Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 00:45:38 -0400
Reply-To: caverat <caverat@ATTBI.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: caverat <caverat@ATTBI.COM>
Subject: Re: free satellite radio?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
-- Well, I put it in today, and it works great. The only issue is that when I change channels, I
-- get dropouts for the first minute or so, and the screen says "aquiring signal" and "loading."
-- Is this normal?
Hi Bill,
A occasional short (second or two) dropout is not out of the ordinary (especially when going under a double overpass), but what you are describing is not normal. It sounds like a potential antenna installation issue or a location issue (i.e., testing it out under some sort of consistent cover or heavy foliage or next to something large that may be blocking line of sight with satellite). Does this happen driving on the open road? The occasional times I have had the signal drop out for more than a very short time period it seems that a quick power off and on again clears it up for good. If you email a description of your installation (specifically, how is the antenna mounted), I'll see if I can help. A friend of mine gets issues like this because his antenna is just sitting on the dash, but for some reason he just lives with it instead of moving the antenna to the roof. Another one with a similar problem had a loose connection. After he told me about it, I took a look at how the "professional" installer mounted the tuner on the back of his rear seat and showed him how folding the seat up would over time loosen the connection. According to the instructions, the antenna does need to be on a metal surface at least one square foot for proper operation. Sitting directly on top of the fiberglass luggage rack (if that is where it is) will likely cause issues like this unless you get something like that metallic sound proofing stuff sold are car audio shops (or Best Buy/Circuit City) and stick that on the rack and the antenna on top of that (an antenna manufacturer tech support manager told me about that ideal). Mine is under the luggage rack and it works fine there since it is on the metal roof and the signal will penetrate fiberglass. Some of the earlier antennas required a separate little box that went between the antenna and the tuner. Both of mine have it. A thing called a ALC module or something like that. Your tuner and/or antenna manual probably has a troubleshooting section that describes the messages you are seeing and possible corrective actions. If you call the Sirius help line, they will try to help you troubleshoot this or maybe get you the ALC module if you don't have one and they think that might be the problem. The www.siriusbackstage.com forums may also provide some help. From what I know about this, this issue is usually related to the antenna and its mounting location and angle For example, the side of the van (can't be at a 90 degree angle) or top of the luggage rack or poptop would not allow for proper functioning since there would be nothing metal under the antenna.
What is your impression of the service.
caverat
89 westy
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