antenna placement for aero and reception

[lunarhighway]

i was recently given a neat car radio with cd, and since i have a lot of speakers laying around i'm planning to get some tunes in the old kadett for the first time in 20 year.

the things i'm a bit concearned about is the antenna. i have a fairly new roof antanna wich i could install near the rear roofline yet i'm wondering how much additional drag this would cause... probably not that much but still. apparently there are also some sort of wire antennas that attach to the inside of the front windschield. wich seems perfect appart from potential less good reseption. finally i've got a fm wire antenna from a stereo but the attachment doesn't match the attachment on the radio i could route this somewhere.

so what types of antenas can i choose from or what could i use to make one myself
and where could i attach it ?

[Hockey4mnhs]

my car came with a teloscopic one. it has to be up to have music on even if im using my ipod with the tape adapter. when i first started this i told myself i would never give up the radio in my car for the hope of better fe tho so its usally up i doubt it hurts fe enough to make me change my mind

[lunarhighway]

you've got to love the internet
look at this
seems like placing the antenna at an angle can drasticly reduce drag.
also an aircraft style blade antenna should be cool!

[bbgobie]

I drive an Acura, and like all the newer Honda's and Acura's there is no external antenna. I don't find radio reception suffers at all. I say give one a shot, what stations could you be suffering if you haven't had a car radio for 20 years anyways right?

[lunarhighway]

where is the antenna located on your car? in any visible location? i might give an internal antenna a shot. it's the cleanest solution anyway, but i hope it's not to expensive to retrofit one

btw my previous car did have a radio, but it had an unfortunate encounter with a wall. this car was never fitted with a radio in it's 20 year liftime as far as i know... . i'll be mostely listening to cd's i guess but id like to radio to be usable so i can listen to the news and trafic info and such.

does anyone know what kind of internal aftermarket antennas there are and what i should look for when i buy one?

[cfg83]

lunarhighway -

If it's a roof antenna I assume it is small. Why not have it inside/center on the dashboard? If it's a super long antenna, but not wider than the dash, then you could lay it out on the dashboard. If the reception is good, then you could figure out how to mount it.

Hrmmm, you just gave me an idea ...

CarloSW2

[lunarhighway]

mmm i think i could try that, although i think it's unlikely i'll get good reseption with an internal antena of that sort. the car 's body will act as a faraday's cage, i'm not sure how wel fm signals can get trough but i don't think they will. otherwise car makers would simply put a cheap antenna wire in the dash or A-pillar, rather than something fragile poking out of the roof. the only internal antenna systems i can google up are either ones that you glue to the front window or ones that use the rear window heater as an antenna, but both use an electronic signal booster ...

[BainDreanor]

My Integra has a power telescoping antenna that used to always goes up when the radio is turned on. The signal to put the antenna up is the same as a remote line which turns on amps for stereo systems. If you cut the wire and put in a switch the power antenna only goes up when you want it to. The only time I find I need the antenna up is if I'm over a half hour outside a city.

[SL8Brick]

"Harada" is one of the OE suppliers for the swept, fixed mast Volkswagen antennas. My ultimate goal is to replace the upright, D-pillar mounted antenna on my Volvo wagon with a rear-center roof mounted Harada unit.

[01_fast_ride]

lunarhighway,
I had an older maxima that I replaced the external antenna with one of those windshield-mounted powered ones. I did it not for aero reasons but because the old was had ripped out and this was cheaper (~$15). It's not a bad setup. It uses doublesided sticky tape so I stuck it in the upper right corner of the windshield in the tinted portion. You can't notice it from outside the car.

Hockey4mnhs,
if you were interested you might think of rigging up a power antenna switch that would lower the antenna when you're using the ipod. Alot of the older Volvos had a switch like this.

My first post.