bad recepetion in 92 civic

Since I got the car about 5 years ago, its always had pretty bad reception. I recent got a Pioneer deck (DEH-P510UB) and grabbed an antenna off a car in the junkyard... But i still cant get the stations my girlfriends car can get (del Sol with a blaupunkt AND BROKEN ANTENNA) and my parents jeep with a cheap-o Alpine deck (all stock, but gets the best quality sound and most stations) Now I'm trying to track down the problem, I'll be checking the antenna after reading on the board about how to. Just trying to figure out if there is anything else I can do. Does power supply to the HU effect this much... I'll also be sanding/grinding on all my grounds to insure they are good. Also, on some AM stations it kinda sounds like a cartoon bomb is falling.   I get all of these problems wither I'm driving, stopped, or have the car off. any help would be great. Or if there are any other tricks to increase signal.

The antenna must have a good ground to the vehicle body. Half of the radio signal is received by the antenna mast and the other half through the ground plain. Use a digital meter to check the resistance to ground of the outer portion of the antenna lead tip at the radio. You should get less than 1/2 ohm. Measure the resistance from the inner lead tip to the antenna mast. You should get less than 1 ohm for antenna leads up to 5 feet long and no more than 3 ohms for leads up to 15 feet long. Make sure that the inner lead and outer lead are not shorted together. This will kill all AM reception and hurt FM.sparky

Thanks... I didn't know ground effected anything. Ill check it all tomorrow. For what I've seen on here, there's no magical fix. Like the power antenna or amplafier?

Well i checked it all out, no ground whats so ever on my antenna. Now for more questions, do i just replace it, try to fix it, or run one of those hide away antennas. If i do the hideaway, whats a good brand. Im all about custom so if i did a power antenna i wouldnt mind drilling a hole in my rear qp... but dunno if it would help or hurt reception from stock.

The base of the antenna is where the ground connection is actually made. The base should be attached to the metal of the chassis or fender. Make sure that the lack of ground is not from a bad cable between the antenna base and the lead tip at the radio.sparky

There is almost no resistance in the actual antenna... and no connection between inside and outside of the plug. But it also has no ground. At the junkyard i pulled about 4 off to test and they all had broken grounds at antenna base, so im pretty sure thats my problem...this coming weekend i will be pulling my antenna out and seeing how to fix the issue. Solder on new lead or something of that sort...