I am looking for a hidden antenna for my 49 Buick project but most of the reviews on various models are not very encouraging. Any suggestions from members that actually have purchased and installed one?
Some work some don't. On my 40 I have a hidden one and another under the running board tied together. also an insulated wire in the fender welting hooked up as well. Gets more stations in the garage than my wife's new Denali. Lucky I guess
This would be good info to have, as I was thinking of a hidden antenna also for my 49 Buick. If anyone knows it would also be good to know where you mounted it for the best reception.
I used a full sized extension mast under my dash in my Ford with acceptable results. I got the idea from a friend who did this in a quarter panel.
I mounted a conventional antenna fully extended on the outer frame rail of the Ranch Wagon, it works well and doesn't show. HRP
My 56 Ford has a stock antenna mounted under the passenger door on a bracket I made. The wire comes in the stock grommet on the right side under the hood into the passenger compartment. I needed to add a zip-ty loop to keep the end from grounding on the frame. I did not want to drill a hole in the fender. I'm now converting my stock radio to AM/FM blue tooth and will use my phone for just about every thing including Sirius. 50-60's music all the time.
I have a dipshit neighbor that 'drops by' every time I either fire something up in the driveway or or open my garage door. My '55 F100 had a radio ('63 Ford AM) and I had an oldies station on, ('50s music) which the guy wasn't familiar with. He says, "Oh, ha-ha...Got an older radio, huh? I hear the old music..." I answered, "Yeah, kinda goes with the truck...Put this old radio in here, and it works. Guess that old music just stays in there..." He acted 'astonished'.
BTW, I had a power antenna on a '39 convertible several years ago and I used the Autoloc brand, it worked well. HRP
I had an old Plymouth Arrow made by Mitsubishi that used the trunk lid for an antenna. It was insulated from the body by the rubber seal and plastic insulated hinges and latch. Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
An antenna isn't any rocket science, a simple length of electrical wire can do a pretty good job, and if you tune the length to the frequency it's supposed to work with it can get even better. Easy and cheap to experiment with.
Well... Antenna design is one hell of a rabbit hole to get lost in, and if you really want to you can spend a lot of time researching and experimenting. Or you could simply take an old radio antenna cable, cut the end, and connect another piece of common electrical wire to the centre wire in the antenna cable (this is what becomes the actual antenna). Length of antenna is often tuned to a quarter or half wave length of the radio frequency, using fractions of the wave length causes resonance that improves performance. Lazy people find a calculator online and calculate length there: http://www.csgnetwork.com/antennagenericfreqlencalc.html Radios use more than one frequency, so I'd just pick something in the middle of the range, for the 87.5-108MHz FM band I'd just try 98MHz. The calculator suggests about 2.4 feet for quarter wave length, and just out of memory that doesn't seem completely crazy compared to normal antennas. (Just remember, factory antennas may not be exactly what they look like, you never know what hides inside plastic, and even the old bare metal rods often had the "coil spring" near the to add tuned length w/o being physically longer.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopole_antenna I'm sure there are way better ways to do this, but this may be good enough at almost no cost.
Thank you very much G-son.....I have Welander in my family tree...I think you pronounce it Veelander.
The low frequencies that AM uses (as far as I know anyway, I'm no expert in vintage american car radios) means very long wave lengths, and makes the full/half/quarter wave length antenna impossible, unless you have your own farm to stretch it out over - obviously impossible to use in a car. The good news is that recieveing low frequency AM is relatively unsensitive to antenna design (unlike transmitting it), so any manageable length of wire may work resonably - like a few feet. Back in the day some coiled antennas were used too, I'm sure a bit of research may find small and good antenna constructions. It's probably a matter of what you can fit in a car mostly, not about how to build the best antenna.
Here,s mine-it's just a few yards of insulated wire connected to the inner wire of the co-axial antenna lead. The outer braid is earthed to the frame. I have the wire looped around the front bumper mount brackets. Good and cheap. Just like me.
This is about as good as it gets unless you really want to work at it or are willing to hide a power unit. One on each side of the car is best. I did run into a guy at a car show that had a good idea, but it was a bit difficult in execution. He soldered a lead to the stainless steel windshield trim that was installed into the windshield gasket. Drilled a hole in the gasket to bring the lead out to the radio. Same idea as those GM windshields that used to have the wire antenna in them. He claimed it worked very well, but noted that the trim can't contact the metal body anywhere or it won't work. I've tried those 'magic box' antennas, and to say I was less than impressed is an understatement. Keep in mind how well they work will depend on where you live; if you live in an urban area with plenty of strong stations or somewhere that's relatively flat, you may be happy. But my experience is in a hilly rural fringe area, and performance was lacking.
I took a stock 57 Chevy antenna and mounted it under the dash with 2 clamps and the radio worked fine. The customer did not want a fender mounted one. It picked up radio stations even inside my metal building when my shop radio required an outside antenna.
Does it work well. Good for AM? Good for FM? What distance can you receive your favorite radio stations? Thanks. Phil
Works great for AM and FM, just finished the build in late fall so no long distance road trips yet. I expect it will perform as well as a conventional antenna, possibly better...
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