Lono... thanks for that url!

My wife and I made one of those for her dual band HT. It does extend the transmit range beyond the range of the rubber duck that came with the radio. Location makes a big difference, too. Higher is better (note the long length of the feed line in that linked antenna); away from metal and brick buildings, trees, etc.

Those antennas can overdrive the receiver - the receiver expects the crap signal the rubber duck delivers. I don't know of any damage from the stronger signal, but it can make the reception difficult to understand.

On the clip-on reel antennas, I have one from radio shack that clips onto the metal extended antenna of my radio shack receiver. I'm not sure how well that would work on the VX7 antenna, which is coated in rubber or something. Obviously, RF gets through the insulation. I'd say it's worth a try, but also try wrapping the wire antenna around the rubber duck a dozen or so times to see if that works any better. For HF reception, a long wire will work much better than the rubber duck; again, location is key. Resonance is good, but for receiving only, it's not as necessary as for transmit.

Could you take the reel antenna and cut off the aligator or clip at the end of them and solder on a SMA connector? Or would you be better off making a cable with an SMA connector on one end and ending in aligator clip to use it on many things?

SMA connectors (all connectors, RCA, BNC, whatever) have a positive and a negative side. The clip of course, has only one. If you do connect your wire antenna to an SMA connector, talk to someone about whether you should ground the antenna wire. It's beyond my knowledge. My guess is that for receive it won't make a noticeable difference, but find a good BB for this kind of stuff and ask there. You need the ground for transmission, but I'm not at all sure about reception.