Review on 🔵 Premium Blue Extruded Aluminum Enclosure Kit for Ham It Up v1.3 RF Upconverter - Compatible with NESDR and RTL-SDR radios by Stacy Duncan

The case is great for protecting the circuit board and preventing damage over time. However, it takes some work to actually function as an RF shield. As others have encountered tolerances when manufacturing the Ham It Up circuit board, this means you often need to get a file and widen some holes to make the circuit board fit. I've returned my Ham it Up PCB to Revain twice and each time had slightly different socket and connector alignment issues. But that's more of a problem than a case with Ham it up boards. Eventually I gave up and filed the case to fit the board. Now the real problem with the case lies in the screws, mounting and the anodised finish of the case itself. The anodised finish is an excellent protection against corrosion etc but it is also an insulator. This means that the coating itself prevents the screws from making good contact and the case does not offer good RFI protection. In order to properly ground and shield the PCB in this case, you must sand the parts with fine sandpaper to remove the anodized layer and ensure good contact between the tails and the PCB posts. On mine I lightly sanded the places where the endplates meet the case so the endplates fit properly on the case when reassembled. I then sanded down the inside of the case where the posts make contact with the case so I have a good ground. Noise numbers before and after were daytime and daytime. Before the modifications, the fuselage functioned more like an antenna than a shield, as it was not properly grounded and was floating above the ground. This problem is not unique to this case, I and others had to make the same modification to the blue aluminum case for the USB dongles. Because the anodized surface also caused grounding problems. I had the same issues as the others, one screw was too long and stuck on the USB port. Put the screw in a vise and sharpen it with a dremel and now it fits. In general, this is a must when it comes to protecting your gear. Unfortunately, such small details ultimately prevent it from being perfect. Here, too, observing the manufacturing tolerances for Hamit Up Boards can be very helpful. Additionally, covering the contact points before anodizing the parts ensures that the case is actually acting as an RF shield and saves users from having to repair it themselves.