Ok, so I bought an Alpine CDA-9835 about a year and a half ago when I got my first S. Back then, Alpine was still marketting their headunits as "XM Ready" instead of the now "Sat Ready" units. Anyway, I just got an XM Direct and tuner unit for Christmas and installed it the other day. However, my head unit will not pick up the radio ID or make any sort of noise even on the preview channel. It realizes that the XM tuner is hooked up b/c XM becomes an option in my mode selections, but it does not want to interact for some reason.

So far, I've completely taken the XM adapter and tuner out and reinstalled it, reset the head unit several times and have triple checked all the connections (BTW, I've already installed one successfully on a friends Alpine HU). I've managed to find a thread or two on the XM forums about people that have run into the same problems, but those threads never went past the first few posts. The adapter has my model number listed as being compatible so I figure everything should work fine. There were instances of people with the same head unit that had XM Direct working fine but I don't know if their's were "XM Ready" or "Sat Ready"

Anybody have any info on this?

 

That is strange... I had sirius hooked up on my old 9835 (when they very first came out with the sirius tuner), and It worked fine for me.... Only thing I could possibly think of is those switches that are on the bottom side of the actual head unit. I never touched them on mine, but I know they are for Ai-Net settings....?

Sorry to not be of more help!

 

That's fine. Thanks for the input atleast. I just got off the phone with Alpine. They said that I shouldn't have any problems with the XM Direct even though it's an XM only HU. They recommended that I return and exchange the adapter and tuner for a new one. I guess I'll be making a trip to Best Buy when I get home.

 

Where is the antenna? I could not get my 9851 to recognize the XM tuner (Commander) until it could link to the sky. I had to put it on the rear decklid. Did not work in the secret compartment. I didnt get the preview channel either.

If all else fails, call Alpine Tech Support. That is what I ended up doing, and they walked me through everything. I just confirmed everything, then they told me to move the antenna, and there ya go.

John

 

I had a similar problem...radio sees the XM but no sound.

the problem was that I stretched the adapter's cable and some pins came out of the DIN connector. That cable is VERY weak...don't strain it. It is a known defect.

 

Thanks for the input John, but I've tried put the antenna on every surface of the car and it still doesn't work. I spoke with Alpine (a few posts up) and will see what happens when I get a new unit.

 

Yeah, the cable is crappy and that 90 degree bend at the end doens't make for a good design. Anyway, I was to the point where everything was out of the car but still hooked up so I could fiddle with the wires. Everything seems to be tight. My CD changer works fine and it's on the same cable as the XM so the connection is good. I even tried disconnecting the changer to see if it caused some interference.