Best antenna and mounting?

[woodkeeth82honda]

Howdee, I have finished painting my fairing and while I finish the bike parts I am reassembling the fairing. It's a wj5. I probably will buy a different radio but will still need an antenna. The bike came with a rear mount (regular car) antenna attached to the luggage rack. While that's ok I thought maybe putting one of those short rubber ones directly on the fairing. It might be higher and suffer less interference from the bike's electronics.

I was wondering if there were dos and don'ts about this. What are your thoughts. I do love my tunes but I haven't had a radio yet this bike and haven't missed it but I know when I seriously start commuting or take a trip I will want music. As I said I am looking for something with usb/flash drive/smartphone capability. I may not even want a CD player.

 

[brianinpa]

Antenna - I picked up a 12 or 16 rubber rat tail for my cycle sound until I was able to get a stock Honda antanne for the back of the bike. Worked great as a key holder or a hat rack... not so well as a radio antenna. Now that I have a 3+ ft antenna on the bike I can actually pick up a station that is further than 15 miles away. Not sure I would even consider drilling a hole in the outside skin of a WJ, but that is just me.

I wouldn't stop at a cd player. buy a sterro that has a usb drive. CD's skip all the timewhere asa the usb drive does not. I have a 16Gig thumb drive loaded with all of my CD's and never have o worry about running out of music. For that reason, I rarely listen to teh radio because I cannot stand the advertisements.

 

[Terraplane Tom]

I bought a marine antenna and ran the wire up the edge between the WJ and the windshield.

 

[steppenwolf]

Looks better than the big ugly stock onesAny piece of wire should work for antenna,you mainly need it for am,fm usually is easier to pickup but they do put out less power and don't seem to skip at night as the am does.
I have an old radio now,all I need is the Cycle Sound..had one on my Kaw but I very seldom turned it on except to hear the new and weather while riding

 

[Kynan C.]

Does Pandora take an antenna?

I have not listened to a radio station in years. Either Pandora, MP3, XM or CD. FM and AM just don't offer much now days here in Bakersfield except pop, and gospel. Although, we have a great country station KUZZ.

 

[brianinpa]

My issue with listening radio stations isn't really the quality of the station but rather that if I am on the road, I am always riding through the reception area too quickly so I keep changing the station. Around home it is fine, but when I am on the open road I find a good station and then reception fades, then I find another good station to listen to and wind up listening to the same top 40 songs in whatever genre I am listening too at the time. That is the main reason I use a USB drive while I am riding on the open road. I get to listen to a wider variety of music that way.