Thread: hidden am/fm antennas, do they work???

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as I said in a eariler post I am getting ready to paint my 39 coupe in a couple of weeks. I am planning on using a "hidden" am/fm antenna in my steel car. my questions is..... do they work good? and who has the best one? I was thing of installing it above the headliner in the car. if they don't work I guess I will have to install a power antenna in the rear1/4, but really don't want that!! . I wish they made a magnetic am/fm antenna , like the little ones for the satellite radios., that way you would get great reception & could remove it @ the shows.

Hotrod57, I had a hidden attenna between the headliner & roof of my '32 {fiberglass} & it didn't work very good. I don't know what make it was but it was a little black box with a power wire to it. I went to the local stereo shop & they said the only way to get good reseption is to use an antenna that extends above the roof of the car. I didn't want this so I then put a regular antenna inside my car running parallel to the roof of the car. It comes out of the side of my above mounted stereo & is above the windshield on the inside. You can only see it if your in the drivers seat. This works better than the hidden attenna but still not very good. Hopefully someone will 'chime' in here with a better idea! Bill

I've used the single wire that plugs into the radio antenna socket on several boats I owned, and they work fine in a fiberglass enclosure, but not sure about the metal of a car. I know some cars had the radio antenna imbedded in the windshield glass and those worked well.......I owned a few of those cars myself and never had a problem.

I also saw in one magazine where they laid a regular car antenna under a running board of a fat fendered car, and said it worked ok. Why don't you experiment? Plug in a regular antenna and lay it in various spots in the car and see how it works.

My Son Dan did boat electronic installs, and also did car stereo systems for a living at one time. He is sleeping now, but tomorrow I'll ask him what he knows about this and let you know.

Don

Oh, I just heard Dan moving around in the kitchen and asked him about this for you. He said the single wire jobbies work perfect in a car, he did a bunch of them with that. You can pick these up lots of places, but marine stores like West Marine carry them and they cost like $ 5.00 or less. It is simply a regular antenna end plug (like all antennas have) soldered on about a 3 foot length of electric wire. He said you can loom it under the dash or whatever, and try to make the wire as straight as possible.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

I've used the single wire that plugs into the radio antenna socket on several boats I owned, and they work fine in a fiberglass enclosure, but not sure about the metal of a car. I know some cars had the radio antenna imbedded in the windshield glass and those worked well.......I owned a few of those cars myself and never had a problem.

I also saw in one magazine where they laid a regular car antenna under a running board of a fat fendered car, and said it worked ok. Why don't you experiment? Plug in a regular antenna and lay it in various spots in the car and see how it works.

My Son Dan did boat electronic installs, and also did car stereo systems for a living at one time. He is sleeping now, but tomorrow I'll ask him what he knows about this and let you know.

Don

Oh, I just heard Dan moving around in the kitchen and asked him about this for you. He said the single wire jobbies work perfect in a car, he did a bunch of them with that. You can pick these up lots of places, but marine stores like West Marine carry them and they cost like $ 5.00 or less. It is simply a regular antenna end plug (like all antennas have) soldered on about a 3 foot length of electric wire. He said you can loom it under the dash or whatever, and try to make the wire as straight as possible.

I wonder if you could take it one step further and sauter (lol,JunkYard Girl) it to the car body. Also do you still need antennas with the new satellite radio?

Don...one of the guys from our car club located the actual extended antenna under the running board on his 34 Ford Roadster. He said it works very well. He also installed a pretty cool option where he took an Anderson battery connector similar to those used on an electric forktruck and mounted it to the undercarriage. He attached the other end of the connector to his battery charger. Also modified a set of jumper cables with the connector on one end.

They work fine as long as you are never more than ten miles from a radio transmitter tower. They fade and static pretty quick beyond that. I've got one of the "black box" types taped to the steering column support up under the dash of my roadster pickup (metal body).

electrically connecting it to the body of the car ("ground") entirely defeats the purpose of the antenna... you will get no signal.

A well placed wire perhaps parallel with the top or bottom edge of front or rear window could work... keep a reasonble gap from the edge of the glass maybe about an inch or more....

As was suggested ... hook up a wire and move it around for best results.. I think a smaller gauge (16-18 AWG) solid core wire will work best.

-Chris

If I remember correctly, the guy with the 34 Roadster has the extended antenna mounted to 3 or 4 drilled out rubber blocks attached to the underside of the running board. I know he and his wife put a lot of miles on the car going to car shows on the East coast. I'm pretty sure he depends on his radio to keep him company along the way. I know his car was featured last year in one of the popular car mags. I'll check it out and let you know more about it.

Pat

My 36 Plymouth still uses the "soft" top so I ran a single wire antenna through the oak top bows in a "U" shape. The holes drilled through the oak successfully insulate the wire. It works great, however I doubt that it would as well if there was a steel top over it.

Regardless of what you choose to do, you will want to experiment with the location of the antenna. I also would suggest doing it with the engine running. Otherwise you may find that the area that gave you the best reception during your test with the engine off, gives you a bunch of engine noise once the car is running. What it really comes down to, I guess, is what kind of quality reception you're looking for.

I think as Skids suggested, a solid core 16 (preferred over the 18) or 18 guage wire could work. It's not ideal for reception because the line impedance isn't matched and you'll lose some signal streangth; but, you may be just fine with the results which probably matters more to you than the technical reasons why using a wire isn't ideal.

One thing I would suggest if you're looking for the best possible reception out of that config for both AM and FM would be to have part of it running vertically for AM reception and part of it running horizontally for FM. This may sound goofy; but, it's because of the way the signal is polarized when it is transmitted by the station. I think you'll find that it gives you a little better reception if you do decide to go that route.

Also, as Skids pointed out, don't ground it to the car or it will be almost like having no antenna at all.

Good luck,
Dutch

I ran an antenna inside the front fender of my Biscayne. Worked great for FM. Never tried AM though.

well I did say fm/am, but i will never use the am, just want good fm reception. thanks

Ive always used one of the aftermarket ones, and just tiewrapped it under the dash, always worked for me! I like the running board idea don, i will use that on the panel truck, when i get to that point.