why did older cars have such long antennae when newer cars either don’t have one at all or a tiny nub?
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Same reason cellphones had long antennas, they improved it top a nub, and eventually hid it in the chassis of the phone.
Cars got the same thing, but it’s often hidden in the front window, rather then the chassis.
To simplify, antenna tech improved, making an antenna is really easy, but you won’t get good signals with a bad antenna.
Newer antennas are designed better, but they aren’t always shorter
Older antennas were often a piece of steel, while this may work it wasn’t always very efficient
Newer antennas have windings that catch signal better, it may appear shorter too and in some cases they are
The winding of the antenna allows the antenna to target specific frequencies, for example 100Mhz = 2.99CM or 1.18 inches
I read it as cats and my tired self was wondering what the hell people are talking about here
At first I thought this said Cats and I spent a good 5 minutes completely blown away and utterly confused by cat antenna technology.
My first car was an Isuzu Trooper and it’s antennas were printed onto the glass on the rear side windows.
The real question is why do the manufacturers put the antenna within the roof rack area?
I think it’s multiple factors here. Part is that as technology has advanced the filters are better now and the amplifiers are smaller and can be put right at the antenna. There’s also the push to satellite or internet based services. If you look at the market, almost every car in North America has SiriusXM built in.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Having to unscrew the antenna before going through the car wash (and then rushing to put it back on afterwards) was a staple of car ownership for my entire childhood and young adult life.
I can’t even exactly remember when we no longer needed to do it. It’s been a long time, though.
Why does any technology scale with time? Like what kind of question is this lol. Some sick critical thinking, OP
The nub, or sometimes a shark fin, isn’t usually the radio antenna. That’s usually a satellite antenna (or maybe several), for GPS, satellite radio, and telematics like Onstar or such.
Some, like my car, have a [dipole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_antenna?wprov=sfla1) antenna integrated into the rear windshield, where it looks like the defroster wires. Other cars may hide them in various ways or locations, depending on the design and various compromises in the construction of the car.
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