T-1 Radio Antenna

Works great. Great reception….

This is a great, well made, solid antenna. You can plug this in if you have a jack, or clip it to your antenna if you have an older radio. Works GREAT on AM bands and yes, FM too. It's a quality solid build that doesn't feel cheap. As an avid radio listener, I recommend it!

This makes a great accessory to any radio's built-in antenna. Of all the somewhat "negative" reviews that say it doesn't work well, or it's just another piece of wire...really doesn't understand radio wave propagation & how the atmosphere & the time of day really affects those incoming radio waves. I won't get into detail on how those work because it's a technical process to explain, but any Amateur Radio operator knows the point I wanted to make here. Clipping this onto the Kaito Voyager Pro while camping out in the middle of "nowhere" really helps pull in the radio stations. It's mostly used for shortwave, longwave & "worldband" frequencies, not for everyday "insert your favorite FM station here" kind of music station. It will help a bit, but not much. It's not designed for those bands. As far as getting it back into it's case...it's not a problem. Think of this scenario: when reeling up your garden hose, it reels up nicely if you use the whole reel, not just one side. In other words, reel it up while "tilting" it to the left then to the right, just like a garden hose or an extension cord onto a cord wheel. Use the whole wheel inside. It rolls up nicely with room to spare if done like this. Don't use the finger indentions to roll it up. Put your finger somewhere on the same side & spin. Don't use two fingers...it'll drive you crazy! I say it's a good buy for less than ten bucks. And it really helps pick up the atomic clock time server in Boulder Colorado on 20 MHz (or 20,000 KHz) at night. It's the strongest signal of the 5, 10, 15 & 20 MHz bands. Well, at least here on the East coast!

This is it. I tried everything to get reception with my weather radio. I live in the country 45 miles from the weather center closest to me. I tired Tin foil, a metal coat hanger, speaker Wire and nothing worked. I bought this device as a last resort and it solved all the problems. Clipped it on the antenna and stretched out about 5 Feet of the spool and the weather center sounds like it’s in my back yard. I am happy happy happy. Great product at a great price!

I bought a retekess 618 radio here on Amazon. I was hoping to get better FM reception, but could not get my favorite station 70 miles away through trees and low mountains. I ordered this antenna to give it a try. The antenna clip on wire looked good. I got it yesterday and hooked it up inside. That did not work. This morning i passed the wire through the window and clipped it to the radio. I was going to run it along the roof and use all 25 feet. That was not necessary. With it just hanging out the window and resting on the ground, I connected it to the FM antenna and turned the radio on. The station went from nothing to crystal clear instantly with no static. I am not a radio person so this was a neat experiment. I learned a little about radios! It is a little hard to reel in but not bad. I only needed to reel it out for my purpose. I extended the wire 10 ft along the roof just for good measure. I think I could buy some wire and make one, but this is nice and professional and I did not have to scare up clips and wire or drive to the hardware store. I was lucky because my roof runs north and south, and the station is directly east, so the wire was automatically at right angles to the station. But it worked anyway just hanging out the window 4 feet to the ground. I recommend trying this. It worked great for me!

Pros: Compact, Inexpensive, easy to deploy with very little friction, dual connection methods (plug or clip). Cons: A complete chore to wind it back into the container, as there is much more friction in that direction. It can take several minutes. It would be so much better if there was a single knob of some type to wind with, because the two small indentations are almost useless for winding any faster than a half turn at a time, using two fingers. A built-in spring, such as those found in a tape measure would be helpful as well. I would be willing to spend a couple dollars more for those two features. UPDATE: I took it apart and added some lubricant used for phono turntables to the center shaft and flat surface of the inner spool. I also noted that the small "knot" used to secure the wire to the center spool was creating friction against the center shaft, so I "squished" that a bit to keep it from touching the shaft. So much easier to rewind. The manufacturer should have come up with this simple solution.

working amazingly easy to set up and very long cord antenna

From what can be seen on the Amazon website as well as on other sites, this Kaito reel antenna (AN-03L) is essentially the same as the Sangean ANT-60 antenna (and 50 % cheaper in price!) right down to the supplied connector for a whip antenna (for radios without an external antena jack of any kind). The only notable, albeit quite small, differences are the presence of two separate finger holds used to reel the antenna back up when finished listening and a separate small attachment for hanging the unit up on a hook in the wall or on the ceiling, etc.). This Kaito antenna is designed to improve reception on FM/SW as well as for TV (UHF/VHF) and for the Weather bands for any such radio. AM (MW) reception is separately controlled by a ferrite antenna coil that is comonly incorporated inside of most radios. I have used this Kaito antenna on my Kaito KA1102. The antenna is 7 m (~23 feet) long which should usually be placed as high as possible near an outside door or window of any building for the best reception improvement. I have found an excellent improvement for weaker signals on the FM/SW bands (too long of an antenna can overload some radios like the KA1102, but this length of wire is perfectly adequate whereas other longer external antennas will not be. Always check your radio manual first before investing in a very long external antenna!). It must be remembered that the antenna not only allows an amplification of signal, but also of the prevailing background radio noise level so if it is very noisy at the time of reception at a certain frequency, the improvement in "hearing" may not always be as good as at other times when the background noise levels are much lower. Overall I am very happy with this very inexpensive purchase which is a simple passive fix for a generally quick improvement of signal strength for the weaker FM/SW radio waves.