Shorten radio antenna on a 2014+

[sharper]

On my last vehicle I simply put "the mouth of the pliers" around the shaft of the antenna and then gave it a good yank to remove the ball. (Be in a confined area or try the bag tip from above or you'll lose it). Then just grab a dremmel and remove the amount you need. The ball will still be a tight fit but I put a dab of super glue on just to be sure.

 

I noticed absolutely no loss in reception by removing just a couple inches so it wouldn't hit the top of the parking garage.

[Skeeter McSkeet]

I may try to take a Dremel to mine as well, worst case scenario I lose the ball. I have yet to listen to am/fm yet in the truck, and as far as I know that's all that will be affected if I end up screwing it up right? If so I'll just be down an antenna and forced to buy a replacement.

 

 

-Britt

Edited January 13, 2015 by SkeeterMcSkeet

[tstehle]

I'd like to put a shorter antenna on....but what I have experienced is either the antenna is soft and bends from the wind when moving or the shorty antenna doesn't have the little wire wrap around it for wind noise and you can actually hear the wind in the cab. Suggestions on a shorty/stubby that won't suffer from those traits.

Mine is an aluminum shorty from All Sales Manufacturing Inc.. No flex, no noise.

[mc4life27]

What about trying one of the billet mid antennas. It’s 12 inches tall with a bow tie on top. I was give one from a rolled truck and have not tried it out yet so not sure about reception. Now I did have an old mast laying around that I cut

down to a shorty and I did loose some reception. 
 

now I also used to run a stereo shop also worked for a few car audio manufacturers and can tell you that it really depends on where You live on how it will effect reception. AM for sure will most likely be zero or only a station or two because they need to be a certain length and needs to be the hugest part of the truck. As far as fm you really just need to try one and see if it works for you. There are many ways that the reception can get worse. Also if your in a heavily populated city then good chance would know a difference except if there are other things that happen to cause Issues with the gm station. But should be and issue. But I’m on the coast and have massive mountain ranges on three sides of me and can go from 0 to about 5,000 feet in altitude and if I get out of the main downtown sections with a shorty antenna I will lost

some notable loss but would be different if

you lived in say Death Valley or in the Midwest. Try going to a junk yard and finding another antenna to experiment with and when figure out where it works for Then cut down your stock one. Or look around you might be able

yo find a collapsible antenna that you manually can raise and lower as you want it. Also the newer trucks are a bigger diameter then the classic trucks. It’s a 7mm vs a 6mm I believe.  Or look into a power antenna. All I can say is if you go that route try and find a factory OEM motorized one that will fit in our fender or make sure you do you homework and find a quality reliable one with a warranty on it. There are

on a couple factories that actually make antennas for the rest of the world. And back when I sold car audio antennas one of the factories could build a

good quality antenna and the other factory’s were complete garbage and you could make some

cash betting people that they wiuld

fail

with in a year.