A theory is developed which predicts the acoustic radiation of an axial‐flow fan stator due to interaction with rotor viscous wakes. Calculations are compared in detail with experimental data. Both the harmonic and broadband noise‐spectrum components are calculated from a unified model using methodology from the theories of random pulse amplitude modulation, PAM, and pulse position modulation, PPM. The stator is modeled as a circular array of pulsed dipoles. The amplitude and arrival time of each pulse are random variables whose means correspond to the values calculated from harmonic rotor‐stator interaction theory. The standard deviations of these random variables are measures of the turbulence levels in the blade wakes. For the model proposed the solution is exact: when PAM is imposed on a periodic stator source, new broadband energy is generated whose spectrum shape is similar to the envelope of harmonics at high frequencies and the harmonic radiation is unchanged; however, when PPM occurs, new broadband energy is radiated but at the expense of harmonic energy. At frequencies significantly above duct cutoff it is shown for a fixed stator solidity that the spectrum is essentially independent of the number of stator vanes.