Good comparsion! Thanks for sharing Kevin. I think hey know what they are doing ... even if other people think otherwise. Much love, Matthias ( 73 DL1NDG 😊)
I’ve build one myself dead bug style a year ago. My experience with my antenna is that it needs to be up and away. So I mounted my antenna on a 9 meter fishing pole, and set it up half way in the garden. Made a huge difference. I’m gonna look for your comparison to this one and your home made one. And maybe buy myself this antenna also. Thx for the video. Have a good one!
Well, it definitely made me wanna' go out and order one for myself, to use with my SDRPlay in my 20th floor balcony by the ocean. I've watched tons of reviews and videos that were not comparing apples to apples at all, and it seems these active mini-whips do have some specific requirements if you want them to work well (good grounding, for one), but I think under the circumstances it's the best fit for my conditions. Thank you!
Thank you for the video Kevin, it was very very interesting! I am sitting on an inventory of over a dozen 2N5109 and J310 from the 1980s, and I am going to give it a try with the original PA0RDT design. One thing I have noticed in your kit is that the resistors are MFR (metal film resistors) from their bright blue colours. Usually in rf circuits CFR (Carbon film) resistors are preferred since the frequency response of these resistors is good in high-frequency based applications as compared with MFR.
See my comment above, on the guy asking what transistor was used. IF you don't GROUND/CONNECT the Bias Tee wing nut post directly (wire or braid) to your Receiver's chassis, you get the same signal level if the wall-wart is connected or not!!
Hi Kevin, good to hear that it works :-) You will be excited to use the whip with a full 12Volt bias. If you want to stay on 5 Volt, decreasing the emitter resistance to increase current would be the way to go. 150 mA sounds a bit much though. My version draws around 80. Keep an eye on that relay that was in the package. You can build a morse key out of it! Oh, and your attempt of pronouncing Jan was perfect!
Jan, you can thank Kevin for it, I just ordered mine from your web site a couple of minutes ago :) It'll take a while until it gets to Miami, I'm sure, but I will definitely report back on it once I've set it up.
Jan Lategahn I was so excited that the envelope got to me in less than a week. Yet, when I opened it today, I can’t describe the frustration: only the printed boards were in there, NO COMPONENTS!!! I know I don’t speak Dutch, and I might have just ordered the wrong thing, but I followed the link posted here, and it sured seemed like it was the kit everybody is talking about, the ENTIRE kit. You seem to speak very good English. How difficult is it to make a few pages in English at least for the order process, on your web site? I am beyond frustrated, I am truly pissed off
Update: I finally got the components in the mail today. I am hoping to put it together this week-end. I will report. As it turns out, I had ordered only the printed boards based on one of the links posted in the comments to this video. While I acknowledge that the mistake was mine, I remain convinced that making a separate page in English for each kit will be helpful, and not terribly difficult. Or at least adding a short description in English in the existing pages. You have customers all over the world. You would be well served as well as them, to have a minimum done to limit confusion and complaints.
First of all before I ask MY Question, YOU are one of the few Hams/Persons that make Videos on this topic that I enjoy watching, YOUR Videos because of the Detail YOU offer and the many Closeups YOU give.... YOUR Presentation on each of YOUR Videos are clear and very few places where You leave a listener not knowing what YOU did.... I Do like YOUR Presentation, but I would like to see more Detail on what YOU did on the inside and out on what YOU present or have built Homemade... Now for MY Question; What are all the components YOU put together with this MINI WHIP????
@14m30s: I don't think that the sensor plate part of the mini-whip should be installed so close to wood. Even dry wood is not the same as air, and a voltage probe type antenna is known to be fairly sensitive to that sort of thing. Maybe - experienced speculation alert. 73
Bingo! Saw that too. Remember all the simulations in QST on Trees and Antenna interaction? But that plywood scrap was likely well dried out long ago at Kevin's QTH!
Hi Kevin, great videos! I've recently moved to a new home in HOAville. I've already erected a discone attached to a decommissioned DirectTV dish setup, painted it grey and blends beautifully with the dish, and works great. HF/VLF are a different matter. My choices are either a 55 foot OCF dipole (not very stealthy), or some alternative. I saw your video on your loop antenna (not to mention others demoing the MFJ-1886 ($$), and now these mini-whips. What would be great, is a comparo between the loop and mini-whip. The other question I had on the loop, is that although it's somewhat bi-directional, how does this perform if the loop is horizontal? It seems that a horizontal loop would now be omni-directional, but would it loose it's noise reduction characteristics. As you mention in this video, I too am plagued by LAN/WiFi noise/birdies. I do have some tall trees in my short back yard. Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm running the RSP1A, so I'm interested in the VLF end. Also saw your VLF ground rod video. At least that's stealthy. 73's.
My favorite antenna for an HOA nazi-controlled neighborhood, is the 9:1 unun end fed random length wire. It can be stealthy, but does well on many bands with an antenna tuner in line.
Hi Kevin, great video ! I have purchased ad built exactly the same kit - but it doesn't seem to work with my Malahit DSP1. When I connect the Bias voltage I don't see any effect. I did some measurements on the board and the components seem to be sain. Cold you please elaborate on how to connect the Bias board correctly, maybe that is the problem. In my setup, the RX connector from the BIAS board goes to the receiver, and the "Antenne" connector goes to "out" connector of the whip ( cable shield is ground). Is it right ?
Wow! That mini whip really works well. I just tried an MFJ active antenna and was greatly disappointed. I’m not a builder so I will try the prebuilt model from Amazon. I’m really impressed with the performance placing the mini whip in the window. Can’t wait to try it. Thanks for the video. de N0WDM
How well would this work hooked to your long wire gutter antenna? Will you please show how the two boards will work together. Maybe a close up detailed still that hand on the screen long enough to pause on a following video. In lieu of a heat sink I have hear people use an alligator clip. ...where would you source a heat sink for it? Have the same kit on my project list. It had fallen back because I had no instructions. You video has bumped up my priority list. Thanks for all of your tips.
I wouldn't expect it to be usable with a long wire. It would be swamped by the RF energy from local broadcast stations. I wonder if you would actually blow the FET if you tried it. I've got boxes of old parts and quite a few little heat sinks designed for that size transistor. Once I build the external biasT board, I'll do another video showing the gain difference. Hopefully by then, I'll also have a PVC enclosure for it and be able to put it up in the air outside.
good video. hey I'm wondering as you mentioned at the end of the video you're planning to use it as a receiving antenna. how could we connect two antennas into a TXeiver just having one so239 connector. would be nice have a sort of commuter box with a relay or something to toggle between RX and TX antennas
There are many manual antenna switches out there. You can also use just about any relay to build one. Automatic switching gets tricky though. Many radio's will have an accessory port that has a signal that goes high when you switch to transmit. This could be used to drive a small transistor to switch power to a relay coil. But the timing has to be good enough to make sure you don't dump RF into an antenna not designed to handle it. It's a complex problem with many variables dependent on your radio and equipment.
Do you have a link for that exact kit? If you search on google for "commercial mini whip kit" you'll pull your video up, and many other kits on eBay that look nothing like this. I'd like to build this exact kit as I know this one works well as you've shown, and I don't want to go through the trouble of picking up numerous kits to find one that works as well as this one :) 73!
around the 7 min mark when you where using the soldiering iron, I could hear the mic picking up a faint high buzz from the soldiering iron, when you touched the soldier and thus your hand to the tip, it grounded it and thus eliminated the sound. I thought I'd just mention that, ad it seemed related, st least in some way, to the channel subject. o.o
I don't have a diagram but that bias-T 12 volt supply got me thinking. Are they maybe dropping the 12 volt supply down to around 5 volts inside the bias T? Reason I was thinking that is that I can't believe that you would even be in the bias range for the amplifier..let alone gain. And am surprised it works with the SDR bias T on (5v). I'm going to order one of these mini-whips but was NOT going to get the bias-T since I wanted to use the one in the SDR. Anyway, thanks for the preview!
After using it for quite a while, I can tell you that it does indeed work with the 5V bias from the SDRplay. The gain is somewhat less than half what I see with a full 12V. When I built the actual bias T board into an altoids tin, I added a switch that could drop the voltage, letting me switch from high to low gain. That's proven useful in some lower frequency ranges where local AM broadcast stations overwhelm the mini whip amp.
www.amateurradioshop.nl/products.php?636&cPath=55&language=nl_NL It is in dutch ...... no english one, you might be able to use google to translate....
I got it ordered! WIll be very interested to see how it receives. I'm thinking I'll build it with F-connectors and use some spare RG6 coax I have laying around to bring it into the shack. It'll be interesting to see how it does while I'm transmitting nearby.
Have you compared your circuit with the commercial kit after changing your RF transistor? I hope with supply voltages the same performance is the same too. Thanks.
Kevin, I went to the website to order one of the mini whips but it was written in a foreign language that I cannot comprehend and I could not find a way to add it to a cart or any way to purchase one. It looked like they were about 5.00 uros? If you have any suggestions they would be welcomed. Mant thanks.
Thanks for catching that. They moved the product on their site. I've updated the link. Here it is www.amateurradioshop.nl/webshop/print-sets--experimenteer-aktieve-antennes-enz/detail/542/set-miniwhip-antenne-printjes-10khz---30mhz.html
And there's a simple experiment that can be done to completely negate your argument. There's many of these in use that are working quite well, and many videos showing so. This very video, around the 17:30 mark, you see the mini whip vastly outperforming a wire whip antenna, completely invalidating your statement.
Now you're suggesting that a wire whip would be worse than a short at the end of the coax. Do you think anyone would believe that? It's a silly assertion to make.
I'm suggesting that yours must be bad! Do you really believe the signal gets stronger as you move up higher above the ground like they claim? That's ridiculous and easy to prove it's untrue.
@@stevec5000 I just ordered my kit thanks to this video. Yes, after watching the TONS of experiments that "prove" or "disprove" the usefulness of such an antenna. I must say, many of those videos (or articles) had made me a skeptic, and I'm not talking only about those that showed that it shouldn't/couldn't work. Those that seem to show that it did work, did a very poor job at comparing apples to apples. Kevin's video keeps everything straight, so I decided to bite the bullet. I live on the 20th floor on a high rise by the ocean, inside the apartment there's the usual electrical interference, so I am feeding my SDRPlay with a coax from the end of a 14ft wire mounted on pvc removable poles from one end to the other of my balcony. That makes me fear that someone from the HOA will come knocking on my door any moment now, to tell me to take it down. It's not highly visible, but I only hang it at night. Needless to say, that kind of set-up is pretty shoddy to begin with, but it's enough to bring me signals from the local HAMs, some times even from VA, PA, or OH. I actually heard some guy from Spain last week, granted he was working with 1KW but still... So, if this whip solves my problem, and proves to bring in even more stations than I currently get, I'll be sure to report it here. Actually, I'm making it my mission to report it no matter what, so stay tuned.
Good comparsion!
Thanks for sharing Kevin.
I think hey know what they are doing ... even if other people think otherwise.
Much love,
Matthias
( 73 DL1NDG 😊)
I’ve build one myself dead bug style a year ago. My experience with my antenna is that it needs to be up and away. So I mounted my antenna on a 9 meter fishing pole, and set it up half way in the garden. Made a huge difference. I’m gonna look for your comparison to this one and your home made one. And maybe buy myself this antenna also.
Thx for the video.
Have a good one!
Well, it definitely made me wanna' go out and order one for myself, to use with my SDRPlay in my 20th floor balcony by the ocean. I've watched tons of reviews and videos that were not comparing apples to apples at all, and it seems these active mini-whips do have some specific requirements if you want them to work well (good grounding, for one), but I think under the circumstances it's the best fit for my conditions. Thank you!
Thank you for the video Kevin, it was very very interesting!
I am sitting on an inventory of over a dozen 2N5109 and J310 from the 1980s, and I am going to give it a try with the original PA0RDT design.
One thing I have noticed in your kit is that the resistors are MFR (metal film resistors) from their bright blue colours. Usually in rf circuits CFR (Carbon film) resistors are preferred since the frequency response of these resistors is good in high-frequency based applications as compared with MFR.
However, carbon resistors are noisier than metal film resistors.
I bought one from Amazon and it works surprisingly well if properly grounded.
See my comment above, on the guy asking what transistor was used. IF you don't GROUND/CONNECT the Bias Tee wing nut post directly (wire or braid) to your Receiver's chassis, you get the same signal level if the wall-wart is connected or not!!
Hi Kevin, good to hear that it works :-) You will be excited to use the whip with a full 12Volt bias. If you want to stay on 5 Volt, decreasing the emitter resistance to increase current would be the way to go. 150 mA sounds a bit much though. My version draws around 80. Keep an eye on that relay that was in the package. You can build a morse key out of it! Oh, and your attempt of pronouncing Jan was perfect!
Jan, you can thank Kevin for it, I just ordered mine from your web site a couple of minutes ago :) It'll take a while until it gets to Miami, I'm sure, but I will definitely report back on it once I've set it up.
Jan Lategahn I was so excited that the envelope got to me in less than a week. Yet, when I opened it today, I can’t describe the frustration: only the printed boards were in there, NO COMPONENTS!!! I know I don’t speak Dutch, and I might have just ordered the wrong thing, but I followed the link posted here, and it sured seemed like it was the kit everybody is talking about, the ENTIRE kit. You seem to speak very good English. How difficult is it to make a few pages in English at least for the order process, on your web site? I am beyond frustrated, I am truly pissed off
Update: I finally got the components in the mail today. I am hoping to put it together this week-end. I will report. As it turns out, I had ordered only the printed boards based on one of the links posted in the comments to this video. While I acknowledge that the mistake was mine, I remain convinced that making a separate page in English for each kit will be helpful, and not terribly difficult. Or at least adding a short description in English in the existing pages. You have customers all over the world. You would be well served as well as them, to have a minimum done to limit confusion and complaints.
First of all before I ask MY Question, YOU are one of the few Hams/Persons that make Videos on this topic that I enjoy watching, YOUR Videos because of the Detail YOU offer and the many Closeups YOU give.... YOUR Presentation on each of YOUR Videos are clear and very few places where You leave a listener not knowing what YOU did.... I Do like YOUR Presentation, but I would like to see more Detail on what YOU did on the inside and out on what YOU present or have built Homemade... Now for MY Question; What are all the components YOU put together with this MINI WHIP????
They all come in the kit. It's available at the link I put in the description. Also listed on the schematic on the page that link takes you to.
This does look simple, makes you wonder what sort of german wizardry was actually in those old dressler antennas, or in a GA3005 for that matter.
@14m30s: I don't think that the sensor plate part of the mini-whip should be installed so close to wood. Even dry wood is not the same as air, and a voltage probe type antenna is known to be fairly sensitive to that sort of thing. Maybe - experienced speculation alert. 73
Bingo! Saw that too. Remember all the simulations in QST on Trees and Antenna interaction? But that plywood scrap was likely well dried out long ago at Kevin's QTH!
Hi Kevin, great videos! I've recently moved to a new home in HOAville. I've already erected a discone attached to a decommissioned DirectTV dish setup, painted it grey and blends beautifully with the dish, and works great. HF/VLF are a different matter. My choices are either a 55 foot OCF dipole (not very stealthy), or some alternative. I saw your video on your loop antenna (not to mention others demoing the MFJ-1886 ($$), and now these mini-whips. What would be great, is a comparo between the loop and mini-whip. The other question I had on the loop, is that although it's somewhat bi-directional, how does this perform if the loop is horizontal? It seems that a horizontal loop would now be omni-directional, but would it loose it's noise reduction characteristics. As you mention in this video, I too am plagued by LAN/WiFi noise/birdies. I do have some tall trees in my short back yard. Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm running the RSP1A, so I'm interested in the VLF end. Also saw your VLF ground rod video. At least that's stealthy. 73's.
My favorite antenna for an HOA nazi-controlled neighborhood, is the 9:1 unun end fed random length wire. It can be stealthy, but does well on many bands with an antenna tuner in line.
@@loughkb ...and that is what I need to keep in mind for when I'll be transmitting :) Thanks again! :)
Good demo. Simple kit to build.
Hi Kevin, great video ! I have purchased ad built exactly the same kit - but it doesn't seem to work with my Malahit DSP1. When I connect the Bias voltage I don't see any effect. I did some measurements on the board and the components seem to be sain. Cold you please elaborate on how to connect the Bias board correctly, maybe that is the problem. In my setup, the RX connector from the BIAS board goes to the receiver, and the "Antenne" connector goes to "out" connector of the whip ( cable shield is ground). Is it right ?
Wow! That mini whip really works well. I just tried an MFJ active antenna and was greatly disappointed. I’m not a builder so I will try the prebuilt model from Amazon. I’m really impressed with the performance placing the mini whip in the window. Can’t wait to try it. Thanks for the video. de N0WDM
How well would this work hooked to your long wire gutter antenna?
Will you please show how the two boards will work together. Maybe a close up detailed still that hand on the screen long enough to pause on a following video.
In lieu of a heat sink I have hear people use an alligator clip. ...where would you source a heat sink for it?
Have the same kit on my project list. It had fallen back because I had no instructions. You video has bumped up my priority list.
Thanks for all of your tips.
I wouldn't expect it to be usable with a long wire. It would be swamped by the RF energy from local broadcast stations. I wonder if you would actually blow the FET if you tried it.
I've got boxes of old parts and quite a few little heat sinks designed for that size transistor.
Once I build the external biasT board, I'll do another video showing the gain difference. Hopefully by then, I'll also have a PVC enclosure for it and be able to put it up in the air outside.
good video. hey I'm wondering as you mentioned at the end of the video you're planning to use it as a receiving antenna. how could we connect two antennas into a TXeiver just having one so239 connector. would be nice have a sort of commuter box with a relay or something to toggle between RX and TX antennas
There are many manual antenna switches out there. You can also use just about any relay to build one. Automatic switching gets tricky though. Many radio's will have an accessory port that has a signal that goes high when you switch to transmit. This could be used to drive a small transistor to switch power to a relay coil. But the timing has to be good enough to make sure you don't dump RF into an antenna not designed to handle it.
It's a complex problem with many variables dependent on your radio and equipment.
Hi thanks for the video! One question: what is the RF transistor in this kit?
Do you have a link for that exact kit? If you search on google for "commercial mini whip kit" you'll pull your video up, and many other kits on eBay that look nothing like this. I'd like to build this exact kit as I know this one works well as you've shown, and I don't want to go through the trouble of picking up numerous kits to find one that works as well as this one :) 73!
This one came from the link below. There are many others.
www.amateurradioshop.nl/products.php?769&cPath=91&sid=3p4kad730su56o5vmbslkmnpf4
around the 7 min mark when you where using the soldiering iron, I could hear the mic picking up a faint high buzz from the soldiering iron, when you touched the soldier and thus your hand to the tip, it grounded it and thus eliminated the sound. I thought I'd just mention that, ad it seemed related, st least in some way, to the channel subject. o.o
I don't have a diagram but that bias-T 12 volt supply got me thinking. Are they maybe dropping the 12 volt supply down to around 5 volts inside the bias T? Reason I was thinking that is that I can't believe that you would even be in the bias range for the amplifier..let alone gain. And am surprised it works with the SDR bias T on (5v). I'm going to order one of these mini-whips but was NOT going to get the bias-T since I wanted to use the one in the SDR. Anyway, thanks for the preview!
After using it for quite a while, I can tell you that it does indeed work with the 5V bias from the SDRplay. The gain is somewhat less than half what I see with a full 12V. When I built the actual bias T board into an altoids tin, I added a switch that could drop the voltage, letting me switch from high to low gain. That's proven useful in some lower frequency ranges where local AM broadcast stations overwhelm the mini whip amp.
very good video and great review good night from gary.73.
Do you have a video about setting up the bias-t board you mentioned earlier in this video?
Kevin, Have you considered soldering on a wire to the pad on the board antenna?
at 11.43 the camra moved and both your hands on the bench how did you do that spooky 73
+mighty gonk hughes camera didn't move. That was an edit in post production.
great vid mate enjoyed it thank you hope you like the new job 73
pro tip : watch movies on KaldroStream. Been using it for watching loads of movies these days.
@Pierce Chance Yea, I've been using kaldroStream for months myself :)
@Pierce Chance yup, I've been watching on kaldrostream for months myself :)
@Pierce Chance Definitely, have been watching on kaldroStream for since november myself :D
Are these directional in a polarized sense?
From what I read, yes. If the antenna end is pointed up, it's like a vertical.
Please what modification do I need to make to this circuit in order to receive 3KHz to 30KHz?
Thank you
None. It should work fine up through HF.
I'm surprised how sensitive it is receiving.
Me too, especially considering how small the pickup area is.
Do you have a link to purchase this kit?
www.amateurradioshop.nl/products.php?636&cPath=55&language=nl_NL
It is in dutch ...... no english one, you might be able to use google to translate....
I can't get Cubic to work with my SDR Play to save my life!
Nice video. Do you have a link to the kit?
www.amateurradioshop.nl/products.php?636&cPath=55&language=nl_NL
I can't get that site to let me check out. :|
I got it ordered! WIll be very interested to see how it receives. I'm thinking I'll build it with F-connectors and use some spare RG6 coax I have laying around to bring it into the shack. It'll be interesting to see how it does while I'm transmitting nearby.
Thomas Martin , how did you get it ordered, I could not figure out how to order one???
Have you compared your circuit with the commercial kit after changing your RF transistor? I hope with supply voltages the same performance is the same too. Thanks.
idea kevin for a vid 2m coaxial colinear out of rg58u cable low cost and portable all you need is a tree to hang it from 73 from uk
Kevin, I went to the website to order one of the mini whips but it was written in a foreign language that I cannot comprehend and I could not find a way to add it to a cart or any way to purchase one. It looked like they were about 5.00 uros? If you have any suggestions they would be welcomed. Mant thanks.
If you use the Chrome web browser, it will offer to translate the page for you.
404 error on the link
Thanks for catching that. They moved the product on their site. I've updated the link. Here it is
www.amateurradioshop.nl/webshop/print-sets--experimenteer-aktieve-antennes-enz/detail/542/set-miniwhip-antenne-printjes-10khz---30mhz.html
Cool! Thanx. I don't do much SDR but I wonder how well it might work with a regular analog rig...hmmm.
The miniwhip is a total fraud! If you just connect a short jumper across the end of the coax it will work better than this kit!
And there's a simple experiment that can be done to completely negate your argument. There's many of these in use that are working quite well, and many videos showing so. This very video, around the 17:30 mark, you see the mini whip vastly outperforming a wire whip antenna, completely invalidating your statement.
That only proves that your wire whip antenna was even worse!
Now you're suggesting that a wire whip would be worse than a short at the end of the coax. Do you think anyone would believe that? It's a silly assertion to make.
I'm suggesting that yours must be bad! Do you really believe the signal gets stronger as you move up higher above the ground like they claim? That's ridiculous and easy to prove it's untrue.
@@stevec5000 I just ordered my kit thanks to this video. Yes, after watching the TONS of experiments that "prove" or "disprove" the usefulness of such an antenna. I must say, many of those videos (or articles) had made me a skeptic, and I'm not talking only about those that showed that it shouldn't/couldn't work. Those that seem to show that it did work, did a very poor job at comparing apples to apples. Kevin's video keeps everything straight, so I decided to bite the bullet. I live on the 20th floor on a high rise by the ocean, inside the apartment there's the usual electrical interference, so I am feeding my SDRPlay with a coax from the end of a 14ft wire mounted on pvc removable poles from one end to the other of my balcony. That makes me fear that someone from the HOA will come knocking on my door any moment now, to tell me to take it down. It's not highly visible, but I only hang it at night. Needless to say, that kind of set-up is pretty shoddy to begin with, but it's enough to bring me signals from the local HAMs, some times even from VA, PA, or OH. I actually heard some guy from Spain last week, granted he was working with 1KW but still... So, if this whip solves my problem, and proves to bring in even more stations than I currently get, I'll be sure to report it here. Actually, I'm making it my mission to report it no matter what, so stay tuned.