I just installed a new aftermarket radio/cd player in my 73 Swinger. The radio has poor reception. The antenna connection is fine. Should I replace the antenna? Has anybody else had this problem?

By the way, I didn't want to cut my dash, and I have those big AC vents under the dash. But, If you look under the vents, there are two holes that go to bolts. They are the perfect width apart to fit a stero between them. The bolts have quite a few threads hanging down.

If you just get four 1/4 inch bolt couplers (two for each side), you can put two together using some all thread, and screw the double bolt couplers to the bolts in the holes. The bolt coupler will be hanging down about 1/2 inch. From there you can just use some plumbers tape to strap the stereo to the bottom of the AC vents. The stereo is very secure and easy to see/access.

The only drawback is any kid with a pair a pliers can rip it off in minutes. I do have a removable face on the the stereo though, and it is not an expensive one (about $65).

I removed the carboard glove box (was beat anyway) to access the antenna wire in the back of the AM radio, and used an antenna extension wire. I replaced the cardboard glove box with a plastic one I found in a 75 Scamp at the junk yard. It fit pretty good with a very minor modification to the bottom two screw holes. I used those speaker screw clips for backing to screw the plastic glove box into place, since the cardboard one had the threaded inserts imbedded into the cardboard.

I took some pics, but they are about 1mb in size, and I think that might be too big to post. If anybody is interested, I could post them later if I can figure out how to reduce the file size, or just post them to an album in SBCglobal you can access with a link.

First, check that the radio itself (usually, but not always, the case is ground) is well grounded, then check that the antenna is *not* shorted and not open. The connections at the antenna can break and short out or go open.

An inexpensive digital multimeter (DMM) will work fine - with the antenna disconnected from the radio, you should see "infinite" (overflow) ohms to ground from the center pin; from the antenna to the central pin you should see essentially 0 ohms (cheap DMMs don't work well below a few ohms, but that's fine here.)

Some older radios have a trimmer adjustment for AM; most modern ones don't.

I've also had new aftermarket AM/FM/cassettes be bad right out of the box.

For my, you got a bad ground, check everything is well grounded, if the problem is still there, I suggest to change your antenna, and also buy and install a antenna amplifier signal (don´t know correct name in english), the best ones are from Kenwood (advertisment by Kenwood), I got one running in my Duster just to keep a nice and strong signal for my radio (when I use it).

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Mopar Muscle is well defend by Slant Six!

Valiant Duster 1971

The antenna cable should only be grounded on 1 side, otherwise you may get a ground loop......

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes