I was dubious at first but bought one recently as the price dropped even further on AliExpress. I brought it on top of OK/OL-022.
It worked well. This was my setup:
Fully extended whip (obviously)
4 radials (the flat cable can be split) on the ground
KX2 @ 10W + internal ATU
It was a late activation but easily made contacts on 30m, 20m and 10m, with 2 DX on 10m.
My takeaways:
Advantages
Cheap
Quick to setup
Lighter than a fishing pole + dipole/EFHW.
Small overall footprint (10m radius circle) if using supplied radials
Vertical, better for DX
Rated 300W
Spare parts available
Downsides
Need fumbling to tune manually if not using a tuner
Whip is probably quite fragile
Need soft-ish soil
Heavy PL-259 connector
Poor performer on anything below 20m
For those who own this antenna, what are your impressions, your recommendations (e.g radial configuration)?
A few pictures from the activation below.
PS: yes, I know home brew is cheaper and more satisfying
I’m considering making/buying a coil for 40 and 30m. Not sure yet how worse it would be to put that coil straight on the feed point instead of a few decimeters above with one “extension” shaft.
I’m using eight 3.5m radials, so I can use it on 30m with a loading coil. I used silicone insulated #24 wire and like it.
It’s been a long time since I’ve modelled antennas, so it may be somewhat error-ridden, but I have linked to a NEC2 file.
va3rr Aliexpress monopole
I use it with the PAC12 coil and you can easily find the tuning at 40m with the entire whip extended by looking for the point of greatest noise/reception on the coil. You can use almost the entire whip in 10m with the help of the coil in the same way looking for more noise like a 1/2 wave. It is a great portable antenna, effective, small, simple and quick to assemble
