1996 Ford Escort Owner's Manual - Page 221
1996 Ford Escort Manual
Page 221 highlights
Several sources of static are normal conditions on AM frequencies. These can be caused by power lines, electric fences, traffic lights and thunderstorms. Another reception phenomenon is Strong Signal Capture and Overload. This can occur when listening to a weak station and when passing another broadcast tower. The close station may capture the more distant station, although the displayed frequency does not change. While passing the tower, the station may switch back and forth a few times before returning to the original station. When several broadcast towers are present (common in metropolitan areas) several stations may overload the receiver, resulting in considerable station changing, mixing and distortion. Automatic gain control circuitry for both AM and FM bands has been incorporated into this system to reduce strong signal capture and overload. All About Radio Frequencies Not all frequencies will be assigned to a given area. This radio will tune to each of these frequencies using manual tune and no fine tuning is necessary as radio stations may not use other frequencies. Some FM radio stations advertise a "rounded-off" frequency which is not the frequency they actually broadcast on. For example, a radio station that is assigned a frequency of 98.7 MHz may call itself "Radio 99" even though 99.0 MHz is not an allowable FM broadcast frequency. 221