New to Sirius some questions?... (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

I just bought my wife a Sirius recevier (Sportster 3). Just had a couple of questions:

1-They have a deal right now. If you pay $499 you never pay a yearly fee again. You can change radios or upgrade up to 3-times for $75 each.

2-We lease a car and nervous about installing it into a car. While sound quality is important..its not all important. My wife and I are more interested in the Nascar channels. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

What question are you asking about the lifetime subscription? Are you asking if it is a good deal? If so, it is a good deal but can end up costing a bit for those who like to switch radios a lot. If you don't see this happening, go for it.

As for the second, you can deliver sound to your car radio in 3-4 ways:

1) The built-in FM transmitter in all plug-and-play sat radios. This requires no wiring besides the cig lighter power and the antenna. Sound quality is the poorest of the options and depends on access to a fairly clean FM station.

2) A wired FM relay (like this: FM Relay at Crutchfield). This is wired inline with your car antenna and bypasses the outside antenna when the Sirius radio is on, giving you a significant increase in signal and sound quality over the FM station. This requires minimum installation (removing radio and placing this and possibly some antenna adapters inline with the car antenna).

3) Cassette adapter (not really practical with today's CD only cars).

4) Direct connect. If you have a stereo mini-plug or stereo RCA inputs on your car stereo, this is the best option for both ease of install and sound quality. Some newer cars have these for use with an iPod or MP3 player, etc. If you don't have one of these, there may be an aftermarket solution, but it has to be installed (usually plugs into a CD changer socket on the back of the radio) or you can buy a new head unit for the car that has a mini-plug input.

Look at the Crutchfield help section for a bunch more info.

 

[todd s]

Thanks Jeff. My wife has the Honda Odyssey. And it has an option of XM, but not Sirius. So I have to figure it out. My car has the aux input which would have made things nice and simple. What is the deal with the Sirius antenna? I have the Sportster 3 and it seems you have to put the antenna near the rear roof and run the wire through the car. Is it that complicated?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

It's not that complicated. About a 2.5 on a 1-5 scale. (1 being checking the oil and 5 being rebuilding a transmission ). You may find some help here:Sirius Install Garage at SBS. They have a sticky for all makes and models listed in the threads. I do know the Hondas are notorious for trying to install anything but XM in the stock radios, so the plug-and-play Sportster was the way to go. I can recommend the FM Relay, it's really easy to install/deinstall for a lease and if you buy it from Crutchfield, they'll include detailed instructions for your make/model for free.

 

[Lane_S]

If you have a Car Toys store in your part of the world, they did a great job installing a unit in my wife's leased Honda CR-V. All of the wires are hidden (except for the small bundle that pops out to plug into the Sirius unit using the windsheild mount), so it'a all very clean - plus it can all be removed later.

The bad news is that since we got her unit after the FCC crackdown when both Sirius and XM had to dial back the power on thier FM transmitters, we were only able to get clean reception via the device that bypasses the car antenna and sends the Sirius signal right to the factory radio. There is a small switch hidden under the dash that would let us switch back to the car's antenna if we wanted to, but have yet to find a situation where we wanted to.

Yeah - it's all wasted money once we turn in the car at the end of the lease, but that is still two and a half years away, and I figure we have already gotten more than the installation cost in enjoyment.

The unit in my Accord is not nearly as pretty, but I have the older Sirius radio that you can pick up three + car lengths away, so no worries there.