Nobody here will have this answer. Sorry. Lol
I am not an expert, nor do I have the definitive answer, but I believe it has to do with signal distance and customer demographics. The longer 'whip' antenna allows the truck to pick up an AM/FM radio signal at a distance much greater than that of any other antenna configuration. While that makes no difference to someone in a major metropolitan city, it makes a big difference to someone using the truck out in rural America. Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakota's, and so on, where customer are buying these trucks for work or pleasure, but live/work in less populated areas need that additional signal strength. If you were to head out of a major city in an F-150 and a friend in a competitors truck, with no stick antenna, both listening to the same station, you would be listening to the station far longer than your friend., theoretically. Ford's demographic data must show that keeping the antenna is important to their customer base.
And I thought it was just to make that cool Boing noise every time I pull into my standard 7' garage height door.
If I didn't have to run through car washes 4-5 months a year, I would do that. In fact I did that to this one but pulling it off and on to use the car wash was a pain. Plus the wrench was taking the black paint.Cut 5 inches off of the antenna and no more boing noise.
