They act like eBay and the expression “I got it from eBay” or “I got it off of eBay” for those on the left side of the big pond not only accurately describes where to find the item but is also descriptive of the possible quality issues.
In my case the vendor (CNEX6?) put the antenna in a padded bag less robust than a Jiffy Bag. In fact the antenna had to fit in diagonally, it was too big to fit in lengthwise. The majority of the damage was done by the goon trying to force it through my letterbox. Whether it was already part damaged is moot. The icing on the cake is the delivery page on the AliExpress webpage says it was left in the letterbox and shows a picture of me holding the damaged bag and berating the guy for damaging it.
I have carefully examined it and only the topmost section is damaged. I’m thinking this took the main impact force and if the top section was proud a few mm it will have been enough for the force to cause the tube to crease and collapse inwards as he pushed, pulled and repeated that with growing force. My options are to package and print the return label, post it back, it should arrive next Monday at the UK return address. At that point I’ll get a refund 1-11 days after. I can then order a new one and wait for it to come all the way from the Middle Kingdom. We’re looking 3rd week in Feb for a replacement at no cost.
Or apply many years of engineering experience and repair and use the remains. I have removed the top section and found an aluminium imperial thread bolt that is a good fit in the new top section. I’ll epoxy that in place and it will act as a stop so you cannot collapse the antenna too far such that the top section disappears into its own guts The top section, broken in 2 places is about 30 cm so my remaining antenna is now a 5.3 m telescopic. Luckily I wanted something around 4m.
Sometimes, at least with amazon, you can ask for a replacement/refund without sending the damaged one back. They are not very picky. Just pretend you have no time for this mess.
Then you could keep it, ask for a new one, and then with the two, you could build a telescopic dipole for 20-10m
Mine was in a long slim cardboard box and inside a soft grey plastic packing bag. I guess it would be tempting to stuff it through a letter box.
Initial thoughts.
Pleased with the whip.
The base section is heavy, but I suppose it needs to be.
The spike is solid and will stand up to abuse in rocks etc. I may thread a cap onto it so I can bash it in if needed.
Radials look suspect, so I may try something else/simpler.
Next steps
Hook it up the the KX2 and see what the tuner does
See if I can find a repeatable resonant length for each band.
Maybe make a fixed value base loading coil for 40m
Well, that goes down as Rick 1 - 0 Antenna
At least if it gets broken in the shipping that will save you breaking it on the hill like I just did
On G/WB-004
I was initially struggling to get the spike into the stony/frozen ground, but spotted a mole hill and poked it into that solidly enough. Then while extending it a gust of wind (which wasn’t that bad) folded it over neatly at the 2nd section from the base.
I had also taken my 7m fibreglass pole and did a successful 2M activation with that, and it was hardly bending at all.
Lesson learned - stick to what works and avoid Chinese snake oil.
At least the base thread is a real M10 x 1.5 thread. I picked up a bag of 10 M10 Zinc dipped wing nuts this morning on the way to GM/SS-167. I already had (don’t know why) some M10 plain and spring washers. The nut fits perfectly perfectly. I didn’t buy the base and radials as I have “other ideas”.
I have been using the 17ft telewhips for some time for various portable operations. If weight doesn’t matter they fit nicely on a surveyors tripod (Too heavy for walk-in SOTA), and to extend the usable range into 40m, a short loading coil on the bottom works well. I settled on the Wolf river sporty forty after trying several home brew and commercial coils as it is quite lightweight, needs no adjustment other than collapsing a section and a half on the whip I have, and fits neatly in the rucksack pocket. Not used the Ali express whip for sota activating as yet as the whips are a bit on the flimsy side, I have used the Chameleon 17ft, and 25ft whips on summits as they are significantly more robust, but much heavier. A single radial will work, but four gives better results. I also use a very small MFJ antenna analyser to dial the whip length in, though the KX2 ATU does a really good job if you don’t feel like adjusting things whilst band hopping. The same system has also been used off the beach for DX, but watch out for sand in the sections as it makes collapsing them interesting. In all, very capable antennas, and very fast to deploy.
Here is a different solution which involves a 1.4m telescopic tripod, yes a tripod will add more weight to the backpack. Note the telescopic antenna is supported by a 19 mm plastic sleeve and an end cap, which transfers any wind load into the tripod head plate. You can use a sleeve in combination with the popular spike mount.
The solution is best explained with photos.
Tripod assembly. Four 5m ground radials connect to two wing nuts on the aluminium plate. The telescopic antenna is mounted on a 3/8 UNF 24 TPI socket. The knurled adapter is M10 to 3/8 UNF.
Without the additional support of the plastic sleeve the wind loading is on a narrow section of the crimp base which is very likely, almost certain to fail!
It’s a combination of a good camera (I use the Nikon Z30, which has an excellent APS-C size sensor with very good dynamic range) and a good lens (I used here for the day shots the basic kit lens which has very good flare/ghosting control). I shoot raw and process the photos in lightroom to give them a slight boost and correct the white balance. I don’t use any Photoshop tricks.
Gotcha Romain, thanks for the explanation. I moved away from Nikon DSLR before they realised that mirrorless was the way forward, and spent some time with Olympus MFT before settling on Fujifilm, currently using X-T3 with the excellent 18-55 kit lens and X-T5 with the bigger 16-55 F2.8. I hardly ever shoot RAW unless I’m using the excellent in-camera film simulations and want a safety net, but to be honest since radio came along I’m picking up the cameras less and less - something that’s sadly reflected by my online presence.
Have you got a portfolio / blog / Flickr link you can share? I’d be interested.
Sorry for going off-topic, I’ll get back in my box now.
Have a good weekend everyone.
I got a telescopic, but the thread doesn’t match the thread of the MFJ Pl239 connector.
I need to adapt it and test it as vertical.
Today I’m using EFHW, but there are peaks that need vertical.
73
Carlos
PY2VM
The top section, broken in 2 places is about 30 cm so my remaining antenna is now a 5.3 m telescopic. Luckily I wanted something around 4m.
No Weetabix either !
