Installing Your Satellite Radio
This article describes the installation steps for satellite radio that I recently took, for my 2004 Mazda 6.
Upon choosing satellite radio, you have a number of installation options. In the easiest case, the installation of satellite radio is already done for you. This occurs when the car you buy already has a receiver capable of receiving one of the two popular satellite radio signals (Sirius or XM). You’ll find this most often happening in higher end automobiles, but increasingly, you’ll also find it as an option on many mid-level family and sports cars. If you have a choice, you should naturally choose to grab a car that has a satellite radio receiver pre-installed.
Assuming you’re like the majority of folks who aren’t ready to trade in their existing wheels just to get satellite radio, you’ll need to purchase a satellite receiver and have it installed (or install it yourself). Look for deals on the receivers, because many of them are discounted or packaged with a home or car station. For instance, I got a deal where I had to pre-pay for a year of the satellite radio service and the receiver and car self-install kit was free.
Although I got a car self-install kit, I chose not to do the self-install myself. Although handy with tools and my around most cars, the Mazda 6 has one of the increasingly-popular integrated dashboards. This makes working on the center console a little more challenging. That, and I wasn’t quite sure where to place the atenna, since I already have a regular antenna on my roof, centered in the back. I have worked with installation on the satellite receiver in friends’ cars, though, and have read a lot of others’ experiences online.
Self-installing a Sirius or XM satellite car radio receiver is relatively simple and straight-forward. Many people easily self-install a satellite radio kit. All it requires is a place to mount the receiver (often done beside the center console, on the passenger’s side), a power plug, and the patience to run the antenna wire from the receiver to someplace outside.
The most popular placement for the antenna itself is on the roof, centered on the back (by the rear window). This placement also provides the strongest signal. If you cannot mount it there, the second best placement is centered on the roof, but in the front, just above the front windshield. This placement can be a bit tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing, however, and the antenna wire will likely be more obvious. The third placement for an XM or Sirius satellite radio antenna is on the trunk lid, centered, next to the rear window. Although this is the least ideal placement in terms of signal strength, it is also the most popular placement for many because of its ease in running the antenna wire out of sight. (Signal strength isn’t significantly affected by this location, by the way, it’s just that you may experience an occasional drop-out of the signal a little more often than with the other two placements.)
Once you choose a location for your antenna, the hardest part is carefully running the antenna wire from its location outside to the inside of the car. Modern cars are air tight and well-sealed from the outdoors. That’s one of the reasons many self-installers and even professional installers choose to mount the antenna on the trunk lid, because it requires less effort than peeling away one of the seals of a windshield or rear window to hide the wire. On a trunk lid, the wire immediately heads to the underside of the lid, past the weather seal. This makes for a simple yet weather-proof seal in most cars.
Getting the wire from the trunk or rear windshield of the car depends on your specific vehicle. In most cases, the wire is run underneath plastic trim on the driver or passenger side of the car (choose one), underneath the door jams (which need to be removed), and up through the dash to the center console.
The receiver itself is best attached with some sort of mechnical fastener. Relying on the tape only is usually not recommended, as the bond will usually fail in a few years’ time. Screws are often used and although they will leave a permanent mark in your dash, most folks won’t notice if you choose a placement that keeps the actual attachment somewhat hidden. This is also one of the reasons the passenger-side of the center console is chosen as the place to attach the receiver, because the screws and accompanying screw holes are pretty much out of your line of sight.
You can also choose to hard-wire the power line into your car’s electrics, or use the supplied power plug and just plug it into a spare outlet. The hard-wire method keeps your plug free and looks better, and is the choice most people make. It requires running a power line from your car’s fuse box to the receiver, another run of wire that may require some finnesse to hide. Ensure the power wire has an integrated fuse, as you don’t want to have a power spike interfere with your car’s electrics or your receiver. Also ensure that you connect the power line to the rigth amperage fuse in the fuse box. Check your car’s and your receiver’s documentation to be certain.
This is an easy weekend project for most do-it-yourselfers. If you feel uncomfortable with any of this, most professional installers will charge between $50-80 to do an XM or Sirius satellite radio installation. It usually just takes an hour and you can be sure they know what they’re doing (as they’ve done in hundreds or thousands of times already).
Good luck with your install!
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