Guys,
Maybe I can help out a little with the antenna issue. There are sure a lot
of things that I know nothing about and get wrong most of the time but RF is
something I have been playing with since shortly after Marconi. It is
purely science and luck. The deal is that any antenna is really only
perfect at one frequency, which hardly ever happens. In the case of you car
AM/FM receiver it gets even simpler. On FM the center of the band is
somewhere near 95MHz, mathmatically the antenna should be about 29 inches
long ( 2808/F in MHz = 1/4 wave length in inches) Since your radio also
uses the AM Band your antenna using the same formula should be about 234
FEET, I'll bet you see the problem. You have one antenna and each band
wants something very different. To compensate the radio builders put
circuits in the radio to trick it into thinking you have the right antenna,
the radio really doesn't care much what you have, coat hanger, tin foil,
beer can etc. Next, when an antenna is close to metal the electrons try to
escape and jump off the antenna onto nearby metal, it doesn't matter if it
is steel, aluminum, copper or whatever. In order to keep them on the
antenna and directed inside your radio you just need to keep the antenna an
inch (+/- 15/16) away from metal. You could solder a wire into a plug
(called a Motorola Plug at Radio Shack) and stick it into the back of your
radio and it will work fine but it will not only hear the radio signal it
will hear your heater motor, wipers and so forth. The thing to do is find
an old antenna and cut the cable off of it or buy a new piece of cable.
Plug the good end into your radio and run the other end as high in the car
as you can, like in a canvas top or even in the rear bulkhead behind the
seat. I think mine is mostly cardboard. The cable will have a shield and a
center wire, ground the shield to the body and attach a piece of the
smallest wire you have somewhere between 1 ft. and 10 ft to the center
conductor. Now you can run it behind the fabric or vinyl. Then try your
radio and see if it works, if it does drink a beer and pat yourself on the
back, it it doesn't work drink a beer and try somewhere else. Or, you can
just drill a big hole in your newly painted fender and mount a real antenna
like the rest of the world does, but they don't have Healey's!
Anon
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