Some weeks ago I bought a new -ultra flexible- Nagoya NA-24 antenna for my Baofeng UV-82L. When I used the Nagoya antenna for the very first time I received almost nothing. I first thought that I (again) bought a counterfeit Nagoya antenna and put this one in the drawer. Just yesterday I found it again and became a bit annoyed as I wasted another 20 bucks here. I decided to open the NA-24 with a pair of two big pliers. The black cover had an internal thread and was fixed with some superglue. With some force I was able to disassemble the whole connector and could inspect all the antenna parts.
I found out that the flexible radiator was not soldered on the socket of the antenna so it had no electrical connection to my Baofeng radio. I soldered the radiator to the antenna socket and put everything back together again. I tested the NA-24 antenna on the local repeater while I walked on the streets in the city. It worked flawless. Later I checked with the network analyzer and the result looks pretty good so far. So if your antenna is broken anyway, disassemble it and take a look. You can't destroy much.
