Improving XM Satellite Radio Reception

Thanks for posting, everyone. Huge relief. My dealer just brushes me off every time I asked about the issue. They do not seem to want to deal with it all. Replacable 3rd party units are $700+...just a little bit much for owning the car for 18 months.

 

I have purchased the Terk antenna but can't get anyone to solder it for me. I am always told it is impossible. Any other suggestions? And I am told that the receiver is strictly propietary for Toyota.

 

Turns out XM has a weaker signal than the other guy. That is why we get drop outs sometimes.

 

I find it interesting that XM and the other guy are the same company. At any rate, I have no dropouts in my 2013.

 

I just joined the forum because I had the same satellite radio issue on our recently purchased 2010 Prius IV with nav and solar pkg. Here in metro Annapolis, there are trees everywhere! They literally carved the DC/Baltimore metro area out of a forest.
I took GeoGeek's advice and picked up the Terk XMicro2 from Amazon. I was initially worried because we subscribe to Sirius, and I wondered if there would be a compatibility problem. But after splicing and soldering we get Sirius without interruption! This post saved my subscription!

 

I know its over a year but where is this located? back of head unit or tuner ?

 

My wife's Pilot is just as bad as my Prius... they both suffer the same drop-outs on highways when there are trees to the side.
We're both under the 90 day trial and probably won't renew anyway. We've had Sirius and/or XM for years and cancelled them both last year, and haven't looked back. The trial is nice - at least shows that we're not missing much.

Used to have it for Stern/NFL but Howard lost his appeal and we have Sunday ticket so just we just DVR what we want to watch (Go Pack Go!).

 

No issues with my Sirius/XM signal. It's on 100% of the time, everyday.

 

North of the 49th parallel, we had XM for a year. When going through the cancelling process, I THANK my lucky stars that my credit card numbers had changed during that year: those buggers were tenacious, but that's another story. Anyway:

When I read the title of this thread, my first thought was "move south". Up here reception was pretty bad, and completely at the mercy of open sky. Any time we'd have a building (or retaining wall, rock bluff, large tree, etc) reception would cut out. I started thinking of XM as the sing-along channel, everytime it would cut out we'd be trying to fill in the gaps.

 

The antennas I had with plug and play units never had this much trouble. Must be something with the OEM ones used by car manufacturers today.

 

I have a 2011 Prius 3 with the JVC E7022 Nav Head Unit. I recently lost all XM reception after experiencing the cut-out problem. I'm thinking about ordering a XMICRO2 replacement antenna. For my head unit, is the XM receiver under the driver seat as well, or is it in the dash? I see something under the driver seat protected by a plastic "hood". I would need to remove the seat entirely to get to it. Thanks.

 

Pic ^^^

 

I have a 2011 Prius III that brings the JBL radio. Its not the Navigator one. My XM antenna goes straight into the radio in the back. I bought one of those Terk Micro2 antenhas because the stock one wasnt working. I couldnt get XM audio for more than 15 seconds. The connections on the Terk was not the right one so I had to cut the cables and solder them together. Now I have perfect signal with no drop outs. I dont have a tuner box under my seat. All thats there are air bag modules.

 

Will this mod work for the HD radio? I didn't sign up for sirius because of the loss of signal, and the HD radio drops out around the same place on my drive

 

If the HD Radio uses the same antenna as the XM Radio than I believe that it should work. If you lose reception on the satellite side on both the XM and HD in the same place than yes it should work.

 

I just bought my Prius and am a bit disappointed at the XM reception. It isn't horrible, but dropouts do happen for no apparent reason. I've previously used a portable XM unit in a different car and I think it was far better. I'm following this thread for potential solutions, and I'll post if I figure out a way to improve matters myself.

 

I have a '14 with HD/Nav -- will take it out one day soon and look at the antenna.

 

Are you talking about dropouts in the middle of nowhere, meaning not around trees, tall buildings, cliffs, etc.?

 

I'm not. The plug and play I have used was better with reception, most likely due to antenna. That was the case with my OEM '10 and '14 compared to a plug and play.

Edit: out in the open there is no issue. Sometimes it's on a fairly open road with trees to the side (may only be one side with the other side open) and it drops out. Or going under and overpass.