So, I buy a lot of stuff from Ali Express. By and large I have been very happy with my purchases and get pretty much what I expect. I am a careful shopper, and don’t go for the too-good-to-be-true items that I might want to be real because that are just too good to be true.

Well, the other day I was broswing and saw several sellers offering this:

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Now that does look like a rather beefy collapsible antenna, but some of the sellers showed it badly composited into a photo with some trees, and the antenna was either in the foreground or appeared to be around 20 feet tall! I was intrigued and kept searching around until I confirmed they were all actually claiming the antenna was, in fact, 5.6m—more than 18 feet!

I was skeptical—I mean, I couldn’t imagine that extending so far, of staying together very long if it did. But, at 12 bucks, I decided to possibly be a sucker and order one. Well, it arrived yesterday and… it really is 5.6m long! It’s amazing, frankly. It just keeps getting longer and longer.

My plan, if it was real, was to make it into an HF vertical for my disaster go-bag. It won’t hold up to heavy wind, or abuse, so it won’t replace the wire antenna—but it’s really quite good all things considered. A pair would make a nice inverted V, and it is inherently tunable by simply adjusting the length.

I got mine here, so if you want one I can say I got what the listing claims. Sometimes, it’s not a scam after all.

 

I've been burned by AliExpress before, but recently saw too many great things in their "Dollar Express" section. Things are from cents to a few bucks and you're limited to a few items (12 total, which seems to be total number of items sometimes and total number of different items others (i.e., 12 different things, but more than one of each allowed). I've received good quality stuff with prompt delivery for several orders so far.