Cars with MASSIVE a...
 

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[Closed] Cars with MASSIVE antennae

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I've just been driving behind a 12yr old car with what looked like  vertical fishing rods for aerials protruding from the back bumper & top of the boot.

What on earth are they for? Is it for someone who really misses listening to French radio and for whom the internet has passed by?

Thanks

Bamboozled of Edinburgh


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 2:51 pm
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I don't know why they do it but someone I know was walking down the road and a van drove by with one of those aerials on it - it whipped back and hit the guy. He started to get a bad rash so he went to the doctors and he was diagnosed with van aerial disease.

(My coat is on).


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 2:54 pm
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What on earth are they for?

Jag, perchance?

Cheaper innit, but retractable for the pics in the brochure.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 2:55 pm
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DAB upgrade kits?

Taxi comms?

Police scanner/radio listening?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 2:57 pm
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Sure they weren't actually fishing rods?  Was it parked by a lake?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 2:57 pm
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CB Radio / Radio Ham?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:03 pm
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Ham radio sending/receiving?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:04 pm
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Saw one the other day around London.  Couple of huge aerials on a non-descript saloon.  Haven't seen anything like it since the days of CBs/


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:07 pm
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TV Licensing detector vans in disguise?

Giant remote control cars?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:09 pm
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Vigilante TV licence detectors

EDIT: gah - sniped!


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:09 pm
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maybe it was a remote control car but you just really close to it.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:16 pm
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TV licence detectors

... don't exist.

CB or taxi would be my guess.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:21 pm
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Are you sure it wasn't a dodgem?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:22 pm
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Hipsters, probably.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:22 pm
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CB Radio / Radio Ham?

This + 1

I have a neighbour down the road who has a T5 “lifestyle vehicle” covered in them.

He sits on the beachfront with a flask and a pack of sandwiches..

Sounds ace.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:26 pm
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Saw a Range Rover with a couple of salmon rods strapped from the bonnet to the roof of the car near Berwick recently, take it that's t<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">he way they do it in salmon fishing country but looked really odd.</span>


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:33 pm
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They’re mobile transmitter stations beaming out the control signal (as in They Live)...


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:40 pm
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… don’t exist

Stepping up to the Fun Sponge plate today?


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:44 pm
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Ham radio. Need to get a mobile set up sorted myself

de M0SDB


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 3:50 pm
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If they have massive tashes then it'll be some SASes that got caught in a timewarp in a secret facility.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 4:05 pm
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Insecticon.

Transforms into a giant robotic earwig.

Edinburgh is full of that sort of thing. I blame the festival..


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 4:09 pm
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Yeap- radio ham. They’ll have a button on the gear stick for transmitting in morse.

friend of the family had his car set up like that when I was a kid and would always take the highest route on any journey

his set up at homewould broadcast out of all of his neighbours’ speakers even when their TVs and hifis were turned off.


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 4:15 pm
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+1 for Amateur Radio

MM0VPF


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 4:45 pm
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I was driving behind a jag a couple of weeks back and remembered it had a tall metal aerial protruding from the rear wing. That was the Edinburgh bypass and probably no help whatsoever,but I liked what I saw


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 5:01 pm
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Yep. Ham radio.

Probably 4  (low band VHF) or 6 metres.

I've got 1 aerial about 24" on the car. Covers VHF and UHF.

G6EIJ


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 5:13 pm
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Think I've still got my ridiculous 50MHz yagi in my parents' loft...

Rachel ex G7BPD


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 5:20 pm
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I use a tuneable magnetic loop its only about 90cm in diameter, works suprisingly well. I took down my 28mhz yagi ages ago

GW1RVC


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 6:06 pm
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TV licence detectors

… don’t exist.

Sure they do


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 7:17 pm
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Practically all Polish cars driving in Germany have these huge aerials flailing around from their roofs. Is CB radio really popular in Poland?  Or is it they hate giving money to German mobile phone companies??


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 7:43 pm
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Was about to say exactly what Roter Stern said ....!

Doesn't seem to matter if it's a new Audi or some 15 year old shitbox....


 
Posted : 30/10/2018 8:48 pm
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Was it a Beetle?


 
Posted : 31/10/2018 7:26 am
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Was it a Crown Victoria? Definitely Law Enforcement or FBI. Maybe off their patch in Edinburgh.

Jake Reacher fans only.


 
Posted : 31/10/2018 8:02 am
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Could have been mobile telecoms drive testers, checking signal strength, dead areas, etc.


 
Posted : 31/10/2018 5:12 pm
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Could be Ofcom drive trials of mobile phone networks. Paging, Packet Data testing and as others have eluded to could be ham radio. Doubt taxis as they seem to use non hands free Mobile phones these days


 
Posted : 31/10/2018 7:12 pm
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The lengths some will go to...

Fake Ambulance

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46193779


 
Posted : 13/11/2018 4:07 pm

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