Can anyone suggest or has anyone purchased an upgrade to the standard Crossfire radio? We would like to get a satellite system (like the Sirius, our PT Cruiser) and/or a 6-disk player.

Has anyone done it? Where did you place the antenna?

Please advise ...

 

Haven't done it yet, but am desperate to do so. Considering splicing two antennae together, one INSIDE each quarter panel. Got to think about that some more.

 

You could install the antenna on the front dash (pic in Album). That's how I did it in my RSX and it seems to work perfectly. I tested it in many locations inside and out and the reception is just as good.

Splicing two antennas together sounds interesting... For some reason I fear it won't work, though ... or rather it will but it will just garble the transmission together when it hits the tuner. You'd have to install two tuners as well and splice the tuners together behind the head unit.

 

I'm not putting it on the dash. I'm also not yet convinced that a digital S band signal from 22k miles up will be a problem for 2 antennas separated by a meter- it might actually just create an antenna array. I will happily be convinced differently by someone who ACTUALLY KNOWS what they are talking about.

 

You could probably email Clarion or Kenwood and ask them what effect it would have on the tuner to splice together two antennas if you so desperately want an answer. I highly doubt anyone else has done anything similar. I most particularly doubt someone on this forum would know, so if you didn't want speculation then why post at all?

The satellites broadcast between 60 and 90 degree elevations, and about 85% of the time there are two Sirius satellites in the visible sky, so as long as you have the antenna in a place that views the sky from 60 to 120 degrees then you'll get signal. My front dash windshield provides that angle. Two antennas won't help you that often. What will help more is buying a tuner that has a larger buffer stream so if it does cut out for a couple seconds the tuner has the broadcast already in memory. My Panasonic tuner only has a 3 second buffer, which is fine for highway overpasses and all, but I'd prefer it to be larger.

 

One would be surprised as to who is on this board, and what they know. The frequency on the sat radio is in the microwave range. The antenna is tuned for the radio. Two antennas will not be good. James H
B.S.O.E. Electronics/Physics
Amateur Extra KD5LMX
Society of American Military Engineers

 

Thanks James, I'm not at all surprised. Was hoping to maximize the S/N, get answers from those like you.

Also thanks other James, I did not know that receivers now had useful buffers. Excellent to know, but I don't think it will matter in my case. The problem that I thought to solve was N-S travel ( my daily commute), when an antenna on one side of the car might be masked from a LOS signal for extended periods of time. Back to the drawing board.
Cheers,

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE SAT RADIO. DON'T THE PEOPLE WHO SELL THESE HAVE PROFESSIONALS TO INSTALL THEM?

 

I went to Circuit City yesterday to get an estimate on installing the XM receiver and was not happy with the scratching of heads I saw going on as to where the wires and what not will go. They wanted to use double side tape to stick the unit to beside the glove box door. Needless to say, my Yukon will get it but I'll wait for another genea pig before I have my roadster done.
Would take all suggestions from the group
Bill Welch
Topless in Tampa
Go Lightning

 

Try using this forum's serach capability. Other in the "Tech" section. There are NUMEROUS threads about the audio system, and several folks who have added sat/nav systems to the Crossfire.