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I just purchased a 2014 Mini Cooper S that has the "693 Satellite Tuner Preparation" option but the satellite radio is not actually activated. Thanks to this board, I figured out that I can enable the satellite radio to work through the factory stereo for $275 through bimmer-tech.net, but I have a separate receiver that I was hoping to use for "free" since I already have a subscription with it.
How do I use the factory satellite antenna, however? I don't want to have to run a separate satellite antenna, and just wanted to plug the factory sat antenna into the separate receiver. Do I have to pull the dash and remove it from the back of the factory radio? And if I do that, would it disable FM, as well?
So I pulled the radio, hoping I could find the factory satellite antenna there, but it doesn’t appear to be here. It appears that the second “port” from the left (circled below) would be where the sat antenna would go, but it’s empty.
This is driving me crazy! Where is the factory satellite antenna located in this car?
I managed to find this over the weekend thanks to another forum member and the newtis.info site. I was armed with the following diagrams, from the Headunit Basis page.
I knew to look at the #3 slot this time. Sure enough, it was this one. I just unplugged it from the radio and into my satellite antenna extension cable and ran it down the center console to my SiriusXM Onyx Plus receiver that I have a lifetime subscription with.
Last edited by Phishisgr8; Oct 28, 2019 at 08:33 AM.
Reason: used smaller file size picture
I tried this mod and all was great for the first couple of days. Then my display went blank. Yeah, I have the crappy base head unit. I disconnected the battery for a while and the display worked again- for a day, then went blank. This time I reconnected the XM antenna to the head unit before I tried the battery thing, and the display came back on!
So I assume the head unit "looks" for the XM antenna even if you don't have the XM activated. I'll just use an external antenna instead of paying to activate the module, then paying for another subscription.
That is bizarre. My satellite antenna is still unplugged from the stock unit and routed to my XM receiver but my display is fine.
What if your antenna went out, or you had a short in the antenna cable - your display would then shut off? I certainly wouldn't think that to be the case, but here we are.
Yeah, it looks like I spoke too soon. The display has gone on and off twice today when the car was started. That's with the antenna plugged in to the head unit. I can still toggle between the radio and aux. Not sure where to go from here.
