Antenna woes

[Ceristimo]

I know there are a million topics about the pesky power antenna's on the W123's, but I still have two questions:

1) My antenna is stuck all the way down. There's a tiny, tiny little bit of antenna that I can just about get a hold off with some pliers. All removal descriptions I've seen assume that the antenna is stuck up, or at least can move somewhat up and down. Anyone ever removed one that's all the way down? Just remove the little nut, grab a hold of whatever you can grab a hold on and yank it out? Right after I bought the car I did attempt to just yank the antenna mast up with pliers so I would have some radio to listen to on the drive back, but that mast is hella-stuck...
2) Anyone know of a manual replacement? I've searched a bunch but came up with nothing. I might not have been searching correctly though. I can't justify spending 200 bucks on a replacement antenna, and frankly I couldn't care less about it automatically going up or down.

I mean, I might drive a Mercedes, but I can easily ask my butler to get out of the car and manually push it down, whenever I tell my driver to drive Betsie through the car-wash...

Lastly: I grew up in Europe. My dad had an '84 W123 in the late '80's. I could've sworn that antenna was on the passenger front fender. Am I crazy?