I have a 2010 FLHX. I have Boom! audio speakers driven by the Hogtunes 70.2 amp. I had a shorty Boom! (the exclamation point is important) antenna on the back of the bike that worked fine. I just didn't like having an antenna sticking up. So I decided to buy two of these with a splitter http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o01_s00_i00

I was able to mount them on the far edges of the inner fairing without touching any metal parts. The problem I'm having is I get perfect AM reception, Weatherband is fine, but I get maybe 10% of the FM channels that I did with the short antenna. I unmounted them and moved them around and the further away from the amp/radio I went, the signal became crystal clear. Could the radio or amp be putting out interference and messing with the FM signal? And if so, how do I fix it besides going back to a whip antenna? Is there some sort of shielding I could use?

 

Why don't you just put your regular antenna inside the fairing?

 

That's a good idea. I can give that a try. Does it need to touch metal at all for grounding purposes or should it be mounted far away from metal?

 

Keep the antenna off of anything metal. You might consider wrapping it in a plastic bag to make sure of that. Actually, the design of the antenna is at its best when it is standing up as on the back of your scooter. When ya start doing stuff to it ya loose the performance of it. The hidden antennas usually come with an amplifier. That's because of the degradation of reception when ya put it in the fairing, next to the radio box, speakers and whatever else may be in there. The antenna amplifier, amplifies everything that comes to it which is mostly noise/hiss.
Good luck with your experiment.

 

i changed mine to a short one from the dealer and turned the backet sideways. so now its tucked behind the saddle bag out of sight and still picks up as good as before, the fairing ones dont pick up that well from what my buddies ahve and the hot tunes one i used for short time before hiding mine

 

I tried that first and it killed the reception. I think it's because I couldn't figure out how to keep it off of the fender, bag supports, and all the other metal parts back there. I just don't want an antenna sticking up. I don't really care that much about FM channels, but I would like it to work. I just hate the look of an antenna sticking up.

 

sorry for hijacking your thread but you have the same audio set up that I want to do and I'm interested in how your Boom speakers sound with the Hogtunes 70.2 amp?? Any distortion? pretty clear at speed? Hogtunes generally pushes their own speakers with their amp and says the 70.2 amp may be too much for the Booms but I doubt that. Thanks for your info.

 

Hijack away! I think it sounds really good. I usually plug an MP3 player into the AUX jack. The only distortion I get is if I have the MP3 player maxed. If I drop the volume on that down to about 3/4, I can turn the HK head unit all the way up without distortion (not that I do that very often). It's a lot more clear and loud then it was with just the Boom! speakers. If the speakers die or something, I'll try something else. It's a quick swap and not super expensive if it does happen. But right now, I'm happy with it. My buddy rode with me the other day and said he could hear my music fine at probably 40 mph about 2 car lengths back. I'm sure there are better setups, but it's cheap and good enough for me at the moment.

 

I installed one of Boom hidden antenna's and it works great.

 

had to be done very carefully lol