Hey there

I live in Washington, DC. XM Satellite Radio just rolled out service here. I am intimately familiar with the company because of my profession, but an wondering if anyone has taken the plunge and installed an XM compatible unit yet.

I have seen their "shark fin" antennas on a number of cars around town (they're the same shape as OnStar, but about twice the size) mounted on trunk or roof. Way too big to seamlessly integrate into our car IMO.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

didn't know they required another antenna...that's going to be a huge turn off for a lot of people...big marketing mistake

 

I thought it was going to be one or 2 disks that were mounted somewhere that had clear sight(meaning no metal in the way). Have they changed that or is it just different for different manufacturers? Such as Pioneer vs. Sony? Are they the ones that make the antenna or does XM?

All the traveling I do I would have loved to have that up on my trip to VT!

 

They're in S-band (around 2 GHz for transmissions). They were originally supposed to be flat disks but that fell through because of signal degredation. XM/Sirius had to install networks of terrestrial repeaters in cities so that signals wouldn't be lost in urban canyons and/or tunnels. I think they envision wrapping OnStar and XM into a single antenna eventually. BUT - it is required, line of sight is also required, and I think there is a standarized antenna for all units. Check Crutchfield or xmradio.com to confirm that.....

BTW - I wouldn't ever consider getting Sirius (I think they have a much weaker architecture technically) so I wouldn't be waiting for them to launch (next year) if you're on the fence. ...

 

xm is in my neighborhood of san diego, i have seen one installed on a s2000. small disk about the size of a pack of cards. centered right below the rear window on the body stringer, they ran the wir through the trunk seam down into the reciever, very clean look, but you can really tell the car has xm radio, not something i want, I drove around in a freind civic with the xm add on for the standard radio and i am sold, i spend over 50 hours a month in my car and its worth it to my.

 

Here is a thread I wrote up a while back about it...

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.php?...?threadid=33700

 

I have XM on my civic. I don't want to put the antenna on my s2000. The Terk antenna is not too bad, it is fairly small. Doesn't look like a "shark fin". The service is great and sounds just like a cd. You can go to Any Circuit City For a live demo.

 

http://www.xmradio.com/catalog/product_cat...sp?type=Antenna

Here's their entire stable of antennae. I guess the ones I've seen around here are the Pioneer shark fins. Clearly, there are other options though. None of them will be going on my car, thank you (not because I don't want the service, but because they won't blend well).

 

working for tweeter, i've seen xm work, and it's quite cool - i just can't justify that antenna on my car... no place for it that doesn't look blazingly obvious... but i do want it...
on a side note - i went to best buy to find out what they knew about it, and was told (and i kid you not) "why do you want that anyway? when it's cloudy or rainy, you don't get any reception!" i politely thanked him for his time and went looking for new PS2 games

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lightning
[B]working for tweeter, i've seen xm work, and it's quite cool - i just can't justify that antenna on my car... no place for it that doesn't look blazingly obvious... but i do want it...