BajaNomad

covering your tunes on the road

BornFisher - 10-17-2005 at 07:22 PM

OK I`ve done the research first hand-- Taken my Sirius and my wife`s XM radio to the tip and with a little tinkering got about 99% coverage. What I like about the XM is pause, and replay funcions on her Delphi unit. Also in memory, you can select artist instead of song/artist as on Sirius. SOOO... every song by whoever gets a beep instead of one specific song. VERY practical and MUCH MO BETTER!!!! Oh yeah.. XM has baseball!!
But Sirius flat out has better music. And I even like the DJ`s. Like Bill Walton`s show on Jam On--- the guy knows EVERYTHING about the Grateful Dead!! So I recently found out Sirius now has pause and replay on the Sportster unit. Got it and love it!!!! And it will pause 44 minutes if you don`t change stations. With XM it`s 30 minutes but you can change stations and not erase the "tail".
OK, my wife and I are heading up 395, to Bishop/ Yosemite for a few days. OK, little problem. Wife doesn`t particularly agree with the tunes I play. So I take her XM out of her car, rig it up in mine (the antennas have the same connection so I could use a home unit one taped to the dash) so she can listen to her stuff with earphones. Also went out and for $99 got her an iPod!! Man this is going to be sweet!! A trip without 5,000 questions!!
OK this was just intened to be a post about possibilities for road tripping with tunes. Figure I`ve got things covered 3 ways without 1 CD!! But am always open for more suggestions!!

El Jefe - 10-17-2005 at 07:40 PM

"with a little tinkering got about 99% coverage"
We start losing the XM at about El Cien above La Paz. It cuts in and out all the way to San Jose del. What tinkering do you recommend?

comitan - 10-17-2005 at 07:51 PM

I have Sirius and was having the same problem, then I started locking it into the cradle no more problems. It has a lock unlock on the back of the cradle.

BornFisher - 10-17-2005 at 07:54 PM

The XM car antenna is small compared to the home unit. I had along with me the XM boombox, so I took the antenna from the boombox, pluged it into the car cradle and duct taped it on the dash. And yeah this was near El Cien. Worked better and I thought all was well. But I started losing the signal south of La Paz and on some streches of road that didn`t face south. So I stopped and taped the antenna on the roof, out of the way of the Thule rack and got pretty solid reception. And when I didn`t, well that`s where the playback feature kicked in!!

El Jefe - 10-17-2005 at 08:01 PM

Cool, thanks for the tips. I don't think my older unit has playback. And I'm not talking about THAT unit. ;D
We'll give the base unit antenna a try.

Natalie Ann - 10-17-2005 at 09:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BornFisher
Man this is going to be sweet!! A trip without 5,000 questions!!


Funny stuff, B'Fisher!

Markitos21 - 10-18-2005 at 08:02 AM

My XM worked from La Paz to Mazatlan all I had to do was mess with the antena a few times. Works in the jeep too, CD'S keep skipping. . They have some good latino stations also so you can PUMP it up with your amgios.

Spyderman - 10-27-2005 at 06:18 AM

Maybe a reason to finally buy.

rpleger - 10-28-2005 at 05:42 PM

?Any place to buy in Baja or will I have to go up to the Free World to purchase?

comitan - 10-28-2005 at 06:41 PM

I drove from La Paz to Cabo today my sirius worked fine no jiggling anything. You can buy sat radio in La Paz , Yees has them.

BornFisher - 10-28-2005 at 06:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Natalie Ann
Quote:
Originally posted by BornFisher
Man this is going to be sweet!! A trip without 5,000 questions!!


Funny stuff, B'Fisher!


Well Natalie Ann, as usual the joke was on me!! Now things sort of worked-- 4,000 questions instead of 5,000! Trouble was, since she was wearing headphones, her questions were asked in a voice twice as loud as normal! Ay chihuahua!! I can never win!!

wornout - 10-28-2005 at 06:46 PM

My XM worked all the way to Cabo without skipping a beat. I have the antenna on the dash inside the car and way down where the windshield comes together with the dash. I only had the antenna outside the truck the first week, then I moved it inside.

BTW, can you get Sirius on your computer if you are a subscriber? I love that feature for XM users.

DavidT - 10-28-2005 at 10:14 PM

Quote:


BTW, can you get Sirius on your computer if you are a subscriber? I love that feature for XM users.



Yes you can, haven't tried yet, but it says so on their website. And you know if its on the internet it has to be true.

A-OK - 11-14-2005 at 02:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by El Jefe
"with a little tinkering got about 99% coverage"
We start losing the XM at about El Cien above La Paz. It cuts in and out all the way to San Jose del. What tinkering do you recommend?


Do you mount your antenna on the truck roof or top of Callen Camper? I was wondering if it will work mounted on the trucks roof.

larry - 11-14-2005 at 05:32 PM

You can mount it where you like, as long as you have a clear line to the satellite.

BornFisher - 11-14-2005 at 10:28 PM

The car kits for satellite radios come with antennae secured to a magnetic base. So you can basically just put it on anything metallic. Or use duct tape and put it anywhere!!!
Now I do have an update. Seems I bought my Sportster from Circuit City on Oct., 5th, went in (to CC) 3 weeks later and found a new unit!! It was the Starmate with everything the Sportster had but with 30 spots in memory with the option of artist, or artist/song. WOW--- Very happy with CC 30 day return policy!!! Was no problem--- traded the units out and even got a few bucks back!! And the Starmate with 30 presets and 30 spots in memory is wonderful!!

oladulce - 11-15-2005 at 02:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by A-OK

Do you mount your antenna on the truck roof or top of Callen Camper? I was wondering if it will work mounted on the trucks roof.


Our Lance camper covers most of the roof of our crewcab truck so the camper blocks reception if you put the antenna on the cab. We put the XM antenna way up front on the truck hood behind the bug deflector and it worked fine both north and south.

Farthest south we've been with this setup is Cd Constituci?n.

A-OK - 11-15-2005 at 07:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by oladulce

Our Lance camper covers most of the roof of our crewcab truck so the camper blocks reception if you put the antenna on the cab. We put the XM antenna way up front on the truck hood behind the bug deflector and it worked fine both north and south.

Farthest south we've been with this setup is Cd Constituci?n.


That sounds like something I will have to do. Thanks