design, features and operation. The RF760 is an earlier model that lacks app support.

Another option for comparison is the LiJiANi RD-239S, again a portable wide band SSB-capable radio with app support.

One might get the impression from the photo that the antennas are similar, and this would be correct. They are all of the same construction with the top segment not hollow but solid flexible wire. The RD-239S has an 8-segment antenna, while the other 2 are 7-segment. So far I’ve had no damage with any of these antennas, but I open and close them with care.

Here’s the obligatory Blog or Die! feature comparison table:

Feature	ZWS-A330	Raddy RF760	LiJiANi RD-239S
App control	Y		Y
Flashlight			Y
LW (kHz)	153 – 522 *	54 – 520
MW (kHz)	520 – 1710	520 – 1710	520 – 1710
FM (MHz)	64 – 108	64 – 108	64 – 108
SW (MHz)	2.3 – 30	3.2 – 30	3.2 – 30
WB (MHz)	162.4 – 162.55	162.4 – 162.55	162.4 – 162.55
CB (MHz)	25 – 28	25 – 28	n/a
Air (MHz)	118 – 138	118 – 138	118 – 138
VHF (MHz)	20 – 250	30 – 223	30 – 200
UHF (MHz)	250 – 99	430 – 520	200 – 470 *
SSB	Y	Y	Y *
Record	Y		Y
MicroSD Play	Y		Y
Bluetooth	Y		Y
Computer speaker	Y		Y
Repeater	Y	n/a	Y
Squelch	SW / VHF / UHF / AIR / CB	SW / VHF / UHF / AIR / CB	VHF / AIR *
Audio Equalization	Y		Y
Clock / Alarm	Y	Y	Y
Backlighted keys			Y
Display readable with backlight off	N	Y	Y
ATS	1400		1025
Belt Clip	Y	Y
Wrist Strap	Y	Y	Y
Antenna attenuator	Local / DX	Local / DX
Ext. Antenna on MW	Y	Y	N
Earphone Jack	Y	Y	Y
Aux in Jack			Y
Charging	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C
Ext. Antenna	Y	Y	Y
Color	Gray	Gray	Black
Size (mm)	35 x 60.46 x 136	20 x 60 x 111	28 x 85 x 138
Antenna (cm)	56	56	60
Battery	BL-5C	BL-5C	BL-5C or AA(3)

I noticed similarities between the RF760 and the A330 display contents. No surprise since they were both developed by the same company.

Let me hasten to say that the displays looked better in person than in this photo. The RF760 in particular was sensitive to the angle of viewing. Both were backlit in the photo. The A330 display is, unlike the RF760, not viewable unless the display light is on. The RF760 to my eye is more readable than the A330, but both are good. Outdoors it’s a mixed bag. When sitting in the sun under an umbrella, the backlit display is very difficult to read; however if some clouds pass overhead, it’s an easy read, and [surprise] it not too hard to read in direct sun. It’s picky.

The A330 has one convenient feature that I recall from the Eton Elite Executive: when the display backlight is off, the buttons (including the power button) do not have their usual assigned functions, but only turn on the display light. That makes it very easy to turn on the light without messing something up. I personally like to use the power button since it’s so central. [Update: After some use, I decided to keep the backlight on all the time.]

The Zhiwhis ZWS-C919 is operationally similar in many ways, but it costs more than twice as much and is much larger.

Depending on how testing goes, I may include a Tecsun PL-990 for FM and a Qodosen DX-286 for shortwave broadcast.

The Elephant in the Room

This radio is marketed as a “Wide Frequency Scanner Radio” and it is not. I asked my friendly AI to define “scanner radio” and this was the answer:

A scanner radio is a receiver that rapidly scans multiple radio frequencies and plays whichever channel is currently active.

Microsoft Copilot

This radio has auto tune store (ATS), but it’s not rapid and it is a one-shot affair. Once a frequency is examined, the radio never comes back to it.

The Manual

It’s encouraging to see a positive trend in radio manuals of late. The A330 User’s Manual is helpful, literate and accurate. I give it an “A” grade. There are a few minor punctuation, capitalization and spelling errors, but I focus on usability. My only real complaint is the somewhat silly warning:

do not barbecue or blow bake at high temperature

The “Look”

The HanRongDa company has produced a series of radios that reminders of old military radios. The first that got my attention was the HRD-700, and later the A320 and C919. The A330 has a touch of the same styling, although the “look” to me is more of a walkie talkie than a military radio.

I personally like the look and the layout.

Controls and Layout

I think the controls are good. The full-sized volume control on the top is nice. The oversized up and down tuning arrows on the right side allow for convenient scrolling through the preset memories and automatic search for the “next” station. The power button (center of tuning knob) is prominent and convenient. Buttons at the 4 corners of the central tuning knob are convenient. The Zhiwhis ZWS-C919 has similar button placement around a tuning knob that I found a touch awkward, but the proportions on the A330 are just fine.

The buttons are a bit small, but its a small radio. They are rubbery in feel (a good thing), but a little harder to push that I would personally prefer.

The radio can be operated one-handed, as there are no controls on the left side.

One other plus is that the radio is very stable when put on a flat surface vertically.

Setup

I’m not sure how the radio arrived, but as I started testing I noticed that the MW band was set up for 9 kHz step starting at 522 kHz. This setting is often tied to the FM tuning range, but the A330 allows these to be set independently with a quick press of the [6] key when the band is selected.

Direct frequency entry requires a prefix, which allows the numbered buttons to have setup and control functions when not prefixed. This provides quick access via labeled keys to functions and settings. A relatively few require entry in the clock state, that interim mode between off and on when the clock is displayed. Clock state functions include:

1. Displaying the firmware version (V4.12 in mine)
2. Setting the clock
3. Setting the alarm
4. Enabling the repeater if purchased
5. Auto power on
6. Key beep enable/disable
7. Display auto off timer

One other is a rather extensive list of bandwidth and step options. For shortwave AM demodulation, the values are 1, 1.8, 2, 2.5, 3, 4 and 6 kHz (same as MW band). For SSB they are 0.5, 1, 1.2, 2.2, 3 and 4 kHz.

I’ve ranted enough already about the “CB” band on HanRongDa radios. CB channels are 10 kHz apart and the step cannot be set to 10 kHz on the CB band. No much else makes sense on that band either. The only improvement over the C919 radio is that CB band supports NFM demodulation (but not SSB). The Raddy RF760 also has NFM on the CB band.

The step options apply to the Tuning buttons on the right side of the radio. Like some other radios in this lineage, the main tuning wheel (sometimes called shuttle knob in documentation) operates independently, and may be viewed as a fine tuning control. Rotate the wheel briefly until one of the digits on the display starts flashing. Then short press the [1] button to change which digit flashes. The digit that flashes is the one that will change when rotating the wheel. The gotcha is that if you ever stop turning the wheel, the digit reverts to the rightmost digit, something I consider a bug. If it remembered your choice this would be a workaround for 10 kHz channel spacing on CB.

Repeater

An optional W3 repeater is sold separately to complement the ZWS-A330. It’s not being taken into consideration for this review, but I have one on order and will review it separately after it comes.

Manual Errrata

This refers to the PDF of the manual Zhiwhis sent me.

Throughout the entire manual “KHz” should be “kHz.” The standard abbreviations are MHz and kHz.¹

Page 5, Section 4. It says: “Step 1 … Short press any one of the three keys to turn on the display.” The first key indicated on the diagram is the M-PLAY button; it does not turn on the display.

Page 5, Section 4. It says: “Step2: Unclock keys.” Should be: “Step 2: Unlock leys.”

Page 10, MW tuning step. 10 kHz is also the tuning step for South American countries.

Page 11, Section 12.3.5 “——,Enter” should be changed to “——. Enter.” Also it might be a good idea to explain here that the confirmation is not necessary if enough digits are entered.

Page 12. I found section 12.5 on Recall Station confusing. It says that one may “enter the preset number via numeric keys … to recall the station”; however in the tips below it says “Keys 0-9 do not function during recall mode.”

Page 13. The Weather Band alert function description makes no sense. It says that if an alert is received, the radio stops listening for alerts — not that it makes an alarm or even that it plays the weather station content. What good is an alert unless it alerts you? Testing shows that when the alert is received, the radio begins playing the weather station. That’s not something that is likely to be heard unless the user is near the radio.

Page 15 Section 12.11.3 Here and in other places a phrase following a comma should not begin with a capital letter. “quit recording,Short press” should be “quit recording. Short press.”

Page 18. Section 13.1 say the Bluetooth Connection Name is ZWS-A330, but it is actually ZWS-A330-BLE.

The section following 13.1 is 12.2. It should be 13.2, and the same correction is needed for ZWS-A330-BLE.

Page 21. Section 15.2. At the bottom of the page there is a line break in the middle of the last sentence.

Page 22: There is a like break in the Tip at the bottom of the page.

Page 24: The back clip is installed at the factory.

There is a line break in the middle of the last paragraph. This happens in other places.

There is inconsistent spelling of meter/metre. Both are correct, but all should be the same.

The manual does not discuss recording file names. A major feature of the radio is that the date of the recording is included in the file name. Nowhere in the manual is it mentioned how to set the date on the radio (it requires the app).

Coming soon:

Testing. Repeater review.

1. National Institute of Standards See Section 6.2.2 and Table 5 ↩︎