Lousy FM reception

[Firea100]

Good afternoon to all on the site!
This is my first post on the site. I have a 2013 Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn 4X4. I’ve just purchased it in the past month from a used car dealership in Spearfish South Dakota. More on this great dealership later!
My issue is with the FM radio. It’s the 8.4 “big screen” radio. I live in East China Michigan, which is right across the St Clair River from Canada. I’ve had a Chrysler Aspen with the high end GPS radio and have had the same problem. The radio stations don’t come in clearly, they fade in and out and at times I can’t get any reception at all. I live about 40 miles from Metro Detroit and about 12 miles from Port Huron where the station I can usually get in is located. That station comes in and out as well. Is there an antenna booster or something that would help the reception? My wife drives a Ford Edge and her radio picks up all of the stations that I can’t! Not sure what’s causing this! Any suggestions??

Thanks for reading!
Larry in East China Mi

 

[corneileous]

Just outta curiosity, does it have the original factory antenna on the fender? The reason I ask, a lot of people are into the look of shorter antennas and if yours is short, that might be part of your bad reception.

If you’ve got the original factory antenna, or if the previous owner put an aftermarket antenna on of the same length, I really don’t know what would cause poor reception like that. I’ve never even heard of an antenna booster either. But I would advise checking the cable from the antenna for cuts and abrasions, and check all of your connections for your antenna.


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[Firea100]

Corneleous, Thanks For the reply! It’s a factory antenna. I did check the coax antenna wire, no issues with it.
Never heard of an “antenna booster”??? When i was a little younger, (1970’s) almost everyone had one to help their aftermarket FM radio get better reception!
IMO, that just shed some light on your age!! LOL
Larry in East China Mi

 

[corneileous]

Corneleous, Thanks For the reply! It’s a factory antenna. I did check the coax antenna wire, no issues with it.
Never heard of an “antenna booster”??? When i was a little younger, (1970’s) almost everyone had one to help their aftermarket FM radio get better reception!
IMO, that just shed some light on your age!! LOL
Larry in East China Mi

Well, I appreciate the compliment even though I’m sailin’ right on through my 40’s. I’ve never had much use for AM/FM so an antenna booster is beyond my knowledge. It’s always been for me tapes, CD’s, then the age of downloading from Napster, then on to satellite radio and on to iTunes so, I don’t know why your reception would be less than desired.

But because of my independence from traditional radio, I figured I got what I felt was good reception in my new truck but since my music comes from other sources, I much rathered have my 50 Caliber bullet as an antenna instead of that long pole that tree limbs love to attack....


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[mike12193]

It just seems lately that terrestrial radio signals are worse then ever. I live about 30 miles from NYC and drive in to the city every day. Even the nyc based radio stations don’t come all that clear. I don’t know if it other RF interference in the area. But it is horrible.


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[crash68]

I've noticed that the HD radio reception(8.4AN radio) sucks driving across 26 Mile road East of I-94. Don't think WRIF drops out completely though when I've drove all the way out to Marine City.

 

[corneileous]

It just seems lately that terrestrial radio signals are worse then ever. I live about 30 miles from NYC and drive in to the city every day. Even the nyc based radio stations don’t come all that clear. I don’t know if it other RF interference in the area. But it is horrible.


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Probably because of competition from pandora, iTunes, Spotify, amazon music, iheartradio, satellite radio.....


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[misfit77]

My reception gets poor as soon as I turn headlights on.

Factory antenna and bulbs.



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[Ramm5.7]

I live close to Los Angeles and stations are strong. My 17 1500 with 8.4 and 6" antennae works great accept on some am stations depending on where Im driving. I have a grand Cherokee loaner and it's reception SUCKS!!!. Does the same as op, works good most times but gets really aggravating when the signal fades in and out!

 

[Firea100]

Crash68,
Where are you heading as you come in on Marine City Highway?
I’m usually at Marine City Grill most early mornings. (0600hrs)
Just look for my Black ‘13 Ram Laramie Longhorn 4X4!

 

[Sasquatchtdg]

I explained my conspiracy theory to my wife yesterday that the SiriusXM sound quality is boosted vs FM, Bluetooth, AUX, trying to keep people subscribed to what is an expensive, dying commodity in satellite radio...

Vs. cheaper and more expansive streaming services. Spotify, Pandora, Apple Radio. Another thing that makes me think that is the internal hard drive in the radios killed off in 2012. Who would want satellite radio if they could fit 20gb+ of songs that they actually like on their hard drive?

Could be the coffee summoning the conspiring...

 

[corneileous]

I explained my conspiracy theory to my wife yesterday that the SiriusXM sound quality is boosted vs FM, Bluetooth, AUX, trying to keep people subscribed to what is an expensive, dying commodity in satellite radio...

I guess I can agree with that with all the streaming services we have but, I still have my subscription to satellite radio and probably will for several more years to come since it’s just easier. And this is even coming from someone who has an unlimited data package who can pretty much stream virtually all they want.

Vs. cheaper and more expansive streaming services. Spotify, Pandora, Apple Radio. Another thing that makes me think that is the internal hard drive in the radios killed off in 2012. Who would want satellite radio if they could fit 20gb+ of songs that they actually like on their hard drive?

Could be the coffee summoning the conspiring...

The older trucks allowed storing songs on a hard drive? And even then, they don’t now? That is a little strange but still, I’ve never needed to store music on a vehicle’s radio’s hard drive. Ever since I quit playing CD’s and got into the digital age, either my iPod or my phone has carried my music. In my opinion, having music storage strictly in your vehicle is about as useless as having WiFi in your vehicle..... lol.




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[Sasquatchtdg]

The older trucks allowed storing songs on a hard drive? And even then, they don’t now? That is a little strange but still, I’ve never needed to store music on a vehicle’s radio’s hard drive. Ever since I quit playing CD’s and got into the digital age, either my iPod or my phone has carried my music. In my opinion, having music storage strictly in your vehicle is about as useless as having WiFi in your vehicle..... lol.

My 2012 had a 30gb hard drive in the radio, plug in a usb full of tunes and it transferred to the hard drive. I loved it. Data transfer was kinda slow, but when you have 1500 songs at a time at 320kbps each, its expected.

 

[corneileous]

My 2012 had a 30gb hard drive in the radio, plug in a usb full of tunes and it transferred to the hard drive. I loved it. Data transfer was kinda slow, but when you have 1500 songs at a time at 320kbps each, its expected.

Hmm. Well when I finally got my first iPhone, even playing songs over Bluetooth sounded pretty dern good from the old factory RAQ 6-disc in-dash changer radio my 2008 Laramie had. I guess a built-in disk drive would’ve been nice when I was still playing music from the ole 160-gig iPod classic because it didn’t have blue tooth. And since that radio didn’t have an Aux port, I had to resort to an FM modulator to play the music from my iPod. Couldn’t even use a iPod interface module because since that factory radio had no need for a CD changer input because of the built-in changer, there was no where to hook one of those things up to.


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[crash68]

Where are you heading as you come in on Marine City Highway?

I decide to go for a ride out to Marine City(dinner/sightseeing). I also have a cottage in Clay

 

[erictomlin]

Reviving this thread as I have recently bought a used 2016 1500 with 8.4" uconnect system and my FM reception is awful. I've also noticed that reception is worse under acceleration. If I take my foot of the gas and coast, reception improved. When I accelerate, the reception becomes weak and staticy. So that tells me that there is some electrical interference going on...

 

[corneileous]

Reviving this thread as I have recently bought a used 2016 1500 with 8.4" uconnect system and my FM reception is awful. I've also noticed that reception is worse under acceleration. If I take my foot of the gas and coast, reception improved. When I accelerate, the reception becomes weak and staticy. So that tells me that there is some electrical interference going on...

Um..... that’s definitely an interesting one.


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[RamCares]

Reviving this thread as I have recently bought a used 2016 1500 with 8.4" uconnect system and my FM reception is awful. I've also noticed that reception is worse under acceleration. If I take my foot of the gas and coast, reception improved. When I accelerate, the reception becomes weak and staticy. So that tells me that there is some electrical interference going on...

Hi erictomlin,

Sorry to hear of the concern you are experiencing with your truck. If you are not able to determine the cause based on advice provided here, I kindly recommend connecting with your local Ram dealer as they are in the best position to assist. Our team is available via private message if you are in need of any assistance with that process.

Mark
Ram Social Care Specialist

 

[Paperboy4828]

So I'm in the same pickle. I recently changed radios to the 8.4" RA4 from the factory 5.x inch radio and screen. Love everything about the 8.4" except the FM and AM radio reception got even worse than the already poor reception on the factory unit. Not quite unusable, but pretty close. I checked the antenna connection behind the passengers side kick plate and found it very corroded, with a bunch of white corrosion crud dumping on the floor mat as I disconnected it. I tried cleaning as best I could, but little improvement. I ordered a new factory antenna mount and will give that a try when it arrives.

I looked over the old radio (to see if there was any kind of fine tuning) and noted that there is a threaded stud on the back, and that got me thinking about grounding. Could some or all of this be a grounding problem with the radio chassis? I don't remember if there was a similar stud on the 8.4" when I installed it. Any insights would be appreciated...

 

[erictomlin]

I looked over the old radio (to see if there was any kind of fine tuning) and noted that there is a threaded stud on the back, and that got me thinking about grounding. Could some or all of this be a grounding problem with the radio chassis? I don't remember if there was a similar stud on the 8.4" when I installed it. Any insights would be appreciated...

That's quite possible, especially considering the fact that my reception gets worse when I accelerate. I had a similar issue with interference on the amp/speaker set I mounted to my motorcycle, and it was corrected with the installation of a ground loop isolator.