OK i want to get Sirius satellite radio for the holidays but i have two basic questions:

1. I would be interested in one of those portable ones because i would be switching it between my Camaro and our beater or anything else i would be driving, so do the portable ones need the whole antenna thing???

2.Obviously to connect the portable radio to my STOCK stereo i would need to use a casette adapter...Now this may seem like a really stupid question but do cassette adapters fit into our stock casette decks. Like i forget where the wire on the casette adapters is and if it like doesnt let the tape fit into our decks.

Any help would be massively appricaited.

 

To answer your questions.

1. No, you can get what is called plug and play. The little box comes with a little receiver already in/with it. You may however may need/want to get a home dock for it.

2. You will actually use what is called F.M. modulation. No need to use your tape player. This means that you will set your factory radio to an unused station setting (i.e 88.8) and the signal will come from your receiver to your factory radio.

I have sold/installed them and they are not difficult. Also if you subscribe before the end of the year, you get Sirius for LIFE on that unit for $500. I have already done this.

Hope this helps you.

 

The FM modulated style will be much easier and sound better than a cassette adapter, although on a stock head unit, I doubt sound quality is going to matter much.

Another option that you may want to consider is to get a head unit that controls a sirius tuner for 1 car, and buy an fm modulated controller for your other vehicle. This is a good option if you're planning to buy 1 head unit in the near future. The result is a cleaner looking install.

I'm going this route. I've got a Kenwood XXV-01D head unit in my Corvette that can control a sirius tuner, but I also want sirius in my winter vehicle, so I bought the Kenwood FM-modulated cd changer controller which can also control the same sirius tuner that I will have in my Corvette.

The fm-modulator will be installed in my truck or my winter car (whichever I wind up using the most in the winter) and the sirius tuner will get moved from car to car.

It's not as easy or as affordable as buying 1 portable unit, but I chose this method because there is absolutely NO way to make a stand-alone satellite tuner look good in my corvette. This method allows me to have a clean install in both vehicles, without needing to swap the head unit back and forth.

If that's not a concern for you, one of the much cheaper stand-alone sirius tuners will probably be your best bet, even if you need a separate antenna for each car. You can get these tuners for as little as $50 now.

 

no actually i WANT a casette adapter because the FM transmitter that i had for my IPOD didnt work whatsoever with the stock radio and antenna.

Also, is it true that i dont need to mount an FM antenna if i get a plug and play radio????

 

the fm modulator will work fine with the stock radio. The modulator is not an fm transmitter... it plugs into the radio antenna input of your head unit. It is a much better solution than a cassette adapter.

Regardless of what satellite format you choose, you do not need an fm antenna on your car unless you still want to recieve FM radio stations. You don't need the antenna for the modulator to work, and you certainly don't need it if you've got a head unit that directly controlls the sirius tuner.

But... you will need the sirius antenna.

 

Ok...i mean the IPOD FM adapter i bought for my camaro didnt work. Dont know if the adapter sucked or if it was my stock head unit that sucked...but let me try to understand what will work in my car with a stock stereo:

If i get this: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-lP80npR...50&I=612XTR3CK will i need anything else? Also, i know its been covered, but im still kinda confused...With a plug and play radio like the one i just gave a link to, do i need to mount an antenna or is all of that inside of the little Sirius Radio????

 

It looks like it will do everything you need. My only complaint about it is that it's an fm transmitter instead of a conventional fm modulator. That will make moving it from car to car a lot easier, and will make installation a lot easier too, but could leave it suceptable to interference, and also requires a fully functioning fm antenna. It also means that anybody tuned to that frequency in a car next to yours will be listening to your Sirius too.

But those issues aside, it should do what you want.

 

Thanks for the help so far Jim...

I looked and all of Crutchfield's Plug and PLay radios are FM transmitters--not modulators. Is this bad? Also, is there anyone that can verify that my stock radio will pick up a signal from a FM transmitter (because as i said im still skeptic after my ipod's fm transmitter didnt work).

Can you point out what setup might be best for my car???

 

If your car's antenna is functioning properly, the fm transmitter should work fine.

 

I found these two radios that i like and think would work well with my car...however i cant seem to find out if they have an antenna or not. I really DONT want an antenna because i dont think it would look anywhere good on my car, but also because im gona be swapping this out of my car and putting it into others very frequently and the antenna is gona make that very difficult. So can anyone tell me if they have an antenna or not??


http://www.crutchfield.com/S-Lv0YXxV...50&I=612XTR8CK

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-Lv0YXxV...50&I=612XTR3CK

 

Description from the first one:

Description from the 2nd one:
There are very few XM or Sirius units out there that have the antenna built in. The only ones I'm aware of that may have the antenna built in are the portable "mp3" style units.

 

Alrite. Ive done some searching and found some unique places to mount the antenna so they're not visible. I guess ill cross that bridge when i come to it. Thanks for all you guys' help so far. If i have any other questions ill let you know.

 

Ok, sorry about the delayed response, and I'm hoping I'm not too late....
I looked at both of the units that you were considering getting and, they're actually the lower end sirius units.

If I were to install DSR in my car, I would go with one of three different options:

Option 1:
http://www.siriusradio.com/servlet/C...=1093551683444
AND
http://www.siriusradio.com/servlet/C...=1100707192550

I would go with the portable Sportster unit (as its a better quality, more reliable unit). In order to go that route, you would need to buy one unit, and two car kits (one kit for each car). If you did the install yourself, if would only end up costing you about $230. If you went to a Circuit City or a Best Buy to have it installed there, then it would cost you an extra $60.
If you go with this option though, you should keep in mind that you're not going to be getting Satellite quality sound, but instead, you'd be getting FM quality sound (just like if you used a tape adaptor, you'd get tape quality sound).



Option 2:
http://www.siriusradio.com/servlet/C...=1107202268644

Another option is to go with a non-portable FM Mod.
This is a pretty good option in terms of both sound and looks. This unit is normally mounted under the cars headunit and blends rather nicely with the look of both the factory and the aftermarket headunits.
As far as sound is concerned, you're going to get a better sound out of this unit, than you would with any of the portable units, because this unit is actualy hard wired in.



Option 3:
http://www.siriusradio.com/servlet/C...=1130363754645

The third option would be to go with a headunit thats already sirius ready.
Just as with option 2, though, it wouldn't be portable from car to car. Per each car, you'd need to buy one headunit and one tuner.
The tuner, needs to be brand specific to the headunit. So, if you were to get a pioneer headunit for example, then you'd also need to get the pioneer tuner to go with it as well.
This definatly provides the cleanest looking install out of all of the other options. The tuner box is always out of sight, and usually mounted behind the dash.





As for the antenna on the portable units, the wire is run under the door trim, and is generally mounted in the center of the front of the roof (where the roof meets the windshield). Its small and discreat, and no, lol, it wont come off in the car wash.

 

I actually got the XACT Visor XTR3 for christmas. I havent taken it out of the box yet because i want to be sure that it will sound good over my stock radio.

 

Well, you're not going to get the best possible sound out of any unit, if you still have stock speakers and headunit.
Out of the portable units, theres not one unit in particular that'll get a better sound out of factory stuff.
I would go ahead and open the box and install it, because when it all comes down to it, yes, there is a difference in sound, BUT, its marginal, and to a lot of people, not noticable.