About a week ago, my ancient Radarbox lost it's range to around 30 miles with an outdoor antenna. I checked it with another aerial with little difference, so was faced with getting in touch with support to have it returned for repair.
However, just before that, I made up another homemade aerial that I use with a DVB-T dongle using RTL1090 software via Virtual Radar Server. Plugged it in and was getting a good improvement in range, thankfully was'nt the box up the spout.
I have got both homebrews stuck up inside my velux window, side by side.
What has become obvious though, is that starting and stopping both at the same time is the number of hits. The Radarbox had 720 total for yesterday, 29th May whereas the stick had 1,151, quite a significant difference.
My Radarbox cost £400+, the stick £13.95, go figure!