Ian Barrett Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Guys, Since removing the roof and fitting a canvas truck cab I've had no stereo as the speakers were in the headlining and the aerial mounted on the roof. I was thoroughly bored sitting in traffic the other day so I've decided to reinstate the stereo Speakers I can resolve with Pod or Shelf speakers sat behind the seats, but I can't think what to do with the aerial. It struck me though that the hoops over the bulkhead might make a decent aerial. or would it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retroanaconda Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Put it on the off-side wing as per standard fit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Sparkes Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Experiment with laying the standard aerial horizontally under the roof. Perhaps across the top of the windscreen, or above a door top. I did that in a fibreglass roofed car and it worked OK, and I've seen someone else run that arrangement for several years in Series 2, with full tilt. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Barrett Posted December 16, 2011 Author Share Posted December 16, 2011 Put it on the off-side wing as per standard fit Noooo, that looks all wrong IMHO - it looks too car like Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThreeSheds Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 The trouble is that the actual antenna part needs to be isolated (insulated) from the earth/bodywork - if you can do that then it would be fine. The easiest way to get a 'stealthy' antenna would be (as mentioned above) to arrange for a bit of wire to run under the canvas and preferably away from metal structures. If you cut the antenna off a normal shop-bought one to leave just the coax and plug, you can run that up to some metallic roof-structure and then connect the outer braid to that (as an earth) and extend the inner out under the canvas but keep it insulated from the bodywork. Normal electrical wire will do, but better (if your coax is long enough) would be to strip the coax back and just have the exposed core (still insulated though) as the antenna. Anything that conducts will work as an antenna, the main thing is that it is insulated from the vehicle earth and as far as possible in clear space away from any earthed conductors. HTH Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
secondjeremy Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Or mount a standard aerial on the bulkhead behind the seat - pointing upwards so as not to be a hazard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahebron Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 For an aerial to work properly it must clear the plane of the vehicle therefore it has to be higher than the tallest metal structure, generally the roof. This is why a lot of aftermarket windscreen mount aerials do not work that well. On my dads Series 1 I fitted a gutter mount on the edge of the windscreen and mounted the stereo and speakers in the central cubby box he made. Another option would be to fit a military (FFR) style whip somewhere on the body. Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThreeSheds Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 For an aerial to work properly it must clear the plane of the vehicle therefore it has to be higher than the tallest metal structure, generally the roof. While this is true (and especially so for transmitters) , if you have a modern car radio (not DAB) and live in an area of reasonable signal strength you might be surprised what you can 'get away with' : I recently wanted to fit a 2m (amateur radio) antenna to my old 316i and decided to use the existing body mount at the centre-rear of the roof, and then place a small shop-bought antenna for the normal radio on the wing. Half way through the job I had completed the 2m part but had not yet fitted the wing mounted one, and I had to nip out. I was driving along listening to Radio 2 for several miles before I realised that I had cut the coax for the original aerial under the roof-lining and so my stereo was receiving quite happily on about 9ft of coax running up and under the metal roof, and not connected to any sort of aerial at all! Having seen secondjeremy's suggestion of mounting one 'internally' on the bulkhead, I think that this sounds like an excellent idea - if you get one that is the right sort of length to terminate just under the canvas I suspect that it would work really rather well. Radio waves 'get through holes' quite well as long as they are big enough (which is why mobile phones work indoors - the signal comes through the window and bounces around inside), and a normal FM radio signal of about 100MHz should get through windows and the canvas roof ok. Electrically heated windows don't pass radio easily, but I suspect that this would not be a problem in your case? One more thing though - if you do mount an antenna internally then you should probably put something on top of it to prevent it taking your eye out at some time in the future... HTH Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bowie69 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I have on a number of occasions not had a working aerial, and just but a 1m length of ordinary wire and shoved it into the aerial socket. Iirc this is about the right length for FM, and gave me good reception for months before I decided to sort it out.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I've got two CB antenna's for both my CB and my normal car radio-these are the sprung based antennas and located on the rear of my hardtop on a bracket which also holds my work lights to the rear of my roof, I don't see why you could'nt fit the same type of antennas to an internal bulkhead or even the front wing top if nessacary? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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