Anyone replaced their factory satellite radio antenna with an aftermarket antenna?

[Back 40]

This is driving me crazy. We drove down to Destin Florida last week. We were on the beach with nothing around and it would still loose service. Not a single tree, building or sign.

Has anyone found a solution? I am going to drop mine off at stereo shop and see if they have any suggestions.

 

[TonyP]

This is driving me crazy. We drove down to Destin Florida last week. We were on the beach with nothing around and it would still loose service. Not a single tree, building or sign.

Has anyone found a solution? I am going to drop mine off at stereo shop and see if they have any suggestions.

Splice in a new one?
Improving XM Satellite Radio Reception

 

[Hothonda]

Waiting patiently for the solution.....THX!!

 

[KLF]

Excuse my ignorance, but why are people still using satellite radio? I'm seriously asking. I drove over 500 miles today in my wife's '13 IS 250C, listening to Slacker the entire trip. Not a single hiccup.

I'm just wondering if I need to subscribe for both her car and my 200.

A good friend has a '13 Tacoma, the reception is so bad on the factory satellite radio he gave up and canceled, it's unusable.

 

[Markuson]

Excuse my ignorance, but why are people still using satellite radio? I'm seriously asking. I drove over 500 miles today in my wife's '13 IS 250C, listening to Slacker the entire trip. Not a single hiccup.

I'm just wondering if I need to subscribe for both her car and my 200.

A good friend has a '13 Tacoma, the reception is so bad on the factory satellite radio he gave up and canceled, it's unusable.

Why Satellite? -Because internet radio only works on a cellular or wifi network? If you go into the boonies, you've got nothing.

About the radio reception... It's amazing to me so many problems exist with this. When satellite radio was still new-ish, I bought an add-on unit while traveling and reception was great. Baffles me they are still having trouble with this.

 

[mcgaskins]

Excuse my ignorance, but why are people still using satellite radio? I'm seriously asking. I drove over 500 miles today in my wife's '13 IS 250C, listening to Slacker the entire trip. Not a single hiccup.

I'm guessing your 500 mile drive didn't entail driving through the middle of the desert in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, etc. or 50 miles from the nearest town or cell coverage right?

 

[TeCKis300]

I'm with KLF on this one guys.

Satellite had become crap within the early years after they launched the service. The promised fidelity of the service never materialized and further tanked when they tried to cram more programming in their limited bandwidth. Unless it's talk radio, I can't stand the quality for anything else. Overly compressed, flat, and completely lifeless. Not to mention the interruptions when going under a bridge or in downtown.

Any wifi or cellular streaming device has the ability to cache hundreds to thousands of songs without much effort these day. It will seamlessly pump out your favorite songs, signal or not. With top notch quality to boot. Heck, you can probably even find the same streams you get on satellite.

Satellite is 90s tech. Time to let it go. Terrible audio is not worth listening to, ever.

 

[KLF]

When I was test driving the 200 last weekend, we noticed the fancy-pants JBL stereo didn't really sound that great. No bass, sounded flat. Scanned a few more FM stations, didn't get much better. My brother has the upgraded JBL system in his Highlander and I think it kicks butt, so I was concerned something was wrong, maybe a dead amp or blown speakers. He was messing with it while i was driving, he discovered that the PO hadn't unsub'd from the satellite service yet (truck just came in on trade a couple days earlier) so it was still working. He tried a few channels, sound didn't improve. Hmm..

Back at the dealership, I connected my phone to the Bluetooth, fired up my Slacker app, wow what a difference! Sounds great now.

I get the part about being out in the boonies where there's no cell service. So you have your app save your songs locally. Or you load up a cheap USB drive with tunes, pop it into the port, done.

What I'm wondering about is the real time traffic and weather you can get via XM, is it worth it?

 

[TonyP]

My only issue with satellite radio is, if you cancel they'll bombard you phone and mailbox with offers. The content is good for the most part though.

 

[KLF]

AAA does the same thing. They are relentless.

 

[TonyP]

Clearly they don't get that pestering is more of a deterrence than anything. The 6mo/$30 deal is enticing though.

 

[stiffarm]

Splice in a new one?
Improving XM Satellite Radio Reception

My XM reception is crap in my 2015 LC-hard to believe that Toyota has not fixed this problem. Let us know what you find as a solution. Entune is crap as Pandora is seriously flat..

 

[Alex Day]

Has anyone found an acceptable solution to this issue? I am happy to add a different antenna if that helps. It is very frustrating. I have had XM for years, and didn't have any issue until I got my 2013 LC. If anyone could post about successful resolution to the reception interruption issues, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Alex Day]

After a lot of searching, I think that the parts originally listed on this thread are the solution. ExPat93 posted on this thread that this solution worked for his 2014 LC. I am going to try this solution as well in the coming weeks. Will post back here when I try it. Here is ExPat93's post.

2014 LC200 Satellite Antenna

 

[NMNORSSE]

Back in the day you could buy an XM radio tuner with a lifetime subscription. You can transfer that subscription to you factory head unit. You can buy old xm tuners with the lifetime subscription on Ebay for 200ish. If you are committed to satellite, this pays for itself fairly quickly.

 

[airforce1]

Sorry if a bit off topic but will the antennae replacement be able to improve AM performance?

 

[GoISU]

Baba booey!

 

[BigMF]

I'm with KLF on this one guys.

Satellite had become crap within the early years after they launched the service. The promised fidelity of the service never materialized and further tanked when they tried to cram more programming in their limited bandwidth. Unless it's talk radio, I can't stand the quality for anything else. Overly compressed, flat, and completely lifeless. Not to mention the interruptions when going under a bridge or in downtown.

Any wifi or cellular streaming device has the ability to cache hundreds to thousands of songs without much effort these day. It will seamlessly pump out your favorite songs, signal or not. With top notch quality to boot. Heck, you can probably even find the same streams you get on satellite.

Satellite is 90s tech. Time to let it go. Terrible audio is not worth listening to, ever.

When I was test driving the 200 last weekend, we noticed the fancy-pants JBL stereo didn't really sound that great. No bass, sounded flat. Scanned a few more FM stations, didn't get much better. My brother has the upgraded JBL system in his Highlander and I think it kicks butt, so I was concerned something was wrong, maybe a dead amp or blown speakers. He was messing with it while i was driving, he discovered that the PO hadn't unsub'd from the satellite service yet (truck just came in on trade a couple days earlier) so it was still working. He tried a few channels, sound didn't improve. Hmm..

Back at the dealership, I connected my phone to the Bluetooth, fired up my Slacker app, wow what a difference! Sounds great now.

I get the part about being out in the boonies where there's no cell service. So you have your app save your songs locally. Or you load up a cheap USB drive with tunes, pop it into the port, done.

What I'm wondering about is the real time traffic and weather you can get via XM, is it worth it?

I agree that the sound quality for the music stations is NOT the best on Sirius/XM. However, it is very convenient for daily driving, especially now that my phone will not automatically connect to play music via Bluetooth. I have to re-pair any time I want to play audio content from my phone. That is not something I'm willing to do every single time I get in the truck. Very frustrating because it used to work until sometime last year. I suspect that Apple pushed an update that caused this problem but have no proof. The odd thing is that the phone part still connects automatically, just the not "portable music player" connection.

Even a 500 mile trip is annoying because I'm stopping at least a couple of times for food, gas, as well as restroom breaks and need to reconnect each time.

 

[KLF]

I agree that the sound quality for the music stations is NOT the best on Sirius/XM. However, it is very convenient for daily driving, especially now that my phone will not automatically connect to play music via Bluetooth. I have to re-pair any time I want to play audio content from my phone. That is not something I'm willing to do every single time I get in the truck. Very frustrating because it used to work until sometime last year. I suspect that Apple pushed an update that caused this problem but have no proof. The odd thing is that the phone part still connects automatically, just the not "portable music player" connection.

Even a 500 mile trip is annoying because I'm stopping at least a couple of times for food, gas, as well as restroom breaks and need to reconnect each time.

That would be a deal-breaker for me, as in: time to get a different phone.

My Google Pixel works well, although there are times when it just seems to refuse to connect. Then after a few minutes, it will suddenly start behaving and it works fine.

 

[BigMF]

That would be a deal-breaker for me, as in: time to get a different phone.

My Google Pixel works well, although there are times when it just seems to refuse to connect. Then after a few minutes, it will suddenly start behaving and it works fine.

Uh oh....venturing into the Apple vs Android minefield.

Unfortunately, my family (and I) are too far down the Apple rabbit hole to dig our ways back out at this point. Would mean replacing multiple phones, watches, iPads. I could get an ARB bumper for cheaper than that.

I'll keep looking for the Bluetooth solution and may try a cheap solution for XM as well since there are a couple of stations that I listen to daily. If I can get the BT fixed, I may drop XM though.