Review on 📻 Fafeicy Mini-Whip Active Antenna with SMA Female Connector - Shortwave Active Antenna for Enhanced Mf/Hf/VHF Radio Reception by Rod Evans

TL:DR: If your antenna shaft is metal, ground it very well! Also, ground the shield of your coaxial cable just past the point where it breaks from the pole with a large copper wire and a long *special* grounding rod. This will get rid of so much noise and your SNR will skyrocket! The full story: When I received this antenna, I sealed it in 1-3/4" PVC with end caps and placed it on an aluminum pole that I bolted to my wooden fence post. The tip of my PVC mini whip tube is about 22 feet in the air and attached to an aluminum pole with multiple zips. I use a Smart3 RTL dongle from Nooelec and their little Ham-it-Up mini upconverter for listening to treble. I use an LMR-400 coax cable for my mini Whip/my SDR (I got it for free) and I put a lightning rod in line with my coax cable about 10ft from it At the bottom of my antenna stand with #6 copper wire going to a special 8ft ground rod under the Arrester leads which grounds the coax shield and also prevents strikes from entering my house through the center conductor. , because my old whip was damaged and destroyed about a month ago so I have this one here r got. Only the arrester was damaged! Chokes on all my USB cables going to my SDR and boost converter and a large clamp ferrite choke on the 12v bias tee injector power supply. I also have a common mode choke just before the coax enters my boost converter. However, despite all these precautions, I was still getting what looked like power line/switching power supply noise on all of the shortwave that I couldn't get rid of. with this antenna. Then I realized: the large aluminum rod to which the mini whip was attached was not grounded! It basically acted like a giant static magnet right next to my mini whip. So I took a piece of #6 copper wire, stuck it deep in the ground, and as soon as I touched it to the antenna rod, almost all of the noise was gone instantly! The hundreds of false, annoying signals that plagued my receiver every night are now a thing of the past. It is assumed to be connected to the supply line. But now I understand, especially since the coax cable is attached to the very bottom of the rack, it basically acts as part of the counterbalance, just like the mini-whip uses the screen. So if you get a lot of noise with this antenna, ground the coax shield very well before it enters your house, make sure all your USB/power cables are well attenuated in the SDR signal path with the right ferrite beads/toroids , and GROUND YOUR ANTENNA RODS if it's metal This antenna is great for HF if you give it everything you need to make it work as intended!