I have an '07 Expedition with nav radio. The dealer installed the Sirius (OEM)components to the radio when I purchased the vehicle. Everything has worked fine (3 months) until now. The sat radio is constantly changing between "aquiring signal" and "sat antenna fault". Once an awhile it will come on and play a few songs then quit. There are no trees or other obstructions where I'm at. Any suggestions?

 

Take it back to the dealer...sounds like the antenna wire has a fault...is it plugged in all the way?

 

I am taking back to the dealer. I just hate their service dept spending 3 days trying to figure it out. I'm hoping someone else has maybe seen this problem, and it will shorten the stay at the dealer if I can help diagnos the problem.

Side note: It took 4 trips to the dealer to get it working correct during the install. (ordered wrong parts, waiting on tech support to get back with them, had to reorder parts again because first parts weren't working right)

Dealership service dept. is not my favorite place to leave my vehicle!!

The antenna is plugged in all the way.

 

Grab a different antenna from an XM or Sirius unit and throw it on the roof and try that out for a week or so. It does not have to be the same antenna and it does not have to be a Siruis antenna (it can be XM). I would just get one of those magnetic antennas that come with all the Sportster 4 kits. If the problem goes away with the new antenna you need to replace your old one. If it does not go away its something with the receiver itself.

 

If he lives in an area with a lot of FM stations, it may be that there just isn't any bandwidth left available for the low powered Siruis system (XM is the same). I am in the Washington DC/Baltimore area and that is the problem I have. While XMing in the Baltomore area I have to use a vacant freq up near high end of the band. While in DC, I have to use a frequency near the low end of the band. For what it's worth, reception is MUCH better at the higher end of the FM band.

 

Thats sucks, I'm on the eastern shore in Md. and do alot of work in Baltimore and have never had issues with that. I went the more expensive way and installed a JVC Siruis ready cd fm stereo which I had to buy and install a seperate siruis reciever, plugged into the back of the JVC, but you don't have to go searching for unoccupied FM stations, it has it's own sirius band that it plays through. A little pricey, but I am 100% satisfied with the system. Was so satisfied with the sirius programming, I made the wife get me the sportster replay with the boombox for christmas in '05 so I could have it on the jobsite. Had to pay for another subscription at 1/2 price, but to me it's worth it. On that note, other guys on the jobsite might be working another area of the jobsite and can't hear it, so they just get out their radios and tune them to 87.9 fm and they pick up the signal fine. Ended up getting the wife a sportster plug and play for her car this past christmas (another subscription) and hers picks up everything fine on 88.7 fm. Not sure what's causing your issues. Does your XM have a small FM module antenna that plugs into the back of the XM unit, and do you have the FM bandwith on the XM set for the designated frequencies? I know those are dumb questions to ask, but my wife's sirius didn't come with that small antenna and at first hers had a hard time picking up the signal. My plug n play did come with one, (since it was a year older they were still included with the kit, they aren't now) I plugged it into the back of hers and it works great now. Sorry your having problems.

 

Something I didn't mention to BPofMD, when I first got my sirius reciever for my JVC, the reciever was bad and had to exchange it for anther one. Was having same issues as you are. Just a thought. Good luck.

 

I fixed the problem...got a devise that plugs from the radio directly into the antenna for the FM radio. It overrides all the terrestral FM stations. Only 40 bucks. Now I can use any FM frequency channel I want.....

 

I would check to see if plugged in properly. Also I would check connector on antenna cable. I had one go bad the first day I used my radio. Needless to say I WUZ PI55ed!