Cheap Mods – part 3 – Antennas

[kitsune]

Mod 3 – Internal Antenna
Purpose – Beautify your car … get rid of that ugly external antenna
Parts – Cat5 wire (used in network cable)
Tools – Wire cutters, soldering iron
Warnings – The internal antenna may not give as good results as the original external antenna, try it out and if necessary reverse the mod by removing the wire + reattaching the original wire antenna.

Step 1 – Cut off the old antenna close to where it is soldered onto the PCB
Step 2 – Cut the cat 5 Cable to the same length as the antenna that you ve just cut off. Strip away the outer sheathing holding the wires inside together. Seperate the wires by colors, but leave the pairs with the same color twisted together, the twist seems to help the antenna work.
Step 3 – Expose the last 1/2 cm of wire from one pair of wires and solder them to the pcb where the wire antenna was connected.

The higher in the body you can run the new antenna wire the better the result, try to avoid bunching it out, the longer you can run it the better.

[betty.k]

good stuff kitsune, i was wondering if anyone used tincars anymore! we don’t get a lot of posts on this subject:8ball:

[kitsune]

Yeah, I noticed the lack of traffic in the tincars area, I love em, they’re basic so it gives me lots to do. still a lot of what I’ve learnt can be applied to other cars … BTW I think I owe you a thank you – I think I saw a pic of one of your cars using the foam pen grips for tyres, it nudged me in the right direction when it came to looking for a way to make a cheap tyre with good grip. If there are any mods you’re interested in let me know, I’m posting my cheapo mods in a rough order trying to keep the easy ones first, and in an order that doesn’t result in a undrivable car it you do them in sequence.

Thanks for the encouragement.

[betty.k]

heh heh, thanks brudda! i got the pen grips idea from the quest for madness site. i think i’d cry laughing if i found out how much ‘proper’ foamies cost! you seem like my sorta guy, resourceful……..and cheap!:D like you said, alot of your stuff can work on other cars, so keep dem mods a coming!:smiley2::8ball:

[Racer9]

I don’t have external antenna on my Canned Heat

[kitsune]

betty.k – yeah ‘real’ tyres aint cheap … so thanks again.

Racer9 – Do canned heats come ‘out of the box’ with an internal antenna or did you mod it?

[Author]

Posts