intermittent am radio static

[Bob E.]

I have a 2009 2500HD that gets intermittent static on AM stations. Can anyone give me some areas to investigate.

TIA

Bob

[More Power]

Is this related to rain and the use of the windshield wipers?

[Bob E.]

No. It happens when driving in town some days but not every day.

[AKMark]

When I worked at a Ford Dealer not so long ago, a brand new Lincoln came in for intermittent am radio static.

I tried it in the parking lot, and it worked fine. Took it for a drive, and initially felt like it had an intermittent issue....Till I realized it would get static anytime I was near traffic lights, street lights, or was near power lines. I had the Service Manager ride with me while I showed him my discovery. We did try a new antenna and verified all the grounds were good, to no avail. Manager wanted me to figure it out...

At lunch I tried AM on my 05 Avalanche I had at the time. I experienced the same issue. When I returned I convinced the Manager to let me take a few of the program vehicles for a spin and confirmed that all of them did that.

We never found a fix for it and the owner of the Lincoln was pissed. I was also upset, I worked for six hours on the car and didn't get paid since it was under warranty and we didn't fix anything.

[DickWells]

My 04 has never had any kind of satisfactory AM reception. The only times I've ever made the effort (after the first few attempts) is when we run across the "tune to AM station # xxxx at national parks, etc. Always lousy reception and static. I always assumed that we were just experiencing the effects of a radio which is biased to the FM side. Just the opposite of what it used to be when FM car radios were starting to show up more and more in cars. Man, the "popcorn" was awful in those old FM radios. Now you have me wondering; are there actually AM radios out there that still sound right?