Exterior 1st Gen Most liked posts in thread: Shorty Antennas

Well, not exactly... the roof does act as a ground plane, but the signal is picked up at the actual antenna itself. At about 100 MHz (middle of FM band) one full wave is roughly 9 feet 10 inches. The best antennas are typically an even fractional wave length.... For a car a 1/2 wave is not practical so a 1/4 wave length is used...or ~2 feet 5.5 inches. To make an antenna short it is common practice to use a coil to reduce the physical length. But use of a coil only attempts to match the electrical length. Any reduction in the "straight length" also reduces the signal capture..(poorer signal reception). Take note of the OEM antenna..it's a spiral coil which attempts to match the electrical length without significantly reducing the straight length.

In low signal areas there is simply no substitute for an antenna of the proper length. I use a shorty but occasionally have poor reception and switch to satellite.

Anyone still awake? I'm sure that put some folks to sleep...ZZZZZzzz

 

How about engine/ supercharger whine over radio? :devil:

 

I think the point is, if you are located in an area with good coverage, the shorty antenna works OK. As you move out of that strong radio reception area, well then the (longer) stock unit works better.
My problem is, I like to hear the exhaust sounds with the windows down, so that's when the radio gets shut off....

 

Hah, I gotcha beat, I recorded all my engine sounds onto my iPad Pro Air and via a mini cell tower dongle, ima transmittin these glorious sounds. As I pass other drivers listening to their bass thumper pounding sound systems, my mini cell tower interrupts their "noise" and my engine sounds take over and start blaring out of their sound systems. Then because of superb rev matching skills on my part, I blow by them and my glorious sounds are picked up by the next unsuspecting thumper pounding speaker head. All this out of my custom made "short and stubby"......

 

Once you see a donut glistening in the sun on an antenna you too will be smitten by its beauty. :donut1:

 

Huffin....... No.....
Isn't that the sound you get when it gets sucked through the turbo??????:eek6::lol::lol::lol:

 

Me too, Jason.
Paul (WA3EUE)

Monica, I hope I didn't offend.. I'm just a radio nut. Or perhaps more correctly, simply a nut...

 

Oh no, not at all!
I know your a technical nut Paul

 

^^^ Federales Chalupa Committee??? Yeah, I like Mexican too.....

 

I'm thinking that MINI realized that lots of people were buying aftermarket ones so they jumped in with the "Sport" version to capitalize on the lost sales.

 

:cornut: No help here. Mine is the 2in Alta. Works great just like the OEM.

Jason

 

I also have a 2" Alta antenna. Alta is far from my favorite vendor, but I do like their short antenna. They were the only one who had it so Alta got my money.

Aaron at Outmotoring also have some nice short antennas.

MINI Cooper Stubby Shorty Antenna

 

I'm no help, I have the Palo Uber one that had a horrible anodize that was replaced by them by a really bad powder coating.

Good thing I know someone that can polish metal cause now it is a nicely polished too damn expensive antenna.

I'd have never bought that one as it was stupid expensive for what it is. It was a gift.

 

So you are saying it was free & worth every penny....

 

They all will work the same. If the style grabs you, that's the one to pick......

I made mine out of T304 SS..... I probably should get it powder coated so it's not so contrasty.....
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Mine's a crummy generic one that didn't fit until I modified it a bit. Works great.

 

Nicely done!

 

Ryu has a Craven Speed stubby (he came that way).
It works fine. Never had a problem with any stubby antennas on my MINIs.