Review on Tecsun Indoor Active Radio Antenna by Sivabala Mickel

I bought this active antenna to use with my Tecsun PL880 short wave radio. I installed it in the window of my apartment. It's in the city, in a concrete and brick building. I didn't think it would improve my reception over a standard long wire antenna. And it seems to add extra noise. Turning the amplifier gain control to the "+" position resulted in some improvement in the signal. Turning the antenna tuning knob made little difference, at least on the stations I was able to connect. The antenna comes with numerous attachments. The details are quite small and thin. I had some trouble keeping the power plugged in in the booster box and had to rotate the batteries in the bay many times to keep it from running out. A small red light indicates it is on. The Tecsun external drum antenna (which I also have) works as well or even better when mounted to the top of my window. Of course, I understand that an active antenna might work better in less urban environments. The powered antenna comes with an alligator clip that attaches directly to a standard telescopic antenna found on most handheld radios. Over the next few months I will be testing the antenna on some of my vintage shortwave radios (currently in storage) to see if the antenna works better with those radios.