Painting the XM antenna

Evan, you could just put it inside the spoiler...

;-)

Nate

 

Evan, you could always just get the xmicro and put it on the roof instead. It's very small, and the coax cable is so thin it can slip past the hatch seal without a problem.

By the way, as far as painting the antenna, I'm sure it's fine.

I have:
-Replaced my antenna with a smaller one
-Replaced a two-lead antenna with a single lead one with a splitter
-Mounted the antenna at a lower point on the car (spoiler height)
-Mounted the antenna INSIDE the spoiler, which is painted

and I haven't noticed any signal problems. It works fine inside my garage with the metal door closed. It works 20 feet inside an underground concrete parking garage before the signal finally dies.

Paint will not make a difference.

Nate

 

Paint would only be a problem if there is metallic content in the paint itself.

 

I doubt it. Metallic paint is typically mica, not metal. White (containing titanium oxide) might be more of a concern.

Nate

 

Do what I did...match the car to the antenna!
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Well, ok, it wasn't on purpose that I got a black car, but it still worked out good. But a micro antenna just might help with the mileage, I might look into that...

-m.

 

Re:XM worth 140 bucks a year?

Hi: I'm considering getting XM radio. XM provided traffic advisories for the Seattle area, which would be helpful. Do you guys really like it? would you do it again? I was thinking of the 99.00 unit that apparently comes with everything I would need. I don't want to hardwire it into the car and it looks like I wouldn't have to.
Bob
p.s. alternative would be a wireless ipod, but then I'd have to do all my own programming; still, it would save me 150 bucks a year.

 

Absolutely I like XM, Bob. In fact, you might find that once you get one for the car, you'll want one for the house, and so on.

Living in the DC area, I've enjoyed having the local traffic advisory channel - I'd really like XM's NavTraffic, but it's not yet available for our NAV systems - oh well. The traffic/weather helped out greatly when last fall I was driving home in a severe thunderstorm and they were listing where the tornadoes were touching down.

Another neat thing that they have that, fortunately, they don't have to use too often is an emergency channel - I believe it's 248. Last year during the hurricane that hit here, that channel had info for all the states affected, who needed to seek shelter, and so on.

Besides having that aspect, the non-repeating music without commercials, the comedy channels, the news channels - and Air America, though I haven't listened to that since the election. Right now at work, I have on AudioVisions, Channel 77, which is a new-age background music sort of channel, perfect for calming the nerves at work.

I suggest trying it out, giving it a month to see what you think. If you don't like it or think it's worth it, you can always ebay it!

-m.

 

The emergency channel is 247 (as in "24/7 emergency info"). I hope never to need to listen, but it's good to know anyway!

 

The sound quality on my XM radio is downright awful. (I've been able to compare XM to FM once by sheer chance... John Mayer "Bigger than my Body" almost in sync on both.

Switching back and forth, you could really hear how bad XM sounds. (Yes, I have the toyota kit). The best sound I get is from my ipod through my cassette deck. (Strangely, better than the CD...)

Nate

 

Your poor reception is probably directly related to the XM radio's FM modulator. Using the FM mod your XM reception will never be cleaner than your best FM reception since your XM is broadcast through your FM receiver.

I can't say enough good things about the sound quality of the PriusXM integrated unit. Besides the cool factor of accessing the tuner through the MFD (and steering wheel controls), the signal is crystal clear, much better than FM.