The electronics that do the communicating could sense the lack of antenna as a fault, then indicate to other devices in the vehicle that fault. This could potentially cause the vehicle to light it’s fault indicator, among any number of other things.
And by antenna, yes it could be what you think of as an Aerial, but it likely won’t be the same one as for the radio (some antennas are multi purpose, but most are tuned to specific bands)
RF analog electronics can often be damaged if powered without the antenna load, and of those that won’t be damaged, many will be able to detect and fault for lack of antenna load.
So replacing the antenna with a dummy load will keep the system operating “normally” without risk of damage, but also without actually sending data.
Sort of.
The electronics that do the communicating could sense the lack of antenna as a fault, then indicate to other devices in the vehicle that fault. This could potentially cause the vehicle to light it’s fault indicator, among any number of other things.
And by antenna, yes it could be what you think of as an Aerial, but it likely won’t be the same one as for the radio (some antennas are multi purpose, but most are tuned to specific bands)