Why should I make the antenna??

Cat whiskers make pretty good shorter antennae, but you need a willing donor.

^ This is the reaction I get whenever I'm at that stage.....

I don't know about painting an antenna silver, on a military vehicle that is. I've spent nearly 30 years on US armored vehicles and the only color our vehicle antennas came in were various shades of olive green or forest green and some of the original Abrams tanks included a small, thin copper antenna that was painted black.