Help with power antenna wiring

[ragtop1968rs]

I have a 65 corvette restomod that i have a power antenna(new aftermarket). On these cars the stereo sits sideways which I never liked so I decided to use a marine radio. The problem is marine radios don't have a wire for a power antenna. What I'd like to do is mount an on/off rocker switch so I can just manually raise and lower it. I'm not sure how to wire this up correctly. One side has to be ground. The other side I ran the power wire from the antenna but of course that did nothing because there's no power going to it. So then I tried tying a 12v wire from the battery to the rocker switch with the antenna wire but that just blew the fuse. Any ideas how I can make this work or any other solutions? Thanks

[JustJohn]

https://youtu.be/rOne2y5hJiU?si=xKJw3vEOFgbfqA4X

[ragtop1968rs]

My antenna only has 2 wires. A ground and the wire that normally goes to the power antenna wire on the radio. I don't know how I could wire it like in the video. I would think that a radio with that wire is just giving it power when you turn on the radio making it go up and when you turn it off power is cut and it goes down. There has to be a way to wire a simple 2 way rocker switch to make this work I would think.

[dontlifttoshift]

Is it a stock antennae? How was it controlled factory?

With only two wires, I think it is likely that the factory switch reversed polarity, like a power window switch does. Which, if I remember right, is how the stock antennae worked on those cars.

[dhutton]

^x2. What color are the wires on the antenna?

[ragtop1968rs]

The original antenna did use a switch but I'm using an aftermarket one. I tested this out using a battery charger. I grounded the one end and when I put the other end to the antenna wire it went up as it should. Removed it from the wire and it went back down. I wired it up to a simple 2 way rocker switch. One side ground and the other side the antenna wire plus a power wire from the battery and it just blew the fuse.

[Vimes]

Oooh fun, remote wire troubleshooting.

What brand is the antenna, since you said it was aftermarket?

Is there only two wires? I'm betting one is a signal wire and the other is constant on, with the antenna itself being the ground. Red should be constant on and be the heavier gauge wire, blue or any other color should be the trigger. You would test this by putting the battery charger black pole on the antenna base where it would attach to the car. Put the red on the red wire, then touch the signal wire to it. No guarantees that this won't let out some magic smoke without the wiring diagram though.

If the stereo has an amp trigger, you should be able to use this to trigger the antenna. You would also put the rocker switch on that trigger wire to manually control up and down, but radio off it would be down regardless of where the rocker is. Flipping the rocker would let you drive through an automatic car wash (the blasphemy!!!) with the antenna down, without turning the stereo off.

[ragtop1968rs]

Thanks for the reply Vimes. It's a Metra 44-pw22. There is a red and a blue wire. That's a good idea using an amp trigger. I'm going to give that a shot. Thanks

[dontlifttoshift]

Did you not get instructions? I'm asking because I found them online in 4 seconds once you finally shared the part number.

https://pdf.crutchfieldonline.com/ImageBank/v20130905174000/Manuals/120/12044PW22.PDF


Red is constant 12 volts, battery power.

Blue is your signal wire. That wire needs to be hot when you want the antennae up. It does not matter whether it comes from a switch or the radio.

The motor itself is case grounded and you will have to run a wire from there to ground in order for this to work in your fiberglass car.