Sirius Antenna

Bought sirius starmate replay, finnaly had a chance to hook it up in the car today. Am having a problem with sat signal strength though. I live just outside of Philly so the Terrestrial signal is perfect. However It almost never locks in on the sat signal. I have the antenna placed on the roof about a foot in front of the fm antenna. Has anyone else had this problem. Also would the ridges on the top of the car interfere with the signal reception? I am considering putting it on the insert but I already ran the wire and hid so I don't feel like doing that again.
Also I am looking into hardwriring the power into the fuse box. The car kit comes with a cig lighter and from I've read the starmate replay is 12v, whats the best way to do this? I found a add-a circuit adapter for the fuse panel which basically plugs into the fush location with a wire lead out of it but it says no more than 10 amps, don't know what the replay requires.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Randon

I have a Starmate in my VX. I mounted the antenna on the metal strip at the front of the dash by the defroster ducts, right in the middle. The reception is great there and I have almost zero dropouts. The only problem I had was poor reception of the FM output signal since the antenna is located so far away above the rear hatch. This was solved by adding the little FM antenna stub accessory to the Starmate.

I added a multiple outlet strip to the lighter and plugged the Starmate into it, which is nice since the lighter is live only when the ignition is on so the starmate is turned off and on with the ignition. The Starmate cord is fused at 3A but I would assume it only uses a few hundred milliamps so connection to the 10A fuse box is OK.

If the replay remote is anything like the Starmate, it is essentially useless since the buttons are so small and the button layout was conceived by someone with analcraniumrectumitis.

Find someone that has another satellite antenna and cable and hook it up to your Sirius unit. You might have a bum antenna or cable. Also, check your cable routing -high frequency cabling is very intollerant of sharp bends or kinks. The ridges on the roof will not interfere with your antenna's ground plane.

Power,
10A is plenty for the Sirius tuner. I'd do a little research, but most likely it draws less than 2A. I highly recommend the add-a-circuit fuse taps, I use them all of the time (and it's doubtful that anyone's radios get beat up more than mine).

I posted a message on the Sirius Backstage board, got a reply back that says

"If you're close to the repeater, you won't see a satellite signal...

The repeater signal can be nearly a billion times stronger than the satellite signals.. The strong repeater signal causes the receiver to cut down its sensitivity in order to prevent it being overloaded. As a result the much weaker satellite signals get lost...

Imagine being in front of the stage at a heavy metal rock concert and then trying to hear somone whispering ten feet away from you"

I guess that makes sense, so I will leave the antenna where it is since I already ran and hid the wires.

As for the power I found a few posts that say cutting the cig power cord and fusing that into the box is the best bet, so I will porbably do that and use the add a fuse tap, just have to find a good place to ground it out. I would assume the best fuse to use is the Cig lighter fuse? since that is Acc.

Next step is modifying the bracket that comes with the Car kit so that I can mount it to the front of the ashtray and then run the wires into the dash so that they are hidden.

FM modulator is ok, but I have a OEM pioneer with an aux input, getting the cable tommorow, so I am going to use that to get true dig sound and do away with the modulator.

As far as the remote goes, yeah it does stink, its hard to find the buttons in the dark. What I was thinking about though was getting a learning remote, and having it learn the buttons from both my Head Unit remote and the Sirius remote, this was I can do away with both remotes and have one. They are a little big and might look goofy but should get the job done easily.

Thanks for your input fellas. :p

Randon

My Sirius antenna is also mounted on the metal strip towards the back of the dash near the windshield. Easiest car audio install i've ever done and has great reception.

Mikey

00 Foxfire 30K

I finnaly took a long ride away from the city the other night, hence away from the strong terrestrial signal, and low and behold it seems as though the reply that I got from the Sirius Forum was right. When the terrestrial signal died out the Sat Signal lokced up all the way and I had no problems whatsoever. So I am going to officially leave the antenna on the roof where its at now.