by cutting the lenght of the wire you effectivly change the receive frequency of that antenna (shorter = higher freq)
usually antennas are in a length of submultiples of the frequency wavelength

wavelength = v/f where v is the velocity of propagation, for us its basically the speed of light or 3x10^8

wavelength = 3x10^8 / 72MHz = 4.16 meters
so using 1/4 wavelength it would be ~1 meter or 39"

if you were to shorten it by the 1 foot .69 meter you will have changed the frequency to
freqency = 3x10^8 / .68*4 = 110MHz

your best bet, if you must shorten it would be to try a deans antenna or to tape it to the bottom of the fuse in a wavy pattern (which would still reduce range but not as much)