I was wondering if i would lose all or only some radio connectivity by removing my antenna. Would I still be able to play local radio channels, or would it not get any signal. :violin:
Try it to see. I would suspect, as there is no "diversity antenna" (a second antenna), that you would loose all stations. Just unscrew the whip and try it out. That would leave a very small antenna (the base of the antenna).
It unscrews easily. I only listen to radio in a city, so I changed it to a Shark antenna bought here on PC.
Wife broke the antenna while backing out of garage with garage door not fully opened. The detachable part is fully broken, while the base is intact. The stereo still can pick up most stations but with considerably much more white noises. I purchased a shark-fin antenna, connected it, and covered the base. It works nearly as great as before.
i've pulled the antenna off for car washes and found that you have almost NO AM reception without it. In my opinion the AM reception in the Prius is suspect anyway. It varies too drastically with environmental conditions.
It is not really a good idea to operate the radio for a long period without any antenna, as the antenna provides a specified amount of resistance to some of the internal component of the radio which will probably burn out due to the over voltage over a long period of time.
It's been awile since I brushed up on my radio electronics, but if I remember correctly, as long as the antenna is only being used as a receiving antenna there should not be a problem. I've had my AM & FM antennas disconnected from my home stereo/reciever for years without any problems. Many people don't even hook up there AM antennas on their home stereos. The only time that you NEVER want to use an electronic device without an antenna is if the antenna is used for transmitting a signal. So in summary, if the Prius uses the antenna in any way to transmit, you definitely do not want to operate whatever devices use it to transmit. Otherwise it shouldn't hurt anything except a poorer reception.
Using a radio without an antenna attached to the input will not harm the radio. The reciever RF amplifier at the antenna terminals is very robust. It also has diode protection for static and ESD. Dont worry about receiver antenna issues. You can stick a metal coat hanger into the antenna stub and it will become a antenna. Did that a lot way back when...
Assuming you are talking about just unscrewing the antenna from the stub mount on the roof, you would drastically reduce the AM reception and significantly reduce the FM reception. Count on receiving less stations, the ones you get will fade more often. You won't damage anything. The little metal stub will still act as an antenna, although a really inefficient one If you are thinking about totally removing the antenna including the stub, I hope you have a good CD collection because you won't be listening to any radio at all. The metal body of the car is a pretty good Faraday cage, and blocks most of the RF from the tunerhead.
i normally use my ipod to listen to music. There are those occasions that i don't feel like turning on my ipod so i just listen to the radio for a little bit. Instead of buying a sharkfin (i don't no where i can buy a stubby without paying like 20 bucks) i could just detach the unscrewable part. I was thinking my car would look better, than having a giant antenna sticking out. Any other ideas?
I only concern that I would have is leaving the metal commector exposed to the elements. Corrosion or rust dependng on the metal may be a problem getting a good signal should you want to re-install the antenna. You can probably find something, at someplace like Radio Shack or and Ace Hardware, like a cap or a screw, depending whether it's male or female, to protect the connector from the weather. Preferrably non-metallic like nylon. Dis-similar metals will react with one another and you may have trouble getting it back off.
Its called impedance matching and it is normally intended to get the most RX/TX range out of the radio/antenna pair. I'm not sure about radio components burning out.
i tested it out and it ended up working just fine. I was just wondering if i should worry about something happening to the base.
If you're worried make yourself a rubber plug to fill the hole when the whip isn't in. The whip doesn't have an "O" ring to seal the screw anyway, so some water is bound to get in there. Here we would worry about ice damaging the base, but in LA I don't think you would have a problem. For those worried about the receiver without an antenna, don't. NO receiver will be damaged with no antenna. Radio damage from poorly matched antennas is caused by reflected -TRANSMIT- power. It's a receiver, there is no transmit power.
WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! I'm really sorry, but the ONLY way this statement is valid is with a TRANSMITTER ONLY!!! A high VSWR would result and you would probably blow the finals! A receiver can run 24/7 with no antenna and all that's gonna happen is you get NO RECEPTION. 73 de Pat KK6PD
