Sirius radio antenna in the slip

T

Texas Steve

New member
We have the Sirius adapter on our Clarion radio and it works wonderfully when on the open water. We love to have parties at our slip which is covered, but this interferes with the Sirius signal. Before I try to rig some kind of workaround, I thought I would attempt to tap the vast expertise here at C-Brats. I'm guessing I'm not the first one that has run into this problem. I contacted the Sirius people, but haven't heard back as yet. Any ideas?
 
Texas Steve":3rxg17dl said:
We have the Sirius adapter on our Clarion radio and it works wonderfully when on the open water. We love to have parties at our slip which is covered, but this interferes with the Sirius signal. Before I try to rig some kind of workaround, I thought I would attempt to tap the vast expertise here at C-Brats. I'm guessing I'm not the first one that has run into this problem. I contacted the Sirius people, but haven't heard back as yet. Any ideas?
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I have Sirius in my truck and my antenna is mounted outside of course. Unless there are local ground repeaters, as there are in many large metropolitan areas, you will not get a signal under cover.
 
I realize that optimum is to have the antenna out in the open for sirrius reception but I sometimes use my sirrius in the truck camper for stations on the truck fm and the antenna is sitting on the bed in the camper. I also use it on the nightstand next to the bed at home. So using the antenna in a closed in area is not always a deal breaker. You might have to hunt around a little bit. In the bedroom I used to sit it in the window, which was east facing and it didn't work very well. But when I moved it away from the window performance took a quantum leap. I have no idea why. I have absolutely no rf skills.
 
Texas Steve,

The Sirius satellite orbit is directly overhead in Texas and progresses to the north/northeast. If you are on the south side of the slip, you might try moving the antenna to the north side. There are aftermarket antennas that will give you a longer transmission line up to about 20 feet and sometimes more. Not being able to get Sirius where I live, I don't a chance to experiment with it much, but I did study the orbit to see what it would take to get it. Unfortunately, we are about 250 miles away from getting it.
 
Texas Steve,

I spent almost $600 a year ago for a portable Sirius Radio and it turned out to be a total waste. I could not find any location inside my house, nor outside a house window within reach of the antenna.

On the rare occasions I did get coverage, it would go in and out. Of course it did not work on the boat n the slip which is a favorite relaxation spot for me.

I have the headphones with the antenna on top and even walking under or close to a tree will stop the signal. The whole thing is very maddening.

They had a function that the radio would record itself and start replaying whenever the signal was blocked. That drove me crazy in that you never know whether you are hearing live or recorded broadcasting since it lost it's signal so frequently.

John
 
I have two sirius receivers--one permently installed in my SUV--and one head, with several mobile docking stations and a number of extra antennas (plus a boom box). I have two antennas on my RV--one in the front and the other by hte bunk. Same at home, and in my truck etc. You can usually pick up obsolete car kits--for $10 which include the usual antenna with standard connections. Just set up another antenna outside the cover--and feed that into the back of the receiver. This will require changing the antenna when in the boat house. Or you can use a "boom box" when in the slip--assuming that you have a head unit which you can change into the different adaptors. (such as the boom box, or home unit etc).
 
I guess I'm back to trying to engineer some kind of line of sight antenna that will need to be attached and unattached at each departure. Oh, well.. thanks for the thoughts.
 
If you really wanted to get sophisticated--you could use a wi fi type of reciever and small transmitter --basically a low power relay station. Many large cities have a terrestial signal which works indoors, and in tunnels etc.
 
Steve,

I bought a home adapter kit with my portable Sirius receiver which had a remote antenna with about 15 feet of cord. Maybe that would be enough for your use.

I got it at Best Buy.

John
 
I have an XM in my boat and I use a simple auto magnetic aerial. Just above the pilots window (where it's easy to reach) I put down a thin coat of Sudbury sealant, placed a half dollar sized zinc plated washer on it and covered the washer with the sealant to weather proof it. After the sealant dries you have magnetic roof base to mount your aerial, for a quarter, plus or minus. In a year of mostly salt use, that washer looks like new.

No reason you couldn't invest in a second washer and use it to move the portable auto aerial to the top of the canopy any time you want if you can reach it easily. If not you could just glue one up there permanently, they're pretty inexpensive.

Chris
 
The satellite radio signals go thru a fabric or thin fiberglass covering eaisly. (I have the Sirius antennas on the electronics shelf in the C dories and a van conversion--and receive thru the fiberglass.) I suspect that the covering of the slip is either metal or a thick wooden structure, and any external antenna will have to be outside of the "shadow" of this structure.

The major problem with switching the antennas frequently is that the mini plug has several lugs on the side which will eventaully break--and this perticular mini plug is difficult to solder on the thin coax antenna cable.
 
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