aftermarket antennas?

[Dee_Ann]

Hi guys,

I recently acquired a 2006 Chrysler Town and Country mini-van with a SiriusXM radio in it.
Naturally I've been living in the past all my life and didn't even know that it was in there.
I discovered it by accident while play with the FM radio so I decided to give it a try.
I had it activated and got a free two month trial and have decided that I like it quite a lot.

But, the reception is not what I would call excellent. Most of the time it works fine but sometimes when I go under the freeway it cuts out and if I get stuck sitting under the freeway waiting for a light to change it's 100% dead. Another thing I noticed is when I drive through where I used to live there are a LOT of very old oak trees lining the roads (planting an oak tree in your front yard was a requirement when they began building in the 50's) and now those oaks are really big and the radio cuts out a LOT driving around there. That's very, very annoying. It seems very, very sensitive to being blocked by stuff. I kind of have my doubts that it would even work at all in heavy rain. Haven't driven in rain yet so I guess eventually I'll find out.

Is there a way to fix this? The van has a little black plastic bump on the roof just over the windshield which I learned is the Sirius antenna. Is there a way to replace that antenna with a much better one? I know with satellite dishes you can get higher gain LNBs but what about this? I know nothing at all about the technology of Sirius radio. Or, what about a booster that goes inline from the antenna to the radio?

Do any such things exist and if so, do they actually work? Or am I just stuck with it as is?

Thanks!

 

[Magic Static]

You might try an unsightly truck antenna;
Satellite Radio Tuck and RV Antennas

 

[Dee_Ann]

Oh cool idea! There's a luggage rack on the roof that I could clamp one to. This gives me a good starting point, now I just need to research which one would be the best.

Thank you!

 

[TheKrell]

I recently acquired a 2006 Chrysler Town and Country mini-van with a SiriusXM radio in it.

Dee, I bought a Chrysler 300 in 2013. At that time, Chrysler was building satellite radios using Sirius technology. My radio has 3 tuners in it! Two go to two different satellites IIRC, and the 3rd is a terrestrial tuner. There is also complex buffers and logic to time-sync the tuners. The radio is supposed to pick the best signal to nearly eliminate dropouts such as those you observe. When I first bought my car, it was pretty much unusable driving around the Washington beltway because of the many overpasses that caused dropouts. But little by little, it's gotten rather remarkable. Did SiriusXM build a whole bunch of terrestrial repeaters around here? Or was it the multiple radio updates? I don't know. If your radio is update-able like mine is, maybe you should try that before buying an antenna.

 

[navychop]

Actually, SXM was supposedly reducing the number of terrestrial repeaters. But since that “news” was included in a post that appeared knowledgeable but later turned out to have a lot of incorrect information, who knows?

SXM keeps everything close to the vest. AFAIK, they have not announced plans to consolidate the two networks or put out dual band universal receivers, something that was required before they merged. OBE I guess.

 

[ewindowman]

It’s those damn trees and under passes . Besides that you should be good to go. I really enjoy my satellite radio . Sometimes you lose a little signal but most of the time it is rock solid.

 

[osu1991]

depends on the vehicle and factory radio type too. Some of the older radios are not shielded well enough and get interference from T Mobiles new LTE towers. I lose signal in the wide open spaces around town in a couple places

 

[Nascarken 91xg]

That's what happens when the fcc jumps for that dollar bill and don't do the home work first and I think it's time for ever one too go after the fcc after everyone spends their hard ernd money on tecknoglugey that does not work like it should BECAUSE they sold MHZ IT'S time for the fcc too pay for their stuiped moves come on everyone the fc c coszd the interference so that are car radio works hafass the fcc coszed the problem and know they should pay up for it if you were too do it you bet you would definitely pay !!!!

 

[Larry1]

Within the last month I have noticed more signal drop outs that in the past year. I think they may be having issues at their uplink facility. The areas where I get the drop outs are very far from any interfering signals. Just randomly, no signal, then shortly after the song continues playing.

 

[whitewolf8214]

You might try an unsightly truck antenna;
Satellite Radio Tuck and RV Antennas

Great idea Magic