Car antennas

[Tim Coco]

I'm happy you brought this up.  It used to be the best AM radio reception I
enjoyed was in the car.  Now, AM in the car is horrible.  The car's
electronics seem to cause too much interference and fidelity is terrible
either way.  Does anyone know of a good after-market AM radio and/or antenna
I should consider?

Tim Coco
President & General Manager
WHAV

-----Original Message-----
From: A. Joseph Ross [mailto:joe@attorneyross.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 12:04 AM
To: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org
Subject: Car antennas

Having recently been car shopping, I've noticed that radio antennas 
have changed again.   My old car had a retractible whip antenna that 
went up when the radio was turned on and down when it was turned off. 
 I had to replace that once in the life of the car, and it was already not
going down all the way again.

I notice that a lot of newer cars have a small antenna, about six to twelve
inches, above the rear window.  I wondered whether that would be sufficient
for decent reception of AM and FM stations, but when I tested this on cars
that I test-drove, it seemed to work.  Why is this antenna adequate?  Will
it also work for satellite radio?

Other cars have an antenna embedded in the rear window.  I had a 1977
Oldsmobile that had the antenna embedded in the front windshield.  I suppose
embedding it in the rear window is about the same thing.  The antenna looks
like a typical FM dipole.  Why does this work for AM as well, as it does
seem to?

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax 617.507.7856
Boston, MA 02109-2004           	         http://www.attorneyross.com