[Rick]

Hi everyone, one of my christmas presents was a XM satellite add on kit. While the thought was nice I couldn't stand having an add on reciever stuck to my dash somewhere so I decided to return it and use the money for what I really wanted. A new deck thats Sirius ready. I've ordered the deck and am waiting for it to arrive still and in the mean time I went and got the deal where you agree to subscribe for a year and buy the antenna and you get the brain unit for free.

So the only antenna they had was a magnetic mount. I told the genius at Best Buy that I had an alluminum roof and it was not going to work all that easily though he assured me that some double sided tape would work, which I was kind of planning on using. So I got it home and I started reading the manuals and came across something that could possibly kill my plans. It states that the antenna must be mounted on a conductive metal surface. Now they do also make a stickey pad mount antenna too but I can't find anything locally but the magnetic mount ones. I was thinking if I put tape on this one that it would insulate it too well and it might not work. Does anyone know if this would or would not work?

This is already bothering me enough at the fact that I'm going to have to stick this to my paint because they no longer seem to make the glass mount antenna's. I tried calling, but they closed early today so I'm stuck waiting until friday at the earliest so I was hoping someone out there knew.

 

[lethostigma]

I have the small Sirius antenna, not the shark fin and I have mine coming out the top middle space of the hatch and it lies on the hatch glass. I had double sided tape on it but it always comes undone when wet. So now it just stays put with its cord. Yes it shifts a little here and there but alteast my car has not been scratched. Not sure about the need for yours to be on metal, sounds odd.

 

[Rick]

So yours is origonally intended to be a magnetic mount too then?

 

[b1shmu63]

Aluminum is a better conductor than steel. If the antenna is designed to have a ground plane underneath it then the aluminum is perfect. The high frequencies that satelites use will reflect back off any conductive metal surface, just as they reflect off the metal surface of a satelite dish antena. This would give a little boost to the signal. Hope you find a neat way to mount it. Drilling into the roof sounds like a really bad plan.

 

[Holicow]

I have an XM antenna (with the Delphi Roady) mounted on the dash INSIDE my car (not an Insight, yet). It is a magnetic mount, but I stuck it up there with velcro.

Call me a rebel. They say in no uncertain terms in the manual to not do this because of possible intermittent reception problems. I thought it wouldn't hurt to try it out like that, and it makes it a lot easier to install.

I have had it for about a month and the reception seems fine.... never know till you try.

 

[Rick]

Huh, thats funny because they say repeatedly in the manual to never mount the antenna inside the vehicle. All well, I'm probably going to just try to find some really good tape and try it on the rear window and see how it works. At the moment I have the styrafoam block where the cd changer would go out of the car and I'm going to hollow out a space for the reciever to go. The new deck should be here by monday so hopefully I'll have everything else waiting there ready to go. And actually I think the new deck will use the same wiring harness plug as the one thats already in the car so it should just be a 15 minute swap to the new one.

 

[Rick]

Ok did a little research on possible adhesives. I'm going to try out some 3M double stick molding tape. We've had some holding some emblems on our Camaro for a while now and it's held perfectly even after many washes and many high speed runs so I figure if anything will hold the antenna in place it will be that. In the mean time I'm starting to hollow out a place for the reciever brain in the styrofoam block where the CD changer goes.

Woo Hoo, too much fun.

 

[Rick]

Ok did a little looking around on the S2000 forums. Some of them have done Sirius or XM in their cars and many have mounted the antenna hidden underneath the dash with no reception problems. So I'm thinking there will be no problems with mounting the antenna on the glass. Anyways, that said I have the 3M molding tape cut and on the antenna and I've got the syyrofoam block hollowed out to just the right size for the reciever. I'm going to get this all installed tomorrow and all I'll need is the new deck and it'll all be done. UPS says the deck arrived in Phoenix tonight so they might deliver it early tomorrow.

 

[Rick]

Well got it all pretty much installed today, still waiting for the new deck though. Here's some pictures of what I've got thus far.
http://members.aol.com/rsuiter/antenna.jpg
http://members.aol.com/rsuiter/sirius.jpg

 

[Holicow]

So, where does the wire pass through? Concerns about leaks?

I am probably just gonna put it inside mine like I have it now. Getting it Monday...

 

[Rick]

it just goes under the hatch and directly down over the molding to under the headliner then down around the side under the molding. Leaks are something I hadn't really though of. I guess i'll have to give it a bath and see if it leaks or not. My origonal idea was to run it down the channel that the hatch goes in and run it in to the car through the hole for the brake lights, but it was too small to get the connector through. I'll let you know.

 

[Rick Reece]

When I installed my XM antenna I drilled a hole in line with the antenna and rear window washer spray. I ran the wire under the headliner and sealed the hole with silicon. Its been up there for nearly 2 years with no problems. Have fun, RIck

 

[Rick]

Well got it all installed today. Works great. The sound with the new Excelon deck is much better and FM reception seems to be better as well. My soul's sold to Sirius for a year, but all well, I think it'll be worth it. The subscription for a year is cheaper than buying the reciever right out anyways.

 

[lethostigma]

From your pictures it looks like your antenna is a slightly smaller model than the one I have. Mine is in the same place, you'll have to tell me how the tape you chose holds up. I've tried some sort of double sided tape and I've even tried super glue. I have had mine since April and I occasionally lose signal in thick trees, under bridges or in mysterious dead zones that can last a couple miles. I don't know if changing my antenna would help. I love not having to listen to commercials.

 

[Rick]

I did about 100 miles last night. I did loose is a few times, mainly under places where a few lanes of freeway onramps were right above me. Funny thing is I drove through about a quarter mile of tunnel and never lost the signal. The tape I used is 3M molding tape. Used to hold body moldings on to the sides of cars. Like I said, it's held logo's on to the side of another car of ours for over a year now so I'm thinking it should hold up. It feels pretty strong. The antenna I have is a Terk SIR3 antenna. They are on sale for $45 at Best Buy right now. Not sure if you have an older unit or not but the new ones have only one connection for the antenna, not two, but there are adaptors available.

 

[Rick]

Well, it survived a bath this weekend. I made extra effort to hit it directly with the water spray too. No leaks so we're doing good. The more I listen to the Sirius I can hear the compression. On a lower end system like mine it's not too big of a deal, but if a guy had some more expensive equipment it'd be more noticeable. Still, it's way better than FM.

 

[ScottH]

alternate XM antenna install

I was able to mount the xm antenna on the rear window by taping a strong magnet (one I retrieved from an old hard drive) to the bottom of the window, and putting the magnetic XM antenna on the top of the window. It is basically a few inches up from the end of the wiper blade.

They say not to mount it on glass, but it seems to be working ok for me. I ran the wire through the top of hatch gap. So basically it is installed with no permenant modifications.

I have it attached to an XM Roady, where I made a bracket to mount it between the stick shift and the cup holders. It basically wraps around the plastic part around the stick shift, and extends up between the console and the leather of the shift boot.

The rf modulator is sitting in the glove compartment, and the power is tapped from the cigarette lighter behind the dash, so the cigarette light can still be used for the massage chair or the cell phone.

 

[Holicow]

Re: alternate XM antenna install

...
The rf modulator is sitting in the glove compartment, and the power is tapped from the cigarette lighter behind the dash, so the cigarette light can still be used for the massage chair or the cell phone.

Hey, that's about the same set-up I have. I stuck my Roady, on its mounting stand, on the space beside the power socket, but i find it a little hard to see down there.

I am using the line-out jack (the one that can be used for the cassette adapter, but I don't have a cassette player) plugged into an AUX input on the front of my head unit and I plugged the power into the power socket (cig lighter).

And my antenna is on my dash, INSIDE my car. Works fine.

I am getting the typical ignition noise in the signal. Do you get any noise with the FM modulator? How did you tap the power without using the plug-in transformer?

thanks

 

[lahlooha]

just stick it to the dash,

it has been working perfectly for the last 5 months, just stick it on the dash, it will work just fine, i will not drill holes in my insight,

regards
hadi

 

[bchurchwell]

XM Magnet Mount

I drove ~200 miles this weekend with the my XM magnet mount antenna stuck to the rear windshield wiper arm. The performance was fine and it didn't look as dumb as I thought it would.
One idea that I had was to come up with a very thin piece of metal with some strong adhesive on it to stick to the rear window, and then use the magnetic antenna on top of that.