Thought i would update. The problem was diagnosed by Palomino. It turns out that during the build the wrong antennae was installed. By doing so, the antennae would not connect to the radio so it was spliced with the correct fitting. It would appear that this splice did not hold properly and was shorting out against itself or the walls of the trailer when compacted. The solution was to not use the roof antennae, but instead the radio is connected to the Wineguard TV antennae. Plenty of FM stations, but AM is still not working. I can live with that. Incidentally the first radio tested fine at the factory.
have a great winter everybody!