Depending on whether you’re trying to tune into your favorite talk show on the AM band, or listen to some music on the FM band, anything from tall buildings to solar flares can adversely affect your listening experience. And unless you have a whole lot of pull with the local zoning board—or you’ve figured out how to control the sun with the power of your mind—most of those problems are going to fall solidly on the “can’t do anything about that” side of the line. However, if your reception problems persist, you’re probably dealing with an equipment malfunction, most of which are easily fixed. Since antennas function by picking up radio waves, it only stands to reason that being shoved down inside the car might make it difficult for your antenna to function correctly. Pulling it back out, if you find it shoved in, may be all it takes to vastly improve your reception. This may sound like extremely basic stuff, but it’s actually surprisingly common for manual antennas to be retracted and then left that way. Since there isn’t any mechanism to prevent these masts from being retracted, anyone can walk by and shove your antenna down. It’s especially common for car wash attendants to push these in to keep them from breaking off in the wash, and if someone doesn’t remember to pull it back out on the other side, it’s pretty easy to just drive away none the wiser. Electric antennas that extend when the radio is turned on can also fail in the down position, in which case your radio reception will probably be pretty bad. And since a lot of these antennas are outside your normal field of vision, you may not even notice that the motor is broken unless you specifically go looking for it. While you may be able to use pliers to pull out a failed electric antenna, doing so may strip the gears or damage the motor. The first thing to check is the connection between the antenna cable and the back of your head unit. If that’s properly seated, then you may want to find a station you can tune into and then gently wiggle the antenna itself back and forth. If the connection is solid, you shouldn’t notice anything. If the connection is loose, you’ll probably notice the tuner drop and then reacquire the signal. If that happens, you should tighten the antenna and check the grounds. There are also a handful of other cases that call for a new antenna. For instance, some cars come with “grid style” antennas mounted on the rear window glass instead of conventional whip or mast antennas. These flat antennas have some aesthetic benefits, and they can’t be broken off by a car wash or a vandal, but they often suffer from poor reception in big cities or hilly areas. In some cases, a whip antenna will provide better reception. That being said, not all head unit radio tuners are created equal. So if you’ve checked everything else, and you can’t blame your reception problems on the rain (or the tall buildings, or the nearby hills), then it might be time to replace your head unit. Some low-end budget head units skimp on the radio tuner quality, but even if your radio was fine when it was new, failures do happen. So if nothing else does the trick, you may just have a busted car radio on your hands.
