Metra Electronics 44-PW22 Motorized AM/FM Fully Automatic Power Antenna

Very reliable, bear with me for a second - I have a couple of these I use to power automatic doors on my chicken run. They fire twice a day, every day, at dusk and dawn to open and close the doors and go up and down with a small aluminum panel attached to them. Have been running for several years. The first one with a steel panel worked but burned out after a couple years. - So a slightly weird use case I know but if they can do this in a dusty chicken run they will work fine in your car with no other weight on them. The antennas are under cover so don't get rained on but they get dusty as heck.

You could believe this we ordered this power antenna in the motor for a 1990 Ford Thunderbird it fit beautiful in fact the radio was playing so much better I'm here in the US Virgin Islands in St Croix it's beautiful the windows are down and the radio has no static thank you so much Amazon. It didn't take only a little over 1 week to ship it's installed it's wonderful and the price was $60 how can you beat that. Robina Glaszcz

Wow. This does not fit your 96-99 Nissan Maxima. Installed/rewired works fine for now - looks bad - could not get it flush(2-inch stub) when retracted. Used just about every tool in my possession to re-manufacture brackets, etc. in order to get it to fit as well as it does. The instructions/guides are awful. Basically made in a Chinese prison....a bad one. Avoid at all costs and save yourself some time and pay the nissan house for the replacement or go with a standard antenna that does not retract. To put it in perspective: I got the old maxima at a bargain price, put new brake calipers on the back(ohio car), new brake pads all around, new strut/spring assemblies on all four corners -- none of these tasks were half as time-consuming as simply replacing the power antenna with this one. If you made me re-perform any of these tasks --- i would gladly do all of them except the antenna again. All of the other parts were from bosch/monroe/callahan.........do the math.

The Metra 44-PW22 works fine for me as a replacement for the original antenna. For the car I was working on, a Jaguar XJS, I could only find two alternatives to the very expensive OEM replacement: One that is not automatic, and this one. This one does exactly what it is supposed to do, and for the price, I am very satisfied with this product. Note I just recently installed it, and so cannot report on long term reliability. A few notes for people considering buying it: - For my car, it is considerably noisier than the original. - Wiring is simple, three wires: One always 12V (red), another 12V when the radio is turned on (blue), and ground. - The way it works is this: When the blue wire goes hot, the antenna goes up. When it reaches full extension, the motor continues to grind for a few seconds before quitting. When the blue wire goes cold, the antenna goes down. When it is fully retracted, the motor continues to grind for a few seconds before quitting. - The important thing to note about wiring is this: The blue wire requires 12V to raise the antenna. However, the input is not a low current logic signal, but rather a power signal. If your radio does not provide enough current to drive the blue signal, a relay or transistor switch is needed -- and is not a part of this kit. (See more below.) I believe a truly universal automatic antenna ought to support a >low current< input signal, and provide the relay or switching transistor internally. This is my reason for the four star vs. five star rating. Notes specific to the Jag XJS: - This unit is NOT a mechanical drop-n replacement. It is a little shorter than the original. And although there are also two similar mounting screws and the drain tube outlet, they are not spaced or aligned the same as the original. As a result, you can't re-use the original bracket, but have to bend the provided mounting bracket strip into shape. It is important to get the vertical dimension right, but don't sweat the exact horizontal dimension between the screws attaching the bracket to the antenna and the car. You can rotate the bracket a bit to get the vertical alignment reasonable, and torque it down. With a single screw attachment, the result is not as sturdy as the original bracket, but it is adequate. - The Metra unit comes with a pivot assembly to abut the inside of the fender. For my car, I found it worked best to simply remove the pivot assembly altogether. I also re-used the original tubular screw from the outside of the fender. Make sure to sort all this out before you try to measure the vertical spacing for the bracket strip. - Regarding wiring, the OEM radio puts out a 12V signal when the radio is turned on. However, this signal can only source about 10 mA, and the voltage drops to about 5 V. I initially obtained a low-current relay that was supposed to switch with as little as 10 mA. However, when I wired it up, the source signal could not switch the relay on. It could keep it on once switched, but could not cause it to switch. So I had to backtrack and get a switching transistor instead. I used a TIP120 NPN. I ran the yellow/green wire from the car through a 1.5k resistor to the base of the transistor. Works like a champ. It's good practice to run a snubber diode from collector to emitter, but my initial test circuit worked without it, without immediate damage to the transistor. So in summary, depending on your car, this may be one of the few, and possibly the only choice available. The good news is that it works well at a reasonable price. It would be a five star rating for me, but I had to add some external components to get the automatic function with my radio. Not hard, but adds a bit to the cost, and definitely adds to the time/effort on the installation.

Awesomeness

I bought one of these PW22 power antennas for my 2003 Corvette C5 Z06 in October 2012 from a different merchant, after my previous model HCA350B from JC Whitney had died after a few years. The HCA350B was no longer available, and I figured I'd give a different brand / model a try. Well the PW22 lasted 36 months, same length of time. It just died, but I couldn't find anything with superior ratings, so I just bought another PW22, this time from Amazon, and installed it earlier today. It took about an hour to install, and it works great. But I doubt it will last over 3 years. By the way, as I was installing the second PW22 a little while ago, I got to see what had happened to the first one. When it failed, the flexible drive rack inside the antenna house burst out of the periphery of the housing. So about two feet of the plastic toothy element was tangled with the brake light wiring. Fortunately, no harm done. Noteworthy is the fact that my HCA350B and first PW22 power antennas both failed in a manner that might drain the battery. When I turned off the car, the antenna retracted but the motor would not stop running; The first time I was in my garage and ran and got a pair of wire cutters and snipped the red wire I had run beside the passenger door. I installed a wire nut later in case the PW22 failed the same way, which it did. And I was parking at the gym to work out when it happened, no wire cutters. So providing a way to quickly disconnect the power paid off.

It contained all of the mounting hardware needed including straps to secure it. Make sure your vehicle has the right antenna connection for this one which is a screw on connection at the mast. Many vehicles have a male style push connector which will not work on this product. Also nice touch that the long wiring harness can disconnect from the leads near the antenna allowing you to shorten the cable as you see fit.

Me.gusto por q es lo mismo pero más barata le.quedo muy bien a mi eclipse gst convertible 2.0 1999

ya habia comprado dos artículos mas de Metra, crei que como los otros dos quedaban como guantes, supuse que en esta ocasión seria lo mismo, por lo que decidi cambiar la antena de mi auto, pues no funcionaba y estaba rota, lamentablemente resulto que el mastil la parte donde se 'guarda' es demasiado corta, por esta razón no logra salir de la carroceria, debido a que (en mi caso) antes de llegar al orificio de la antena, hay un orificio interior que no permite subir mas la antena, y por ser de un mástil mas corto que el original no fue posible sujetarla de la parte superior, a mi parecer va a ser necesario recortar parte de la carrocería interior para poder subir mas el mastil y a su vez poder sujetarlo desde arriba/afuera de la carroceria del auto; si no lo devolví fue por el gasto que hice y el tiempo tan tardado de devolución de artículos internacionales ya tengo mas de dos semanas que devolvi un articulo y no pasa de las aduanas

This antenna was a perfect replacement for the factory unit. Very easy to install and very good quality.

Conectamos la antena y el motor no funciona.