Easy Sirius Install - Look Ma, No Wires!

[Djinn]

I am no particularly technically ept, and my wife wanted a serious Sirius install. I lucked out - I was able to run the wires basically all out of sight - a clean, well functioning install. Here are the basics for Sirius Sportster 5 - pics below for reference. Oh yeah, one audio suggestion - make sure you turn the audio voume up to 100% on the Sirius radio - it boosts the signal to noise and reduces drastically on any hiss in the Smartcar radio.

1. Antenna - placed inside the car, on the dash, far left - make sure iutis fr enough back (ie on the cloth, not on the plastic of the dash) so that the windshiled stickers don;t block the "view". run wire to the left, down the seam, under the dash. invisible! and no duct tape!

2. audio - drill a hole in the back left bottom of the glovebox, just big enough to run an audio cable. use a right angle adaptor and plug it into the audio socket on the glove box, attach your cable, and run it under the dash to the sportster

3. Sportster install - ahhhh - use the suction cup thats for the windshield mount, and instead mount it un the horizontal plastic that runs under the dash just to the right of the cig ligher. the suction cup just fits - tight grip - has not fallen yet!.

4. power - plug in power adaptor to cig lighter - only visible wire

see pics below - hope this helps someone!

Djinn

[SmartJJ]

Looks very nice! Where did you get the mount?

[Djinn]

the mount comes with the Sirius Sportster 5 - its the windshield suction mount, but it fits perfectly on the plastic under the dash too!

Djinn

[spiwrx]

For those skeptics, I have my Sirius Antennae mounted like this and have no problems with reception. I also Mounted my GPS antennae between my gauge pods and it works just as well....

[SeaDoc]

I put my GPS antenna and my xm radio antenna under the plastic cover behind the two guage pods atop the air conditioning unit - totally out of view and great reception too...

[jwight]

Excellent work, but I'm still basically opposed to putting anything (sat nav, sat radio, cell phone, Scan Gauge, etc) down that low. Takes the driver's eyes off the road and puts him/her head down in the cockpit. That's why airplanes and cars have HUDs. Luckily, I only listen to one XM channel so I can toss it in the glove box and leave it alone.

[TSS Taylor]

I have an opportunity to install a Sirius Radio for someone soon. I'm really excited about it. I will be driving 3 hours each way just to do this. I'm going to be taking some pretty thorough pictures of the install and everything and will post here and on my website.

It's for one of the personalities moms who has a Smart Car. I'm such a huge Smart Car fan, and just a fan of small cars in general. I'm considering contacting Panavise to see if they can make a custom mount for it. But they are in Reno, NV and need a car to borrow to develop it.

So, hopefully I will be doing this in a few weeks and will post about it here.

[Kermit]

I have my antenna on the dash in between the gauge pods.

I'm thinking about getting the Sportster 5. Lot more appealing to the eye than the XACT I currently have.

[SBibbo]

Nice work. I took a similar approach with a few differences:

1. The suction cup won't stay for long. I drilled two holes through the mount and used toggle bolts into the plastic.

2. I used two sided industrial tape (meant for body parts) to mount the antenna on the roof in the back and ran the wire under the molding/plastic trim.

[TSS Taylor]

Originally Posted by Bum-bling-B

I have my antenna on the dash in between the gauge pods.

I'm thinking about getting the Sportster 5. Lot more appealing to the eye than the XACT I currently have.

The Sportster 5 looks a lot better, it's just the wireless FM Transmitter isn't as strong as the one in the old Xact unit you have, so you'll likely have to hardwire the audio portion for better sound quality.