XM Radio?

[Salmon Troller]

I fear that I have gone from technology cutting edge to the cutting room floor & I need some advice. The wife's new suv came with XM Radio as part of the package. Since she is signing up for an account, a 2nd subscription for another receiver is too cheap to ignore. Now I need to come up to speed on the equipment. I want a "plug & play" so it can go from truck to boat to desk (might as well?). I see 3 main choices all from Delphi. A Roady 2, Roady XT, and the high end SkyFi 2. They claim to have internal antenna and fm broadcast, but I see external antenna and a cassette adapter in most of the sets. What's the deal? If I need three power adapters & some mounting hardware, fine, but I would like to avoid a bunch of antenna and adapter wires.
Jim

[pkrogh]

The internal antenna is to 'broadcast' to a nearby FM receiver. You still need
an external receiving antenna for the satellite receiver.
We have the XM and are really happy with it. I haven't mounted the car stuff
yet but the SkyFi 2 is really nice. I like the big screen and the rotary channel
selector and the pre-sets. We find that it will 'broadcast' about 20' through
house walls without any trouble.

Pete

[Salmon Troller]

Pete,
That clears up the internal versus external antenna question. Will the external antenna work through window glass? and if so, where is the satellite (which quadrant of the sky). I can see a need for a 360 degree antenna for a vehicle or boat, and the house is easy enough, but I would hope to lay it in an office window if possible.

What's with the cassette adapter? Just in case you don't have FM on your radio?

Jim

[SomeSailor]

Wire it into a wireless FM transmitter. I use one in my truck to listem to MP3s through the strereo. Only $35 or so.

[pkrogh]

Jim,
The 'fixed' or home type antenna works great through glass and even will work
through some tree foliage. The satellites for XM are about 35* above
the horizon here in the PNW if I recall. The only time I've seen a problem was
a guy who had a pretty steep hill right behind his house with no line to the
satellite.
My house antenna sits on the window sill of my south facing office. The alignment
isn't at all critical, and it's looking through a bunch of trees.
The cassette adapter, acording to XM and my experience, gives much better
sound than just tuning your FM radio to a 'blank' channel. It's better even than
using the RCA plug connection on a radio with an aux. input.
The only way better than the cassette adapter is a radio that has the high-fidelity
input built in for the XM dedicated receiver which is a 'built-in' rather than the
portable like the SkyFi or the Roady.
I'm going to get another vehicle kit and put it in the boat. I've heard that as
long as you use the 'boat' antenna and keep it out of the radar beam the reception
is outstanding. The boat antenna is different than the car because the car antenna
is magnetic and uses the car roof as sort of a ground plane. Don't have that
on a plastic boat so they do the ground plane trick in the boat antenna.

Pete

[SomeSailor]

The FM transmitter I have here cost $39 at Best Buy works great. Far better than a cassette adapter (which btw will kill your cassette player in no time)

Here are the specs:

Stereo Separation greater than 45 dB
Signal Distortion : less than .3%
Freq.Response : 32 Hz to 17.5 kHz

You're not gonna get much closer. There is also no way a cassette adapter (or an FM signal) is ever gonna be as clean as an AUX input if you're gonna hardwire it.

You can't beat the FM transmitter for ease of use though.

[pkrogh]

Mike,
The Delfi Skyfi has a built in FM transmitter. Are you talking about another one
in addition?
The "hardwired" satellite receivers connect to 'satellite-ready' radios with cables
and connectors designed for digital data transmission which the RCA phono
connector doesn't do well. A 'satellite ready' radio with the dedicated receiver
gives the very best fidelity.
Why do you say that the cassette adaptor will hurt the cassette player? I've never
heard that before and can't think of what would be hurt. Sure, the tape
transport is turning, but it isn't touching anything. ????
What am I missing??

Pete

[tolly28]

I have a Sirius plug n play unit and love it. I haven't gotten around to permanently mounting an antenna on the boat yeat. We have been just setting an antenna on the dash or top when at anchor and using the FM transmitter. That's not really the way I like to do things, so real soon I am planning to mount a marine antenna on the hard top and run the wiring to the stero in the cabin, which has aux inputs.

We've been real happy with the sound and reception. I LOVE "Radio Margaritaville"!!

It lives in my truck most of the time. I have an antenna "semi-permanently" mounted. It sits on the roof of the cab just in front of the third brakelight. I ran the wire through the brakelight and it is tucked under the headliner all the way around to the passenger side "A" post and under the dash. The wire is completely out of sight.

Works great! I would recommend looking at both companies (XM and Sirius) and see which one has the channels you want. I chose Sirius because of the one I mentioned above! :argh

Steve

[SomeSailor]

The Delfi Skyfi has a built in FM transmitter. Are you talking about another one in addition?[/quotte]

Yes. But wasn't aware yours already had one.



The "hardwired" satellite receivers connect to satellite-ready' radios with cables and connectors designed for digital data transmission which the RCA phono connector doesn't do well. A 'satellite ready' radio with the dedicated receiver gives the very best fidelity.

I agree, but I'm assuming you don't have one of those or you'd be using the digital cables?



Why do you say that the cassette adaptor will hurt the cassette player? I've never heard that before and can't think of what would be hurt. Sure, the tape transport is turning, but it isn't touching anything. ???? What am I missing??

The head in the adapter is often in direct contact with the head in the deck (that may not be the case with yours). That's not good for them, and niether is having that transport motor running 100% of the time the adapter is in place. You're wearing out the capstain motors for no reason.

The FM transmitter is well within the specs of any CD audio and will reproduce it as well as any tape head. (IMO)

Pete

[pkrogh]

I've never looked at anything other than the new Skyfi so never thought about
satellite receivers not having built in transmitters! :?

The 'transmit to car radio' mode is so easy (and sounds good to my shotup
ears) that the direct wire probably won't make any difference to me. I'm not
sure I hear a difference between the transmit method and the tape
adaptor in this area where FM is poor anyway. But I haven't tried that in the
city yet.
I don't know if the cassette adaptor touches the heads or not. I suspect that
it probably does. It makes sense that with time there would be enough rubbing
that there could be wear on the heads. Need to look into that. But I've only run
with the adaptor about 10 minutes.
I like the transmit method. No extra wires or things to fool with. Still need to
install a permanent stereo in the boat.

Pete

[SomeSailor]

The FM trasnmitters are awesome for boats too. No messing with wires, and allows you to turn your laptop into a pretty decent DVD player :)