Iāve heard this being said, and I really donāt know how all of this works, so Iām in no position to doubt it. Howeverā¦Antena science doesn't allow those stubby antennas to be nearly as effective as the stock one. It comes down to the frequency and amplitude of the signal.
The standard antenna is sized (2.5ft) to be roughly one-quarter the length of the radio waves in the FM band.
A shorter antenna is going to have lower gain without a signal amplifier.
Our Bronco, with a 3ā stubby antenna, gets better reception across the board than my F150 with its OEM antenna. When I tried the stubby on my truck, it was even worse. I could not any get any AM station at all, as opposed to just really buzzy and annoying reception with the OEM. (Both vehicles pull in FM just fine, regardless of which antenna is mounted). Is it possible that different the radios just vary in quality? And that maybe thatās more important than antenna length?
Another example: I have a cordless Ryobi shop radio (the little one about a foot tall) and it gets better reception than either of our vehicles, and it has almost no antenna at all. And Iāve had little hand-held portable radios that could pull in AM stations from 1000 miles away during parts of the day.
I feel like itās not so much a matter of antenna length, but more about Fordās crappy radiosā¦
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