Please understand, I am looking for a answer, not opionions here..thx

2 of the 3 cars in my house have XM radio. So, under the family plan, it is cheeper for me to get Xm for my mini... Now, here is my question...

I want to use a factory Mini satellite antenna for satellite in my car. Does anyone know if there is a differance in the physical antennas for Sirius and XM. I am under the impression, the controller (reciever ) box is what determins was signal is recieved from the antenna. there for, I should be able to use any antenna ( ie mini oem) and plug it into the XM reciever unit. Is this true???

I have looked at the reciever boxes for sirius and XM at local retailers, and the physical connection were the antenna plugs into on both units appear to be the same.

thanks

 

The actual antenna part doesn't matter, the only problem may be the connector. I've seen those in different sizes.


Nik

 

The antennas are different for XM and Sirius. You can not use one for the other. If you use our XM Direct kit, you will need to use an additional antenna.

 

Just to confirm and I would say I qualify as an expert as I work for them. There is a very big difference in the electronics of the antenna. They look for differing frequencies 2.32 and 2.35. They are close but not close enough. Sirius employs a filter to limit XM signal. They also look at differing angels. XM satellites are over the equator and Sirius's are over the US.

That’s the tech. The real world is that it will work...mostly...sometimes it won’t work...sometimes you will have excessive dropouts. Rule of thumb doesn’t do it.


[font='Times New Roman']Give the other company a try. Take a free trial online.[/font]

 

Thanks for the info... although im bummed, its what it needed to know...

 

An option, although expensive, is to get an am/fm/xm roof mount antenna from Volkswagen. Satellite radio is available as an option on 2005 New Beetles and Jettas.

The last time I checked, the VW antenna was about $250.

 

$250 spent for an antenna for xm seams a little extreme. Just mount it on the roof behind the antenna. Its a sign of class to have one. Like the cell phone antenna of the 80's.

Get Sirius....its has much better music. 9 out of 10 people that have listened to both think so.

 

I opted for a Delphi MyFi. An Arkon kit is available on a steel stalk that mounts to a passenger seat bolt similar to the GPS units in rental cars - very sturdy and no drilling. The magnetic antenna can be run through the back hatch, also with no drilling. The Delphi has a built in FM transmitter, so you don't need the aux input. Looks pretty clean, and the best part is I can pop it out of the cradle and pop it into my home system when I go to and from home.

The only downside of the FM transmitter is that if you're travelling across more than a couple of hundred miles, you may need to bump the transmitting frequency back and forth since it works best when set to an unused FM station (typically in the low part of the spectrum). The only time I had to use this was going from Sacramento to Portland, and it's just a **** tweak on both the radio and the MyFi - a 5 second adjustment. If that's too much of a hassle, you could get the aux input kit and wire it to that.

 

We have audiovox sirius antennas on our work vehicles. One of the guys here has an XM roadie, and uses the sirius antennas regularly.


EDIT: BTW, has anyone installed the antenna in the rear glass of the sunroof? Just wondering if that tint has any metal in it.....

 

Yup, didn't work well for me. I fab'd a bracket that fit between the screen and the glass and tried it out for a few days. Lots of signal dropout. I'm in the western portion of NC if that matters and that was on an xm roady.

Oh, my bracket wasn't much bigger then the antenna itself.