I've had the same problem with AM reception. I live in a large city with all kinds of interference from buildings, TV station antennas, etc. I have somewhat overcome my reception problem with the addition of a "Terk AM Advantage" AM only antenna. You can manually tune the antenna to the station along with your tuner. This has helped to substantially reduce the static and squealing from my system. Be somewhat careful about placement of the antenna though. If you have it close to a television that is turned on, it becomes noisy again. You can find thses antennas at Circuit City, Best Buys, etc. Hope this helps...
