I don’t use this cheap handheld often, on the contrary, I rarely use it.
Anyway, I prepared it for the holiday trip, to hear some local Hams and have FM chat.
Once I got there I turned on the small radio and with great surprise I could not hook up any repeater, even the FM broadcast band was quiet or with very low signals. Then, moving the antenna, I realized that this had something wrong.
So I spent the holidays between the pool and the sea leaving the radio in a drawer.
Once at home I dismantled the antenna and with (little) surprise I found that the isolation capacitor had a broken lead.
Considering the low price of the radio this was not a surprise.
To open the antenna just remove the ring nut around the connector and with a small screwdriver widen the rubber that encloses the antenna. Slowly unscrew the connector counterclockwise until the antenna comes out completely. A piece of heat shrink tubing is placed around the capacitor to avoid short circuits.
So quickly I replaced the 3 pF capacitor with a new one.
Before putting the cap back on, I did tests that confirmed that the antenna was working perfectly!
It is not a big problem to solve but perhaps it could often happen if the antenna were to hit or bend due to a sudden movement.
