Hidden Antenna -- legit?
#11
11-09-2009, 05:29 PM
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Yeah, No problems in my subaru. I even have tint on the rear window. The biggest thing that bugs me about the antenna on my truck is the fact that it flex's the fender as it wobbles, and the base isn't even secured that well to the body panel. Not to mention that it looks like crap! The reason it wasn't done is to save money, they didn't want to spin any dev cycles on moving the antenna, nothing more.
#12
11-09-2009, 11:32 PM
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I'm old enough to remember when they put them inside the windsheild, didn't work for crap then. The shark fin isn't exactly a hidden antennae, just the same booster technology that my 84 scirrocco had.
If it were possible to stick something like what is pictured in that ad inside the car and reliably get a signal, then the OEM's would do it. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper than the assembly and cabling required to put it on the fender.
If it were possible to stick something like what is pictured in that ad inside the car and reliably get a signal, then the OEM's would do it. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper than the assembly and cabling required to put it on the fender.
Verses
Wiring kit (also cheap), but hidden within the car, wrapped around this and under that, located here, there, and every where. Installation time? No idea, but I'm willing to bet it's a damn site more than a couple of minutes. Running wires takes far more time than the cable - and that's where the costs add up.
If you're paying a guy (or gal) on the assembly line $35 an hour (with benefits) to install antennas, would you rather he/she did the 'ole plug and play or would you rather they had to crawl under the dash to route the wires.
On a Corvette or other high end car the cost doesn't make a huge difference. The price for the "look" can be passed on to the end customer. As for sound quality, it's generally cheap radios and lousy speakers that kill the sound in a car system - not the antenna. Personnaly, I never found the "sound quality" to be much different when the antennas were in the windows. And I'm old enough to remember when we went from AM to FM, from fender mounts to windshields (and back again), from free radio to satellite, from music to talk - and pretty much everything in between.
Of all of the cars I have owned, the Corvette has the best sounding radio hands down - and there are no antennas on the car at all (least not that you can see). Of course it could be that the cabin is small and the need for monster power doesn't exist in such confined quarters. Then again it could be that the hidden antenna really does work...
