Yet another antenna deal

Remember the $3.79 antenna? It’s back and (price wise) with a vengeance. I guess it was just a matter of time before the price would fall again. Too much competition, especially from (sadly often counterfeit) Nagoya antennas.

This antenna now costs a whopping $1.82, which is about one third of the price of a Big Mac. Is it value for money? Hell yeah! Is it still a good antenna? You bet. It might not the latest greatest antenna you can buy, but it outperforms a Baofeng UV-5R stock antenna by a wide margin. I still use them on many of the radios I own.

Note: fits on almost every radio like Baofeng, Quansheng, Feidaxin and Wouxun, but does not fit well on the GT-3 / GT-3 MK2 and GT-3TP. The base of the antenna is too wide, which will prevent you from screwing it in completely.

The antenna is on sale for another three days on AliExpress.com and can be found here (link to seller).

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Antenna Deal Alert

Tired of your short, inefficient UV-5R stock antenna? While surfing AliExpress I ran into this offer: 4 pieces UV-B5/B6 antennas for $10.15.

That’s about $2.50 / antenna, which is dirt cheap for this well performing dual-band antenna. At the time of writing the offer is valid for another 8 days.

Baofeng GT-3 Antenna: Hot Hot Hot!

I’m rather busy reviewing two radios: the Baofeng GT-3 and the Zastone ZT-2R. I don’t want to get into too much details about my findings, but one thing deserves a blog post of its own: the Baofeng GT-3 stock antenna.

The antenna proves to be far from efficient and more or less kills the radio’s potential. I also felt that the antenna was running very hot at the base.

I connected a temperature probe to the base of the antenna with duct tape and measured three states: receiving at room temperature, temperature after one minute of transmitting and after three minutes of transmitting.

Talking 3 minutes results in 53 degrees C / 127 degrees F.

It’s clear that a lot of the energy is not radiated but converted into heat instead. This does not occur when I use a good antenna, such as the UV-B5 stock antenna or a Nagoya NA-701.

Field Day VRZA, Almere (JO22OI)

Last weekend, we had our last field day of the year. The weather couldn’t be better! Every day before and after the field day, we had rain and wind… It was an excellent opportunity to test my latest field day antenna.

The antenna consists of a 12 meter high ‘fishing rod’, some wire and a balun. If left full size, it’s a vertical for 40 meters. If you disconnect the upper part of the wire (and do the same with the radial), the antenna will resonate in the 20 meter band.

The balun is clamped to the lower part of the rod.

I used the antenna in combination with a Kenwood TS-570D(G). The antenna performance proved to be much better than expected! Also on the table: a Yaesu VX-177.

My dog didn’t care much about the QSOs, but she loved the BBQ!