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- Verified Buyer
Just what I needed for my boat radio. Out of the way and works great.This antenna does the job fairly well. Although its stated to be a dipole antenna, I don't think that is accurate. A true dipole would probably offer lightly better reception, but this antenna was exactly what I was looking for and does an adequate job of signal reception. It has no problems bringing in the stations I listen to, and I live about 20 miles outside the city where most of the station transmitters reside.One caveat, and I almost gave this antenna a 1 star rating before stumbling onto this by accident before writing my review:When my phone is plugged into the USB port to charge, signal reception gets COMPLETELY wiped out. I am lucky if I can get ONE station reliably. This could have more to do with my phone or my radio than this actual antenna. Obviously one of them causes enough interference in the charge circuitry to wipe out radio reception. Unplug the phone, and reception is fine.Hope this helps somebody!My phone is an iPhone SE (the older one), and my radio is a Sony DSX-M80.This antenna worked great! Some of the bad reviews are likely due to poor placement or isolation. When I first connected it, I was getting tons of static but the station would still come in strong. It took me a few different orientations before I got this right, but once I found its sweet spot, every station comes in crystal clear. I've worked in electronics for a very long time, and if there's one thing that's certain, it's that antennas are the most finicky devices in the world. Sitting in the wrong place in the room can make your FM turn into complete static if you turn your head the wrong direction, which is why movies and TV shows always depict people doing funny contortionist moves to retain clear broadcast signal while a coat hanger is sticking out of the tuner. The same applies today.If at first you don't succeed, try moving the antenna again. Remember too, that the shape and angles of it also affect reception. Oddly enough, I purchased this to be an internal antenna in my SUV and the best place for reception was shoved vertically down the inside of my C-pillar. As mentioned before, sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to it, but just place it where it works best, and this is true of ANY antenna.Boat radioI installed this for the new radio in the basement compartment of my motorhome because I didn't want to go through the hassle of connecting it to an antenna on my roof. Based on the reviews, I was hoping that this antenna would do the job. Wow, it more than met my expectations. Without the antenna connected, the radio would seek the entire FM range without finding a station. Once I plugged in the antenna, it found just about as many stations as my car radio. It's not as sensitive to position as I thought that it would be, but it does work better if you can extend it rather than leaving it coiled. I attached it to the top of the basement compartment, which is about 3 feet above the ground, and it works great. That doesn't make sense to me since it's mounted in a horizontal plane, but it works so I'm happy. I don't notice any degradation when I move around either, so my body doesn't seem to interfere with the signal like it does with many wire antennas.It's great for utvs and boatsBought this for the 2nd time for a 2nd bike. This time it replaced an aftermarket powered FM antenna that most use in Harley touring bikes. The powered antenna that was in the harley worked barely at all, barely got reception, and it was powered?!?While the harley stereo was on, i unplugged the powered antenna, and it lost ALL signal of course, then immediately plugged this one in, and the reception was noticeably better than the powered antenna. And i'm sure the power antenna was 7-10x's the price of this.I cant comment on if this is better than the OEM antenna, but it sure is better than what most harley guys are buying that's powered.TOTALLY recommend this.I bought a 1996 Toyota Tacoma recently. The kid who owned it did not like the radio mast antenna, so he used body filler to fill in the hole. So, naturally, the radio had terrible reception. Wanting to avoid drilling out the hole, etc. I ordered this. At first, I could only get a few stations and was dissatisfied. But buy moving the wire around under my dash, I found it worked as well as a mast antenna; at least for our local FM stations. What was strange is I only had to move the extended wire a few inches for optimal reception.As a test, I hooked up a FM "T" shaped antenna to the end of the antenna wire I bought. No improvement in reception. So this device alone does a fine job.Attached to receiver tucked outta sight amazing reception! This is my second one will definitely order another if I need it for another project !Absolutely useless. A complete waste of money. Unless you are standing in front of a radio transmitter you will get ZERO reception with this piece of junk. It says it's 40", not even close, mine is 32" but you can tell that they are made out of random cutoffs of wire and I'm sure the length is different for each one. DO NOT BUY!Install these with as much vertical positioning as possible. FM antenna like to be up/down not horizontal.Does not work at all.. I get the same FM signal with the antenna attached or not. Waste of time with this product.. Amazon should not even allow this garbage on the market!Sound is okay, but I expected that whole described length to be areal not the length to the plug. Still, reception is fine. I might go for a longer one though for better reception when farther away.
