No Reception, 2001 Corolla?

A friend of mine has a 2001 Toyota Corolla, and her stock antenna broke.  She went to Best Buy to get it replaced, and she said everything was working great.  She recently took a trip down to Louisianna, or something ( We're in VA ), and she didn't get good reception on the way down, so she stopped listening to the radio. 

Well, when she came back, she was getting pretty much no reception at all, or it would cut on and off.  I took the factory headunit out to see if there was any loose wires or something, but nothing.  I figured it might have just been the headunit, so she went out and bought a new one, but still no go.

I started tugging on the antenna plug from the behind the radio, and it would pick up reception, but only sometimes, so I'm suspecting it's the antenna end.  The only problem is, I don't know how to get to the antenna from the inside or fix the problem at all...

Any help is appreciated.  Thank you.

So did Best Buy replace her antenna?  If so, I'd take it back.  If they didn't run the antenna properly, it could be a case of a kink or pinch in the antenna lead, which is causing intermittent problems with her reception.  Although the problem wasn't there when it left, if you/she didn't do anything to change it, then that shop is still liable for this problem.

You can even take a couple feet of primary wire, strip some back, and shove it in the radio where the center conductor of the antenna goes to see if it gets good reception.  Depending on the size (gauge) wire you use, you may need to double the strands over a time or two to get a tighter fit/ better contact.  Many shops do this to get signal to their display units.

Ah, hey thanks a lot. 

The reason I wouldn't think for her to bring it back would be because it has been two years since it was done, and there was never a problem until now!  I never thought antennas to wear like that over time, especially if it's not motorized.  I'll try stripping back the wire, seeing if that helps, but I don't know.