Can antenna cables be repaired?
 

One of the PO's who installed the aftermarket deck in my Civic cut the antenna wire just behind the deck and then hacked a different antenna wire to it with the proper end for the deck.

The OEM cable has a solid silver strand in the middle and the end he hacked on has multiple strands. He taped the middle wires together and then the outer ones, then wrapped the whole thing with electrical tape.

Problem is, sometimes I have to listen to the game on 1040 or traffic on 1130 and the AM reception is absolute crap. It's a '92 Civic so I don't know if they have shitty AM reception to begin with or if it's caused by his wiring.

If the OEM antenna is supposed to be good enough, I'll go replace it with one from a wrecker unless there's a proper way to repair it. Otherwise, any suggestions to get better AM reception?



Thanks

The end can be replaced in a way that gives regular reception. Why did they cut the end off & replace it?

When I got the car it had some ricer light/antenna thing hooked up and mounted above the rear view. He cut the OEM cable and "spliced" it into the aftermarket thing - worked like sh!t then too.

I wanted everything looking stock cause I didn't want anything that would attract any attention in/on the car.

Just put a new original antenna in... costs about $30-$40, takes about ten minutes to install. The cable CAN be "repaired"... but it's a lot of hassle.

Probably going to do that. The only thing that concerns me is that although they're not soldered, the wire connections look good and I still get bad reception.

I just dropped my son off at school and all I could hear on AM was my engine but FM was crystal clear.

No chance it's the deck and/or the antenna is crap to begin with?

Is it a pillar mount ant? If so its a rather cheap and easy replacement takes about 30 minutes to replace the whole assembly with cable.

FM will work fairly well without an antenna however AM needs the antenna.

Used to take me 5 minutes on an early-90s Civic :fuckyea:

The A-pillar mounted antennas are pretty easy to replace. If the antenna end appears to be solid then it could be the antenna itself.

Another option is a window mounted powered antenna. The Harada and Metra ones are wicked for both FM and AM signal boost. We've done a ton of them with awesome results.

Oh those days are gone.. Fifteen minutes I could bang a deck in with no harness and a backstrap.
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We loved the Civic installs... most installs were based on a book rate, and the installer got 40% of the job... a deck, two speakers and antenna in a Civic was the gravy: something like a $95 install, my best time for the whole thing was 20 minutes. :fullofwin:

Ah, the good ol' days of "Slam" installs at A&B. Installers made a lot of money back then........ from what I've heard. I bet you guys all know each other from those days. Car audio was huge back then.

A&B Sound Offs (Loud and Proud) - Plaza of Nations, even Empire Stadium before they tore it down. Car Audio Nationals and the beginning of IASCA.

Actually, before CAN II became IASCA, it was called something else (in between). Any of you old timers remember what the sanctioning body was called back then?

As for antennas, they are the culprit of noise if not installed properly, right? Grounding to body and causing ground loops and shit.

Some did... the guys that had been there several years that got all the big custom jobs sure did. The easy-peasy Civics weren't all that common except at SuperSale and Boxing Day. For every four or five Civics and other easy riceburner jobs, you got something like a shuttle-deck install in a Toyota 4x4... good ol' all-formed-metal dash and a deck location that required hacking and nibbling to get a hole anywhere near big enough for a full DIN in between the trim lip and the heater controls... coupled with pulling out the glove box and most of the HVAC piping for access to put in a couple back-straps... a deck install alone was a good hour and a half in those beasts.

Ya know, I had a young family then, I didn't really have a lot of money to put into my own car, or a lot of time to hit the sound-offs. Those were sure the heydays of IASCA tho... I remember some pretty amazing things at the Plaza of Nations events (Orion's vans... Pioneer's Pantera... Dave Rivera's epic Prelude :D)

It's pretty hard to actually screw up an antenna install... as long as you have good solid metal to attach it to. If you try mounting it to rust, you WILL fail.

I used to make $5000.00 a month slamming anything they could throw at me on Marine Drive in the mid 90's. Things sure have changed.

So who's up for an old-audio-guys'-drunken-trip-down-amnesia-lane meet? :D

In 1997, 1998, 1999 I made the same dollar amount I made last year. Pathetic when you think about it

A&B Sound reunion. WOW! The real pioneers of car audio. At least in this neck of the woods. People can poke fun at A&B Sound all they want, but that place was a meca for installers. Some of the best came from the install bays of A&B Sound.

Wow you guys are just old. I'll safely assume you guys were in the speckle paint sub box era. That sh*t was scary.

I just got my drivers licence when you guys were in your hay days. lol

I think what it is is the competition got bigger, which drives down profit and overall sales. None of of this free install with your $99 dollar deck crap. The market definitely has changed. I remember in our hay days I wouldn't be fighting for sales against other sponsors. We'd actually work together to make sure customers weren't bs'ing their prices and had mutual respect to not lowball each other. Cuz in the end...it only kills the industry. This bloody 'reccession' sure hasnt helped.

Also, back in the "hay days" you guys were just slamming shit out the door. The guys I know that still make good money in this industry are just people that do quick basic installs. They turn around 10+ hours of labour in an 8 hour work day. Thing with them is, it's just a job. No passion in what they do. They won't take on the custom jobs because it pays the worse.


installerz>>> 5 mins eh.... this I gotta see.

Pink suits you Stef.

;)

Speaking of slam masters, I think the king of slam was K. Gossen.

He was another A&B Sound alumni. Went on and opened up the Car Tunes that was on Helmken next to the Granville Street Bridge with his partner Randy. I think he went to Germany during the time the car audio craze hit that country and most of Europe, for that matter. After that, he came back and worked for an outfit somewhere in the Interior.

Haven't heard anything about him since.

As for custom stuff, I think Tim and Brian were the best in the business. Oh, then there's Joe, the guy with the white T-Bird. Talk about audio freak - lived and breathed car audio.

You are right, Cman333, those were the days. People really knew each other, respected each other, and supported each other. Competitors as well as dealers.

Brian did some amazing work... I remember a particular Quart-based setup he put in a Miata... and how crushed he look when word came in that the car had been broken into while the owner was out of town and the system stripped. :speechless:

Chris did some of the most brilliant work tho... I saw pics of one of his jobs, Alpine HU in a '63 split-window that looked absolutely stock... the design had a vertical nosepiece with the two knobs side-by-side above it, so he disassembled the deck and rebuilt it into the original mounting plates. Freakin' amazing.

Any of you old timers remember George and the Godzilla station wagon? It was funny as hell, but from what I've heard, it was pretty decent sounding.

In any case, as far as serious competitors from BC goes, Tim wins hands down.

** IASCA World Champion (Expert 1-600 SQ+ Class) **
128 Career First Place Awards
11 Career Second Place Awards
3 Career Third Place Awards
1 Career Fourth Place Award
1 Career Fifth Place Award
52 Career Best of Show Awards
10 Time IASCA Zone Champion
10 Time IASCA Zone Points Champion
7 Time IASCA Western Regional's Champion
2 Time IASCA Eastern Regional's Champion
8 Top 5 Finishes IASCA World Finals (92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99)

Simply Wow.

Ohhhh memories.
Old fuckers I don't know anybody that your talkin about *cough cough*


But I'm always up for an old dog audio drunk off

And cman if you find me a 90ish civic hatch with nothing in it (stereos were optional in em) My record to knock a deck ant and pair of front speakers was 12 minutes I had crimping hands of fury and knew every wire nut and screw by memory and could do a basic alarm with starter kill in under 20 minutes no solder 35 soldered. They were the greatest money makers of the day and us installers used to fight over em between the custom jobs.

Well, this thread has been FULLY hi-jacked!

So, when and where, boys? Somewhere with a big screen to watch the game? :D

Yes, this should be required reading for Hijacking Thread 101.