Hopefully straightforward (perhaps blindingly obvious) query re soldering antennae.

I bought this RF tranceiver set, due to a positive review here (scroll down to Qiachip). I've tried wiring this up to a Raspberry Pi (using a t-cobbler, rainbow cable and jumper leads) and using rpi-rf. To start, I was just trying to see if it worked by poking the antennae into the relevant hole. While rpi-rf did detect some codes at random times, these didn't seem to correspond at all to when I was actually pushing buttons on a couple of different RF remotes.

I am hoping (since it's the easiest solution) that this problem is just do to the antennae and if I solder them in I might have some success. However, before I do so, I was wondering if there was a right way (and therefore likely many wrong ways) of soldering these in? Do I just stick the 90 degree bit in and solder with the through the hole method? Is there are reason for the odd kink in the tail of the transmit antenna? Some of the pictures I've seen on line seem to have an antenna loop soldered in at a couple of points, not just a single one.

My actual goal is to control a central heating system that uses RF remotes. I've had several failures so far, including this one, a $1 RF transceiver set and a Broadlink RM Pro. If anyone has a bullet proof solution with fewer jumper cables, I'm open to that too.