I'm trying to change out my stock roof antenna base for something different (think shark fin). I've found several candidates off other cars but they all have only 2 wires connecting them. The stock MINI antenna base (without nav, satellite, etc.) requires 3 wires: one female connecter at the rear of the base and a 2 wire pigtail coming out of the center. Anyone know what those 3 wires do? I used a multimeter but none of the wires seem to connect directly to the mast.

 

Click on the link below and it shows a picture of the different connectors that are in the roof for the antenna base.

http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/en/zin...56_65_0005.htm

The connectors are as follows:

One in light gray at the top that is not marked and just below the X30033 marking is the one for the FM antenna

X30033 - Radio on line (12 volts when the radio is on)

X16792 - FM Antenna

X13393 - NAV antenna

X10891 - Not 100% sure as there is no listing for this connector but i believe it may be ground.

X13363 - Cell Phone antenna

 

Thanks, I'm still a little confused but I'm smarter than I was 5 min ago. It appears from the diagram that the two pigtail wires coming from the antenna are for the cell phone & nav. The only other wire I have going to the antenna base is X16792 which apparently is the FM antenna. Most of the generic roof antennas I've seen are 2 wire. I'm guessing one is for the FM lead and the other goes to gnd. FWIW, if you remove the black cover from the base you will find a small circuit board; but I'm not sure what it does if there is no nav or cell phone. The basic antenna base is only about $40 whereas the nav/cell phone version is about $180