Satellite Radio on Sundancer

Sirius Starmate

I have a Sirius Starmate. I've mounted it so I can easily remove it from the windshield of my pickup and move it to the windshield of the boat.

The windshield mount that came with the Starmate has a flat spot on it, and this is where I mounted the antenna with double-sided tape. The extra antenna cord is bound to the underside of the mount with cable ties.

To move from truck to boat, I just remove the power plug from the lighter socket and un-do the suction cup. The process is reversed on the boat. Works fine. Mounting the Starmate antenna on the plastic of the windshield mount is also fine.

The problem I have is using FM to transmit to my radio. I have interference from broadcast stations on every one of the channels. The solution for me is to plug from the headphone outlet on the Starmate to the iPod plug on the dash-mounted, wired CD-Remote.

I retrofitted a Dual MXD70 AM / FM / CD - Radio in the cabin and put the wired remote in the Clarion hole on the dash. This radio doesn't have a s/n ratio as good as the Clarion, but in a boat it doesn't matter much to my half-deaf ears. What I really like about the Dual is the iPod port on the wired remote, and the fact that it plays CDs recorded in MP3 or WMA format. I've not found another reasonably priced marine stereo that has those features. I got mine from Beach Audio, best price I could find.

If you're trying to choose between XM and Sirius, they're pretty much the same. Sirius has NPR. Last I checked, XM didn't.
 
The solution to the lack of reception in the covered slip is to get the heck out of the slip and under the blue sky.
Eddie
 
Satellite radio install

I did this on my '04 340. I added it to the existing clarion XMD3 system. I ran the antenna like the factory ( HUGE pain in the arse).
On my set-up I cannot change sat channels with the wired remotes - only volume. Everytime I change channels it goes back to sat channel 1 and I have to go below to get the desired channel.
This year I am going with a portable Sirius rcvr above deck (hooked into the existing antenna) and an I-Pod. I fully expect to use the I-Pod MUCH more than the Sat Radio.
 
I solved the channel changing issue by getting a wireless remote for the Sat receiver. I can change channels from the helm with the receiver in the salon.
 
Waterspouse said:
I'm looking for some advice on adding Satellite radio (XM or Sirius) on my 340 Sundancer. Any tips on satellite-ready marine radios will be appreciated.
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Last season I put the Clarion Sirius-ready radio in my Sundancer, and I really like it. It does CDs too. I also had them put in a stereo jack so I can input my Ipod as the Aux device. Works fantastic.

Bountylb3.jpg
 
i have sirius in my office and both cars. i tote only the starmate receiver and leave all antennas connectdd. i havent used it at the boat, b/c i get XM through Direct TV receiver, which is hardwired into the stereo head unit. at the office i use the outdoor mounted home flip-open type antenna while the cars use the mag-mount clamshell type antenna. are you saying these antennas will pick up THROUGH fiberglass, but NOT through GLASS (as in auto glass)?
 
rondds said:
are you saying these antennas will pick up THROUGH fiberglass, but NOT through GLASS (as in auto glass)?
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Ron,

I can't comment on the fiberglass question, but I have the Sirius car kit installed on the boat, with the antenna placed in the forward helm area under the windshield and it works well.

Jeff
 
Our 2006 240 DA came with a Clarion unit AND a hardwired antenna already installed, plus a 6 month subscription for Sirius. We liked it so much on the boat that we wound up buying a Starmate for home/cars. We use a home antenna and have antennas in each car, so just take the unit and plug it in pretty easily. We love it!
I do have one question; since Sirius does not offer Marine Weather yet, does anyone here use the XM Marine Weather option? If so, is it worthwhile? Love it/hate it?
 
Thanks Karl! I had been misinformed that it would not be available until later this year. I guess, since I'm pretty happy with Sirius anyway, it might make sense for me.
 
I read a review of the Sirius and Raymarine weather system. It seems that you cannot overlay the weather on your chart plotter. You are forced to open a separate screen. That doesn't seem right to me.
 
Does anyone with a KVH on board feed their XM (comes with the Direct TV package) to their cockpit stereo? That's what I am planning to do, hope it will work. I was going to feed into my cockpit XMD4 Clarion on an aux. input a signal from my Bose Lifestyle in the cabin. I think this should work - anyone tried it?..
 
KVH - Raymarine

I have a Raymarine 45STV HD Satellite TV Antenna System with Bell Express Vu. It was very easy to hook the RCA audio out on the Bell Express Vu satellite box to the AUX input on my Clarion system. Thus we can get the satellite radio stations offered by Bell Express Vu. I checked my BOSE Lifestyle Sytem at home and it should be pretty easy to accomplish as there is an AUX input. I am not sure though, how long you can run RCA cables unshielded without degrading the quality. An option might be to use an optical audio cable if your BOSE units has the input.
 
sheffield, I have hooked this up this way, my Bose had both audio outs used by the 2 zones (front & back cabins) so I used an RCA y-adapter and split off of the Zone 2- used RCA jack with 12' cord and snaked my wires from the salon up to the helm and over to the cocpit Clarion. plugged into the AUX jacks on the XMD4 and it worked! The Bose did have an audio out that was digital (fiber optic) but I didn't know how to convert that down to the stereo AUX in (RCA type jacks) Can this be done? If so then I do not have to have Zone 2 on in the cabin. Then my wife could sleep when I want to listen up in the Cockpit.
 
You can't convert optical cable to RCA without processing the digital signal into analog. BTW, Sea Ray does make a switch plate that control turns on or off the cabin audio from the cockpit audio. This might be an option for you. You might check the parts manuals on the Sea Ray website.
 
Petep said:
Does anyone with a KVH on board feed their XM (comes with the Direct TV package) to their cockpit stereo? That's what I am planning to do, hope it will work. I was going to feed into my cockpit XMD4 Clarion on an aux. input a signal from my Bose Lifestyle in the cabin. I think this should work - anyone tried it?..
Click to expand...

I don't see why that would be any different than when I input my Ipod that way, so long as you have a way to hook the unit into the stereo.
 
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