Stick Antenna a Thing of the Past
Maybe you’ve noticed, maybe you haven’t; but, the stick antenna is a dying appendage (except, of course, on the Jaguar XK), according to the Associated Press (via MSNBC). The fixed-mast antenna is featured on less than half of current model-year vehicles, and if you take away trucks, it’s on less than 25 percent of vehicles.
Ford spokesman Alan Hall told AP, “There’s an industry-wide push to move away from a metal mast antenna. It’s safe to say that within the next few years, all (Ford) cars and crossovers will have transitioned to the smaller antenna.
Comments
Adam
Does anyone remember that nearly all GM cars in the 1970s had their radio antennae in the front windshield? Old is new again...
JW
I am surprised they haven't been doing this for years. I can remember my dad's 85 Chevy Pickup having the antenna in the front windshield. I don't really think it is a good idea because if the windshield gets cracked then the antenna may get messed up which means more money to be dished out to fix two things instead of one. It does look nicer though. I say just build the antenna into the roof or in the satellite radio antenna since it is pretty much standard on all vehicles now.
chartguy
I had one of those with the wire in the glass. Besides being very directional (worked best if you faced towards the FM station, horrible if you were perpendicular to it), at its best it wasn't as good as a "stick" antenna.
That would be my concern. How much performance do you give up? The article quotes a sales rep saying "innovation has caught up". I wonder if it has. There are some basics that innovation cannot change. Signal strength relates to length perpendicular to the source. That's why vertical is great, it's perpendicular to all sources. The signal strength cannot be increased (FCC sets that for the stations). That's the "density" of the signal. So, you have to collect more of the signal to get more, and that's length. How does innovation change that? Amplifiers amplify both noise and signal. Longer antennas collect more signal, while the noise tends to cancel. That's why HAM radio operators always want those huge towers.
Tony Belding
We once snapped the antenna off our old F-150 work truck while wading it through some brush on the ranch. I took an arm's length of baling wire and bolted it on as a replacement. It worked fine for picking up our local AM station.
Cicero
This helps with clean and sporting design, but I still see cars that have the inwindshield antenna with a regular mast, seems like they could boost those antennas to get signal well enough to ditch the mast
Jonathan Fung
Hmm. I barely notice vertical antennas unless there is one of those antenna balls on it. And JW and chartguy both bring up good points about why the vertical antenna is better. So I don't think it's worth it to move more towards the in-glass antenna.
Studiokid
As someone mentioned earlier, there are laws of physics that at this point we can't design around.
Smaller antennas work for Satellite frequencies, but for over-the-air broadcast you need the metal mast for decent reception. The in-glass antennas were very directional, fine if you always travel N-S or E-W to your favorite station. At least RS still sells antennas that you can mount to your windshield. It sort of defeats the purpose in design and reduced noise though.
JW
They could some how make the vertical antennas in the pillars of the vehicle...even all four pillars which would possibly quadruple the reception??
Zebulon
In 2008 Jaguar eliminated the external antenna from the XK. There is no external antenna on the 2008 XK.
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