Since I bought my H3 in September, my AM/FM reception on the factory radio is really, really poor. Frequently, it's non existent - Seek/Scan just go on and on wrapping around the band, finding nothing. When it works, the volume is very low - so low that, if I hit the Band button to switch to XM, the windows blow out (ok, I'm exaggerating, but just a little). Fortunately, I have XM to keep me entertained, but I'd really like to be able to listen to local stations for news, etc., particularly after my XM trial runs out this month. The dealer has looked at it twice and can find nothing wrong. Indeed, he told me that tried other H3's on the lot and they were all about the same. He also referred to a notice from Hummer detailing conditions that might impede reception, which suggests to me that mine might not be an isolated case. This is the only car I've driven around my town that had this problem. I'm about 35 miles west of Chicago, so there's plenty of signal here.

Am I alone with this problem? Any suggestions short of replacing the radio?

 

It's one of the following:

1) Antenna cable going bad
2) Radio going bad
3) The antenna cable is lose at the back of the factory radio.

Option 3 is the most likely.

 

I will add, that the antennas get loose where they screw into the mount, see if you can turn it with your fingers, you may need to tighten it with a small wrench or pliers to make sure it is getting a good contact??

If it is really loose, while you are at it, unscrew it and see if the threads have any dirt of corrosion on them, clean it up, and then tighten it.

 

On the dealer's first attempt to fix the problem, this is exactly what he did. It seemed to get better, but the intermittent nature of the problem makes it difficult to say whether or not that was actually effective. It's tight now, so I suspect that wasn't the problem.