My power antenna started grinding away and wouldn't go up. I was able to fix it, but it still was grinding so I decided to just yank it since a new one is 100 bucks. I took a strand of house electrical wire and wrapped it around the antenna and up into the back hatch window. The results are great, it gets the same reception plus a few smaller stations that I couldn't get before. This actually worked much better than laying the antenna across the back under the carpet under that cover/divider thing. I'm not to inclined to weld a piece of metal and bondo and paint so I came up with some other ways to hide the hole. One way is to use a plastic or rubber cap that fits on a chair leg-it fits perfect. The other way which I think I'll keep was putting this metal round button over the hole. Not sure where it came from as it was my dads, but its just a little round piece of metal with a screw in the middle of it, plus a rubber pad on the underside. Just hought I'd let you guys know this little mode works pretty well for anybody wanting to just get rid of their antenna. It feels so good not to hear that thing go up and down everytime I got into the car, plus when it gets cold out the thing freezes and doesn't go up all the way. It was much to hassle to deal with. Here are the pics
http://s179.photobucket.com/albums/w291/djames455/
by the way the antenna pic with the copper bent up is like that because It was too long so I just bent it into waves since I was to lazy to cut it.

 

I cannot imagine how you get better reception like that - especially considering the way the antenna is mounted is far from optimal in receiving radio waves

 

Actually it surprised me as well, I tryed mounting the wire in all sorts of places and directions,including length, and this worked great. Laying the antenna in the wheelwell or under the back mat made the seek go right past many of the stations. I know there are a few cars that still place the antenna in the back like that. I think one is the Lexus, I don't know where the corvette one is at, but it might be hidden somewhere as well. I live in a flat area so that probably helps bring in the stations. I'm sure a hilly mountian area wouldn't work to well This way only worked better than the stock antenna because it brought in the smaller local channels better, maybe because the bigger stations didn't drown them out. I'm sure a straight up antenna like the stocker is overall best, but I'd rather put my 100 bucks to a cam than antenna.