Satellite radio - where & how did you install?

[gbraden]

Has anyone installed a satellite radio in their 3rd gen Dodge? If so, are you happy with it. Where did you locate the receiver?

I'm considering getting a Delphi Skyfi2 receiver, which is the same size, I believe, as the original Skyfi. The catalogs show a mount for this receiver for 3rd gen Dodge. It puts the receiver just to the right of the factory radio. I think a better location would be on the left side instead of on the right. Any agreement or disagreement? If agree, then how do you suggest I go about mounting it there?

Glenn

 

[AndyMan]

Hey Glenn,



I have the Terk Commander, and like it very much. You can see install pics in my readers rigs.

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I have it mounted just above the rear view mirror on a bracket that I fabbed up one afternoon. I like the setup very much.



I have seen the bracket that you are talking about. It's made by Pro-Fit Intl. http://www.pro-fit-intl.com/mount.htm

If memory serves, it will only fit on the right side of the radio. I thought it was very well designed. I just wanted to tuck mine a little more out of the way.



Good luck with the install, you'll love XM.



Andy

 

[klenger]

I had the dealer install the OEM Sirius unit in mine. I'm very pleased with it, but if you prefer XM, then you'll have to be a bit more creative.

 

[gbraden]

I would like XM over Sirius because next year XM will carry a lot of baseball games. I'm not at all interested in other sports. By the way, do any of you know if either or both services carried the baseball playoff games and/or the world series? Other than baseball, I figure the two services are probably about equal.

Here is what I would probably listen to:

* Old-time country music (Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, etc)

* News & weather

* Old radio shows (Jack Benny, Suspense, Fred Allen, etc. )

Am I correct in assuming the two services are about equal as far as the three catories of programming I just listed?

Glenn

 

[bulabula]

I have the Delphi SkyFi. I bought it with one car kit, one home kit, and the boombox. I have two cars and didn't feel like buying yet another car kit for the Mustang. I don't spend much of my day in a vehicle to warrant a permenant mount, nor do I want to have two radio's/subscriptions - but I'm slowly getting there.



Since I don't care for screwing/gluing anything to my dashboard; and I wanted an easily transportable radio to take between vehicles (mine or otherwise), I mounted the car kit to a little piece of black wood that fits nicely into that dashboard pocket. There's still room for me to keep my wallet or 2m microphone in there too. I really prefer the tidiness of a permenant install, and don't really care for all the "wires" hanging around, but I'm a happy camper with my installation, and love the Xm radio.



BTW, I have the boom box in my internal office on the 5th floor of a 7 story building (in DC), and get a great terrestrial signal. It may be the windows in these new buildings, but I couldn't get any satellite signal through the windows from a window office on the South side of the building.

 

[bulabula]

Glenn, I did listen to the final game of the NLCS on Xm, but don't know if they carried the WS on it (I watched some of it on tv).



I've read where sirius uses more compression on their signals that translates to less dynamic range, but I've never listened to either back-to-back on the same system to listen for differences. The Howard Stern thing isn't big to me, nor is Opie and Anthony. Xm is 3 bucks less/month.



Here are some urls/forums to look at before you make any decisions:



Xm:

http://www.xmfan.com/index.php



Sirius:

http://www.siriusbackstage.com/forum/



HTH. YMMV ... ...

 

[roadking]

i have the surius it was fairly easy to install works thru factory raido comedy music plus howard next year

 

[JHafen]

I have the sirius in my dodge, jeep, and suburban, I made a mount for it that slides under the transfer case shifter. I listened to most of the playoffs and all of the world seies on it, ( espn) I listen to the old country most of the time, easy to install, never had any problem with recption. I guess you could say that I love it.

 

[David Muench]

I have Sirius in my Ram. I replaced the factory head unit with a Kenwood and put the Sirius reciever inside the center front seat compartment. I made a piece of sheet metal that sits on top of the lip inside the compartment so it has a false floor now. I hung the reciever from the bottom of the plate, and I can still use the top half ot the compartment for storage. Ran the wiring from the head unit to the reciever under the carpet, and then the antenna cable under the carpet and out the back passenger corner of the door.



I love Sirius, my wife loved it so much I installed a similar setup in her Jeep a week later.

 

[GregTaylor]

mine xm is glued / velcrowed to the area just under the seat heater controls directly above the cupholder. i also had them mount the antana in the bug deflecter. this is so when the camper is on we have reception. i have noticed the compression that is used on the brodcasts. lowers the audio quality some what. over all the sound is slightly muffeled

 

[Ol'TrailDog]

Originally I mounted my XM Roadie in the cubby hole below the air control knobs. However, I found myself taking my eyes off the road toooooo much and knew my days were numbered. So I mounted it on the OEM Roadie swivel mount left and in line with the three air control knobs. This required rasping out the right side of the mount base a little in a crescent to clear the left most knob, i. e. fan speed. Now the Roadie is cocked toward me and I can see the buttons and info clearly now. Plus I might just make it to my next birthday.

 

[JeepinDoug]

I'm going through this right now with the OEM Sirius receiver for my RBQ head unit. I got the receiver/ant and install kit on eBay from a new Mopar parts seller, a dealership in Texas. I paid a little less than new at around $253 shipped. The parts come with a fairly eloborite set of instructions, including a template to drill the hole in the roof for the ant. , also wiring routes, brackets and manuals. I can do this myself but I'm gonna let Dodge do it along with the 037 TSB and an oil change, I don't want to warrantee my own work on electronics.

I only decided on Sirius b/c of Howard Stern, I don't watch or listen to sports and I get bored of top 40 hits.

If you decide on a aftermarket Sat receiver the stations play over a designated FM station (frequency modulator) just like many CD changers. I paid the extra to have less distortion and dash clutter. I doubt it's worth all the extra $ but once it's done I'll forget about it.

 

[Matt400]

I wanted something big so Artist, Song Title and all the other data was easy to read at a glance while driving. I bought a Streamer over a year ago. The back has the industry wide “amps” pattern and mounts nicely to the Pro-Fit bracket made for cellular items.

Looks like this:

#ad




The bracket to fit the 3rd Gens can be viewed in pdf format here



Since it is a PnP unit (Plug-n-Play) I pop it out of the cradle and into another attached to a boom box and listen all day at work. Also I have a cradle in the Boat, Travel Trailer and at Home so all those locations are on the same subscription.



For the best possible sound I direct connected to my factory head unit’s unused CD changer port using one of these



However the FM wireless JVC unit in the wife’s car sounds pretty darn good and now that I think about it the Boat and TT are also wireless.





Since my install some pretty neat models for Sirius have come out here



Using a Pro-Fit mount I installed the JVC in the above link in the wife’s PT Cruiser and that turned out real well however remember while smaller looks cool they are harder to operate while driving.



As you can see the prices for a PnP unit are pretty low and they do a ton of stuff like seeking all 120 channels for any of your favorites, you can search by category, artist or song just to name a few.



As for your question about Baseball, Sirius has 8 sports channels and more on Baseball can be found here



Have fun…I will never go back to regular radio that’s for sure.

 

[klenger]

Have fun…I will never go back to regular radio that’s for sure.

I don't think I've listened to more than 5 minutes of FM radio since I bought my truck 9 months ago with the Sirius radio in it. It sure is nice when traveling, especially when driving alone in the middle of the night. What ever you do, you'll like it. Oo.

 

[MFranz]

New Model XM radio out in December.

Glen,

you might want to check the new XM model thats to be available in December. I have not seen it yet but its supposed to be portable as in you can wear it while walking,our plug it into your stereo at home,our plug it into your car. Check out XMs Web site,they just announced it last week.

Good Luck

Mike