I love my XK8, but I didn’t really see the antenna until I let my brother take it for a test drive and I thought “holy crap that’s tall!” I told my brother when he got back and he said “yeah I noticed that when you pulled in!” I made reference to the Joe Diffie song saying if I added another one Id have dual antennas whipping in the wind! Then said “holy cow! I can pick up bbc 1 with this thing!” Lol. So the question is, has anyone put in a different, shorter, more stylish antenna on their xk8? I’m kinda surprised they didn’t do a windshield or rear window antenna in these.
The original radio aerial has a four section mast. I strongly suspect that you could buy a three section mast and fit it which is quite easy to do provided the nylon rack comes out intact. If it breaks, you have to take the whole electric unit out and remove the broken bit which is a PITA.
When I got my car the mast would not fully retract and that was because someone previously had left the broken end of the rack in the motor and just fitted a new mast. The end of cycle appears to be sensed by motor stall current so you could experiment a bit. Masts are cheap enough on eBay and elsewhere.
Eric
Shropshire, UK
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