Comet CH-32 "Miracle Baby" Performance

[Fairlight]

Hello,

A while ago I lost the standard 3" rubber whip antenna included with my BCD436HP and, after reading much praise about it, ordered a Comet CH-32 "Miracle Baby" antenna. As luck would have it I then found the rubber whip again so now I have both and decided to compare performance... and found the CH-32 to be near abysmal. Everything I tested, I get about 25% of signal strength compared to what I get with the rubber whip in similar conditions.

I really don't get it, I read stellar reviews for the CH-32 everywhere so am I doing something wrong? I read it's supposed to be tuned for 144/440/900 MHz so shouldn't it work pretty good on 162 (local weather services) and 420 (local trunked services) MHz too? Also I notice the antenna can be rotated on its base, is there something about that? Is it somewhat "tunable" by rotating it?

Thank you in advance!

 

[rgchristy]

I agree. I own two "Miracle Baby" antennas, because I thought that I bought a bad one originally and it was too late to return it. Now I have two horrible "Miracle Baby" antennas.

I was beginning to think that the name came from that it would be a "Miracle Baby" if you could hear anything with this antenna. Sorry, I have other Comet antennas that work great, but just not this one.

 

[KevinC]

I’ve had mine for a loooong time so I may be misremembering.

Mine was crap as well out of the package. This is where it gets fuzzy though, but I fixed mine. It was either taking off the foil label wrapped around it or the capacitor wasn’t soldered (required careful unscrewing the upper portion to resolder it). Or maybe both? Either way try the foil label first and see what happens.

 

[KevinC]

But understand you can’t overcome the physics of this antenna being a huge compromise. Mine was dead before I did whatever I did to fix it. 😂 I made it at least perform as well as it’s probably supposed to.