My friend bought a Sirius Sportster receiver and seems to be having problems. It's constantly dropping out and says "Acquiring Satellite" or something like that. I've looked at the setup and everything seems OK. It never gets more than two bars of signal and when looking at the antenna menu I see a few bars on the satellite and most bars on the terrestal repeater. Even in a wide open parking lot the signal drops out every 10 -30 seconds.

I have XM and you can just about throw the antenna on the floor of the truck and get a fine signal. Dropouts for me are very rare. I just don't understand what the problem is. Any thoughts or opinions? I'm in the Los Angeles area if that matters reception wise.

 

I've never had any signal problems other than while in parking decks. I would double check the antenna connection. A roofrack or something else should be a good 6 inches or so from the antenna.. assuming it's mounted on the roof.

 

This is installed in a 2000 Lexus RX300 using the RF modulator. The antenna is just back from the front windshield on the drivers side. I suppose I should trace the antenna wire and make sure it didn't get damaged in the install. He had the whole thing installed at Best Buy - which could be part of the problem. He couldn't wait for me to come back to town to install it!

 

You would think Best Buy would have tested it first. I'm not really familiar with the RF modulator style setup. I have the separate kenwood sirius head-unit/ kenwood tuner (under drivers seat) and antenna just above the liftgate on the roof. When it says, "acquiring signal", does it fade into an FM radio station?? just curious..

 

No fade to FM, just soft static just like you'd here if the antenna were unplugged. When he first got it the FM modulator wasn't installed right and he got static from everything - even regular FM. Best Buy fixed that but still bad signal. The only thing about the FM modulator on my XM that I don't care for is you have to turn off the satellite receiver so you can hear AM stations. I can't do a quick traffic report check without switching off the XM. Most FM stations will come through OK though.

 

do you know how the fm modualtor is set up in his vehcile? i have seen some that directly tap into the wire from the car antenna in a y type plug and soem that actually use their own transmitter and jsut require its antenna to be placed close to thevehicles regular antenna

 

also, if it has been doing it since he got it, i say take it back to best buy and get tehm to warranty a fualty install

 

He's going to take it back again tomorrow. Their excuse last time was "Sirius radio just does that here in Los Angeles." I find that hard to believe. I do not know how his modulator is set up. My XM modulator had a black box that plugs in line with the existing antenna. There are three wires coming out. One is a power line to the XM radio, one is an audio line to the xm radio and the other is a power supply line that goes to the truck.

 

Both of my Sirius receivers have a wired FM modulator. I highly doubt that it is that.

I would have the antenna checked. I have heard a few stories that the Terk antenna's have/can go out. Another possability is that the wire is kinked. The satelite antenna wires are so thin, it is really easy to ruin them. Try and post on http://www.siriusbackstage.com/forum/

 

Sorry for the bad joke, but this sounds like a Sirius probelm (eh? eh?)

 

When I got my Kenwood unit, The guy at HHgregg made sure I had a new antenna, as there were reliability issues with the old model. When I installed mine, I initially stretched out my antenna cable and set it on the trunk of my wifes car, and then plugged it into my receiver. I wanted to get some sort of benchmark of how it was supposed to opperate before I started kinking the cable, or mounting it in a bad location. When they say mount it on a horizonal location, they mean it. I would see if you can get a test antenna. That will solve all of your questions anyhow.
I was getting the aquiring signal as well. Turns out I didn't push the coaxial connector in enough. I pushed it the rest of the way in until it clicked. That fixed my problem.
If the FM modulated box has the tuner built in (instead of a separate unit like mine is), then it's hard to say if you have a bad antenna or not. Mine were separate and I could actually tell if the receiver wasn't connected to the HU correctly (which is different than the antenna connection).

If it was bad, I think it would be bad all the time. Regardless, Best Buy needs to fix it, or take it all back and fire their installers. It should have never left their garage.
Good luck,
Wes

 

Thanks for the thoughts on the antenna. I think the installer gooned up the wire somehow. I'm going to go back with him to Best Buy and have them bust out a new antenna and give that a shot. I wonder if my XM antenna would work for a quickie test. I have a spare one and the connector looks the same. Might try that as an experiment too. Again, thanks everyone for help with my serious Sirius problem!