My guess
The left sort of looks like the outside of the cable so I think that's ground.
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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Weird that they don't elaborate. I flipped it last night and it seemed marginally better this way, so maybe there is some truth to it. Take this with a truck load of salt as it wasn't any sort of controlled experiment at all.
in your antenna, the outside of the coax makes up part of the radiating structure. The orientation of the elements in relationship to that coax will definitely change the radiation pattern, maybe for the better maybe for the worse.
putting ferrites around the coax right below the antenna feed point will make the antenna more symmetrical as it blocks RF currents traveling back down the outside of the shield.
It has a choke on it, it's a little blurry but you can see it. Should it be moved closer? I saw a comment on rtl-sdr's blog suggesting it.