RA0SMS vs PA0RDT Active Mini Whip - RA0SMS is Very Noisy - Why?

Useful information regarding antennas for SDR products.
illllm
Posts: 57
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2019 10:26 pm

Re: RA0SMS vs PA0RDT Active Mini Whip - RA0SMS is Very Noisy - Why?

Post by illllm » Fri Mar 29, 2019 1:21 pm

The university on twenty has their miniwhip mounted on a super large metal "pole" :)

Personally, I found grounding the coax shield, reveals more signals. If the coax is pulling signals, then perhaps your antenna is not working efficiently? Does it still pull in stations when there is no power applied?

Reason: No reason

ultravista
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:40 pm

Re: RA0SMS vs PA0RDT Active Mini Whip - RA0SMS is Very Noisy - Why?

Post by ultravista » Fri Mar 29, 2019 1:36 pm

Neither antenna receives any signals without the power applied.

One is a real PA0RDRT (works) and the other is an 'improved' PA0RDT design (does not work).

Since posting the original thread, I bought a cheap Chinese copy of the PA0RDT (eBay) and it works nearly identical to the real PA0RDT. The noise floor is a wee-bit higher but everything tunable with the PA0RDT is also tunable with the Chinese knock-off PA0RDT.

The knock-off is mounted on the same pole, 9v power supply, and uses the same coax, as the RA0SMS. No noise, QRM, or whatever, compared to the RA0SMS. The knock-off is clean.

There must be a design flaw with the RA0SMS.

Reason: No reason

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