It's getting quiet here, so..

[Channel Surf]

If you drill a hole in your car and add a 31" whip to replace the crappy dinky antenna, will it still work okay? I was thinking that they might have a preamp in the midget antennae to confuse things.

If I drilled a hole these days, I would add a 60 inch whip. The extra length really super chargers AM, and seems to help FM a lot, too. Or better yet, a bottom loaded whip to make the AM antenna electrically long enough to have some real efficiency.

As far as the pre-amp in the antenna - I've heard rumors to that effect. Obviously, your own whip would bypass the pre-amp and probably present some connector issues as well. I'd have a real close look at the whole setup before I decided to modify anything. The days of car radio, speakers, and antenna being separately replaceable may be just about over. But if you replace the whole thing with an aftermarket system so you can get HD radio (HA HA), then yes, drill and put in a decent whip, and decent speakers while you are at it. So what if you can't change stations from the steering wheel. HD radio makes the tuning dial obsolete - it is so wonderful you can settle on one station and throw away the knob (snicker).

 

[Play Freebird]

Those old 60 inch whips were phenomenal! The old Delco AM radios in my 1960s and 1970s cars performed as well as the best Superadio 2s, with those antennas. Around 1973, I was told that the optimal length for FM though, was 31 inches, and as time went on and FM took over, so did those 31 inch whips, which I noticed at the time, diminished AM reception considerably.

With the proper impedance matching network at the base, a 60 inch whip should work well for FM, because this is roughly a half-wavelength. In vehicles lacking a good ground plane (for example, those with fiberglass bodies) this would function as an end-fed dipole and perform considerably better than the 31 inch quarter-wave whip.