just wondering where you guys put your reciever for either sirius or xm. im picking one up tomorrow and i need to know where this thing will fit since the S has no room for anything. thanks.

 

[QUOTE=MrChoi,May 22 2006, 01:58 AM] just wondering where you guys put your reciever for either sirius or xm. im picking one up tomorrow and i need to know where this thing will fit since the S has no room for anything. thanks.

 

i have a pioneer headunit, so in order to get integrated sirius, i had to buy the siriusconnect box. finding a place to put it was a pain, but i finally decided on putting it in the larger area in the secret compartment, i ran the wires through a hole i drilled in the bottom, through the panel behind the seat, and down the center console/shifter area into the head unit. i have the antenna mounted behind the windscreen on the back of the secret compartment lid.

 

Mine is mounted verticle behind the driver's seat, under the rear speaker panel. The seat still goes back far enough for me, I'm 5'10", but not all the way. I mounted the antenna on the flat plastic area next to the driver's roll bar. When the top is up, no one can see the antenna and I used a piece of velcro strip to mount it so I can just pop it off and lock it in the 'glove box' if I need to park someplace a little seedy. Just be careful if you have one of the thicker antennas because when the top folds down one of the bars rests close to there and there is not much clearance.

 

Under passenger seat

 

now what about power? jus tap it from the fuse box?

 

I tapped mine to the fuse box and the group ground that is right next to the fuse box. Be sure to hook it to constant current instead of accessory or it will mess up your presets.

 

I'm kinda pleased with how my installation worked out. I installed an Alpine '9857, so my XM was through the XMdirect receiver and Alpine adaptor into the AI-net connector.

I got an AI-net extension cable, and ran it to the back of the car. I then fabbed up a piece of sheet steel about 8.75 by 6.75. On that, I mounted the XMdirect receiver and the Alpine adaptor, and all the wiring between the two. I then covered the bottom of the sheet steel with velcro, and used it to stick the whole thing in the space in front of the fuel fill pipe, next to the gas tank.

For the antenna, I pushed out the acorn nuts that hold the wind deflector onto the cover for the secret compartment, and replaced them with regular nuts, and replaced the screws that hold the deflector with much longers ones, so that there'd be threads extending down below the underside of the cover. I then shaped a piece of sheet steel to fit the underside of the cover, with holes to let the threads poke through. To the *top* of this sheet steel, I stuck the XM antenna (giving it a good ground plane to work with), and then bolted the whole thing to the underside of the secret compartment cover. Works well, and is out of the way...

Ed

 

yeliaB - Sounds like a great solution... so the plastic doesn't affect satellite reception?

 

Nope -- non-conductive materials don't reduce the signal strength, so it "sees" right through the secret compartment cover (and the top, when it's up).

In theory, the metal framework for the top (and possibly the steel rollbar hoops) would block the highly-directional signal from the satellites in certain orientations of the car in relation to the satellites, but I've not experienced it. Of course, XM has pretty decent terrestrial repeaters in my area, so that may be masking blocking effects.

Guess this means a road trip out into the country (where there's no repeaters) for testing -- Hey, it's as good a reason as any for a nice long drive!