Thanks again to Zhiwhis for funding the purchase of this radio/player. The ZWS-A330 arrived via USPS just one day after I ordered it from Amazon. I confess that I’m excited about the potential of this radio. It has a ton of features, and specifically SSB.
Unboxing
Now I have the Zhiwhis-branded version of the product manual, and here’s the PDF version. The PDF is a little newer than the HanRongDa variant I uploaded a few days ago.
It’s not important, but I like the design of these Zhiwhis product boxes.
I’ve already included what usually accompanies an “incoming radio” post in my Anticipated Incoming Radio article, but I can now show the official product photo, and of course I now have the price.
I have a 20-foot wire diagonally running up to a tree that I called it my WUP antenna for (Wire UP tree). The Internet said no — not a proper acronym. So I changed it to WUT.
Now, I have just installed a new antenna; it runs under the floor joists of my back porch. It is a a true WUP antenna (Wire Under Porch). It replaces my WOW (Wire Out Window) antenna which has been taken down.
It turns out that the old WOW antenna was broken. Its earth ground wire had been cut probably when gardening activity occurred, and that whole BALUN thing was probably doing nothing. But, I digress.
This just popped up on Amazon (no commission on this link):
Zhiwhis ZWS-777 (click to expand)
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.
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.
[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.
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.
Mast Antenna
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.
AI generated content may appear occasionally in articles and will be denoted with the 🤖 [robot emoji] symbol. Content comes most often from Microsoft Copilot, but may also come from Perplexity, ChatGPT, Duck.ai, Grok or Deep Seek.
