I bought a mini whip, and section one (where the power supply is to be hooked up on the first board, it had bad solder joints. Power wasn't getting to the second section board. I repaired that issue, and power was not getting to the second whip board. I applied the power seeking normal operation, and found Capacitor "C6" started burning. It sits right beside Zener diode, "ZD1" ( I might also add, that the board I speak about is labeled as "XR-158", sold on Banggood). I am wondering of others who have bought this mini-whip, also had the same issue of "c5" seeing heat, and burning up (smoking once power is applied)? I found that section has a short, where there shouldn't be a short, so I'm glad you posted this video. The same issue (seen here), might be occurring on my board. Thanks for the info. I will do a check, and see if this is the same issue with my board. It sure goes to show, the company that makes these mini-whips, are not quality checking them properly, before they are put out on the market and sold. Issues like this, can easily damage an expensive receiver, and be very costly to repair. I tried contacting Banggood about this problem a few times, but got no reply back. It seems I can complain till pigs fly, and not get a customer service reply back. I seems they don't care about the product, once it has been sold, and sent to the customer. They refuse to back what they sell, and correct the problem. I'm glad I didn't have the whip hooked up to my receiver/computer, when I first tried it out, and found it to be burning once power was supplied to the circuit. It saved me from having a more expensive repair to my receiving unit. It now appears That I now have to take on the task of repairing this mini-whip again, before I can get any use of what I purchased, and paid good money for. Banggood doesn't seem to give a crap about making me happy, and replace the unit, or for that matter, refund me my money. The Banggood site says, they will reply back (once a complaint is sent in), within 24 hrs. if a person has an issue with what they purchased from them. I have sent 5 complaints to them, and didn't get a single word back from them. I will never deal with Banggood again, if they want to treat me that way. For that reason, I am making others realize to "BEWARE in purchasing products form Banggood's website. If you have a complaint, you will not get any help from them to correct the issue, and also BEWARE, that what you purchase from them, could easily damage other equipment you own, that works along with the item you bought. That could end up as a hair raising/pulling purchase, specially when you have to lay out more money to repair, more expensive items, that hook-up to these units you bough from them. It's wise to check out what you purchase, before hooking it up to the more expensive unit, to make sure it works as intended. I thank you for your video post.
The generic Chinese ones are Okay for broadcast listening. But they are considerably noisier than the PA0RDT whip, for example. All mini-whips are poor, relative to a good quality amplified loop system such as the WellGood (not WellBrook, which is no longer made).
I had the J FET fitted the wrong way round on mine and the PCB track issue .Does anyone know if this should be mounted on a metal or Plastic pole when mounting outside?. Thanks
Based on PA3FWM's posted essay titled "Fundamentals of the MiniWhip antenna," a miniwhip antenna can be mounted on a well-grounded metal pole or on a plastic pipe if the coax shield is well-grounded. Good grounding is very important. A "dirty" ground inside the radio shack is not good enough. See the essay online for details.
Hi I had the Same issue After removing C3 I found the not cut trace, too. But After the fix I lost the Part and now I need to know what it is and what value it has
Sure would've been helpful if you could actually see the test lead contact points and verify which is Receiver and Ant. Unfortunately this is the best youtube has to offer on this product. SMH.
