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AZ Gypsy · 04-08-2011, 11:29 PM

Good Afternoon Everyone -

I have a "sirius ready" radio in my coach that was installed at the factory. Fleetwood has confirmed that there is an antenna installed on the roof (and I checked...there is) but the Siruis radio doesn't work. Fleetwood suggested that I probably have the antenna and the radio, but not the interface that goes in between. I've not used Sirius radio in the past and am hoping that someone out there might be able to guide me on what I need to do in order to get the Sirius radio totally working. I did speak to Sirius radio directly and they advised at there was nothing they could do to help since it wasn't a Sirius branded system. Given that the dashboard doesn't allow easy access to the back of the radio, I'm a little hesitant to move forward with a big dismantling project until I know that I am doing the right thing to access the back of the radio and insert another component.

Has anyone had an experience with this system and did it require you to add components (something called a radio interface) before it would work? Thanks in advance for any guidance.

dsbike · 04-09-2011, 06:19 AM

I haven't had experience with your unit directly, but what I do know is that you do need an interface unit for a sirius ready radio. I have Sirius in both of my 08 cars. They both have Sirius ready radios, but I decided to buy a Sirius head unit & a audio cable for one radio & an antenna splice for the other vehicle. I can take the head unit out of the car & easily put it into another car with the attaching hardware. I can also use the headunits in a boombox or home connection that can be bought from Sirius. The cost for this setup was considerably hundreds of dollars less than buying the interface unit & the interface unit is not interchangeable with another vehicle unless it has the same radio. The two draw backs here are, one you can't use the SAT function on the radio to tune the head unit, you can use the volume & mute , you can change sat stations on the head unit. Two, you need to find a place to install the head unit where you can reach it/see it from the drivers seat. On the vehicle with the audio cable hook up, I set the radio to AUX and it is just like attaching an Ipod. If you don't have an AUX in port on the front of your radio, the best way I found to get good reception through your radio is to buy the car radio antennae attachment that plugs into the back of your radio at the antennae connection then plug in your radios antennae cable in to it, find a clear radio station that has no signal on either end of it & set this as your Sirius station. In other words you need a band of 3 clear radio stations for optimum reception. With both of these you still need a Sirius antennae also. But you already have one so you should be able to use it.

Gary1965 · 04-09-2011, 07:47 AM

My Discovery came "satellite" ready. This means that you have a Sirius radio, and that Fleetwood has run the antennae. What you need is a tuner. The antennae should be behind your brake pedal, that wire will plug into the tuner, and then you will have another cord that will run from the tuner to the back of your radio. Fleetwood can order this for you, I think it is roughly $50. We have been enjoying Sirius ever since! Good luck......Gary

Tincup · 04-09-2011, 08:15 AM

I have had XM (Siruis/XM now) for 5 years, the first radio I bought for the rig came from Costco, I just connected antenna & power, tuned the FM radio in the dash to a unused FM freq. and off I went. The procedure to do this was in the XM radio manual. I didn't install any kind of interface or tuner, it uses the radio's tuner.

I also have a Chevy Colorado that came Satellite Ready, here again, I just called XM to activate the service and off I went.

I'm curious as to what this interface is?

dsbike · 04-10-2011, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tincup

I'm curious as to what this interface is?

In my Mazda MX5 it is a $450 black box option. Probably cost Mazda $20 & the rest is labor (pushing the ON button).

Alan_Hepburn · 04-10-2011, 04:59 PM

Our 2007 Bounder 35E came with the Sirius radio - the in-dash radio is Sirius-ready and the antenna is on the roof. The receiver is in the cabinet above the driver's seat, up in the upper left corner.

It came with a free 1-year subscription, but we never activated it because we rarely listen to the radio - if we want music we use an iPod or the music channels on direcTV.

AZ Gypsy · 04-10-2011, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan_Hepburn

Our 2007 Bounder 35E came with the Sirius radio - the in-dash radio is Sirius-ready and the antenna is on the roof. The receiver is in the cabinet above the driver's seat, up in the upper left corner.

It came with a free 1-year subscription, but we never activated it because we rarely listen to the radio - if we want music we use an iPod or the music channels on direcTV.

Hi Alan -

You may have the most similar scenario to me -- thanks for the post. I looked in the cabinet above the driver's seat and there is indeed a coax cable that appears to be coming from the antenna, so I wanted to see if I could pick your brain a bit more. If the interface goes in there (which would make total sense with the power and antenna wire being there) do you know what the audio feed to the radio looks like? I'm assuming it would be RCA?

In that cabinet, I currently have several loose cables, including: one coax from the Sirius antenna, one coax from KVH satellite dome, three RCA cables (red, white, and yellow), and a bare wire labeled "ground". There are also two 120V outlets in this cabinet.

Would your guess be that the RCA audio left and right might feed the radio speakers and therefore be the output of the Sirius interface box that's missing? Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Todd

Alan_Hepburn · 04-10-2011, 10:02 PM

Todd,

My rig is parked in a storage yard several miles from my home right now, so I'm going from memory here. The Sirius radio was already in place in mine, but I had an RG6 cable from the KVH dome, and another cable that I haven't tried to trace. The three RCA cables in mine go over to the switch box in the opposite cabinet - they send the output from my satellite receiver to that box, from which I select which TV it feeds. There may be another RCA cable for the Sirius radio but I've never really looked at it closely. Since the radio doesn't have a video signal I would suspect they'd just use a dual cable for the left and right audio channels and not the three lines. But then I don't know what the radio output looks like off-hand. I won't be going over to the storage yard for a couple of weeks - if nobody else can help I'll try and remember to take a look the next time I head out there.

One of the 120V sockets is the one that is controlled by the ignition to prevent the TV from working while the engine is running. The other socket is live whenever there is AC power available.

AZ Gypsy · 04-11-2011, 12:42 AM

Thanks so much! This sounds identical to my scenario, so I would say it's safe to assume we have the same infrastructure. I will try to pop out the radio this next week and see what is connected (versus what might just be extra cabling) and try to trace back the wires according to what you suggested might be the case. You also provided some other food for thought...maybe I should just activate the satellite and use the music channels...I will think on that solution more too. Thanks again!