For some reason or another, the car radio picks up AM stations just fine but FM stations have tons of static. Would it necessarily be the antenna or is something else involved?
could be the antenna, more then likely however the antenna lead has come unplugged from the back of the radio. It will most likely look like a black round plug about 3 inches long and slightly less then half inch in diameter. It just plugs in… probably vibrated out.
AM is not effected because antenna isn’t used to pick up AM signals. I believe just the case of the radio acts as its AM antenna.
Not to suggest you’re as stupid as me, but for the longest time I thought one of my car stereos had sucky FM. I finally noticed the local/dist switch that was pushed to local, but I was in a fairly remote town where there wern’t any local stations, so blocking the distant stations just made sure I couldn’t hear anything.
But most likely Whammo is right,the antenna isn’t connected becuase a plug has come loose, or the cord got cut somewhere.
Whammo is probably right in that the FM antenna isn’t connected. However, the AM part of the radio does use an antenna- it is located inside the radio (it’s not the case). It’s usually a “loopstick” antenna- a large coil of wire over a ferrite core.
That’s why you can have reception on AM and not on FM- different antennas. Since the AM antenna is directional, that’s why your AM reception a boom box changes depending on which way you orient the box! Of course, the FM reception on the box depends on how you orient the external antenna.
Arjuna34