I was sick and tired of the poor reception on AM stations. I replaced myu perfectly good original factory radio/cassette with a new AM/FM/CD player and speakers from Crutchfield.com

Static still terrible. I just installed a new manual antenna...still lots of static and poor reception. BUT, if I place my hand on the base of the antenna, the reception is loud and clear!! What gives?

Any advice or suggestions greatly appreciated!!!

Put the radio in the lower mount. There's less interference down there.

Double check all grounds.

This is a reason why I like anologe tuners. They have what's called a "trim" adjustment, which when adjusted properly, gets rid of the noise. I don't believe that the Digital tuners do however, I could be wrong.

The over simplified answer is that your body is acting as an antenna. To find the optimum length of a quarter wave antenna in feet, divide 234 by the frequency in mHz you are listening to. So let's say you want to listen to 580 kHz AM... divide 234 by 0.58 and get 403.5 feet. (By contrast cell phones at 880 mHz can get by with about 0.25") Is your aerial that long? No? Is it shielded partially by the car body? That makes it worse. The longer the better for AM. Static is tougher yet. Disconnect the antenna. Is the static still there? Yes means that it is coming through the other wiring. No, means that it is being radiated and picked up by the antenna. You prolly have a bit of both. Run ground straps from all of the lids to the car body. I've seen cases where the exhaust system needed to be grounded to the body. Ignition static calls for filter capacitors, same for turn signal noise, wiper noise, brake light switch pops etc.

You are grounding 'something' when you touch the base of the antenna. The shielding on the antenna, most likely. Is the radio grounded well? Don't count on the ground wire in the harness - run a good heavy ground wire from the back of the unit to the firewall.