I am trying to diagnose poor AM radio reception on my 93 945 with radio antenna is located in the driver's rear section window. My 91 745 with the rear mounted aerial antenna got much better reception than this car.

My question, is there a difference in performance between the two antenna designs. If the aerial antenna does provide better reception, how hard is it to adapt it to my 93 945(there is a plastic cover that fits over where the antenna mast would normally go.

The radio is aftermarket, but AM reception was poor on the the stock volvo radio too.

I have the same problem with my 945. XC90 does fine on AM.
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Leon Ramseur, Gastonia, NC, 2008 XC90, 2001 V70T5. 1993 940 Wagon.

I took the antenna mast out of my 91 745 and installed it in my 93 945 and noticed AM reception was much better. I suppose the mast design is better than the window mounted one.

Had a similar problem with my '97 960 which has a motor driven ant; check that the ant connection at the radio is fully plugged in; my radio worked fine on FM but not on am because of mutual coupling on FM; plugged the ant in all the way and it worked fine. If that doesn't do it, check that the coaxial cable isn't shorted and is connected also to the ant An additional test would be to connect a wire to the radio ant connector in the center pin and see if your am reception improves, if not it could be a circuit in the radio and not the ant. otherwise it might simply be the antenna design.

I noticed a huge difference (for the worst) in AM reception when I switched from the factory retractable mast antenna on the '86 745 to a smaller rubber antenna that I got from Radio Shack. I had to give up AM because of it.
I preferred the look of the small rubber one, and it is fine on FM.
Most times I don't have the radio on anyway.
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Tom - '60 544, '68 220S, '70 145S, '86 745T, '06 Mazda MPV