anniversar

Just installed an OEM satellite radio which I purchased from a fellow forum member. I was surprised at how easy it was. The tuner is mounted in the trunk high up on the right hand side. Basically the install involved removing quite a bit of the trunk trim and the rest was easy. I have mounted the antenna on the flat portion of the third brake light. The antenna cable was routed up through the trunk interior light which gives access to the underside of the third brake light. The whole install took about an hour and was made a lot easier by the help I received from the seller of the tuner.

Once installed, I then just had to call XM-Sirius and activate the new tuner. This took about 30 minutes to do.

outdoorboy

What year, Type? I'm new to this forum. Just bought a 04 LS430. Love it but wish it had XM. I'm on the road a lot.

Viper6

My CPO had this installed when new in 2005... this is really helpful as mine skips music if a tree or bridge is within 100 feet seemingly... I'm going to try and upgrade the antennae and I was worried I would have to route to the dash... I hope it is a simple as routing into the trunk... can you show a pic of where it is located on yours and or which trim pieces need to be removed to get to it?

Thanks for the intel and let us know what antennae you used and if it looses signal while driving under a bridge on highway... mine does this and I think that can't be right.

Also, mine is mounted as you describe yours...

daddykay24

losing the signal under a bridge is normal because the satellite signal is blocked under a bridge or in a tunnel.

Viper6

My Honda with XM does not lose any signal driving under the same bridges at highway speed... the Lex does, so I know the performance could be better... that is what I am saying.

ayonnebay

I have an '04 LS into which I installed a Vaistech SL2s with a Sirius SIR-PAN1 tuner. I lose the signal every time I go under an overpass - and I mean virtually EVERY overpass. Trees are also a major problem with drop outs. It's terrible. We know that we should lose the signal if stopped under an overpass, or if the overpass is a big (long) one, but this loss is with almost every overpass, and I'm doing 70+ mph going under most of them.

Using logic, I replaced the antenna (several times), with no improvement.

I then swapped in a different Vais SL2s - Still no improvement. I suspected the Vaistech SL2s unit after seeing that it wasn't the antenna. But then, after trying a new SL2s with no change, I came to the conclusion that the problem is the Sirius SIR-PAN1 tuner.

As I understand the Sirius operation, there are two signals sent down, 4 seconds apart. A buffering system is then used to reassemble the signal if we go under an overpass, etc. Thus, we shouldn't notice the momentary loss.

I now suspect that my SIR-PAN1 tuner can't handle that job.

Now, notice that most people do not use a SIR-PAN1 tuner, but probably use an SCC1 tuner. Those tuners may be okay. Do you know which Sirius tuner you're using ?

Walt

Viper6

Great inputs... I am using whatever the dealership sold/installed in 2005... is that upgradeable? If I rip the trunk liners out can I fin this out?

ayonnebay

Well, if they installed a tuner other than an SCC1 connected to a Vaistech interface, you can remove it and replace that tuner with an SCC1 tuner. That would require a different Vaistech cable between the Vaistech and the SCC1, as the SCC1 uses a different shape connector than most other tuners.

But - if you swap tuners, you may have to pay fees to activate the new one. (If there's a Lifetime sub on the old tuner, Sirius charges $75 to change tuners.)

All that being said, I don't know if you have Sirius or XM, nor what tuner you have, nor if you have a Vais interface, nor even if the SCC1 tuner I mention is any better. I only mention the SCC1 tuner because that seems to be the most popular one now, and I haven't heard many complaints about our problem. I have, however, surrendered and have learned to live with the problem, as the only thing left that I haven't tried is putting in a different tuner. I don't want to spend any more $$ chasing the solution, so I now continue to have the radio drop out as I'm singing along with it ......... My wife gets a kick out of that.

Good luck.

Walt

anniversar

Mine is a 2006 ML but the Satellite radio kit stated 2004 on it.

anniversar

It is just the standard antenna that comes with the OEM kit. It is rectangular with slightly rounded ends. Yes I do lose signal under bridges but I expected that as the antenna needs a clear line of sight to the sateliite

Bob_fromLA

For the XM system I would note that the factory Lexus kit is the early receiver design and it needs an antenna with twin leads. You can't simply use two of the more modern single lead antennas (diversity reception is a good idea, but can't be done) because only one of the antenna connections at the OEM receiver has the power for the low noise ampllifier (LNA) that is built into the antenna. Plugging a single lead antenna into the satellite port would work, but no ground repeater input would result in lots of drops in the city.

Instead of the factory recommended trunk mount, I've used an after market twin leed antenna just sitting on the package shelf. That generally works really well and I seldom have any drops (since XM uses ground repeaters), but when traveling SW on the west coast the package shelf antenna may occasionally drop the signal as the path to the primary satellite is shielded by the roof and I've sometimes temporarily mounted the antenna on the trunk. The west coast satellite signal is dominated by the satellite at 115 deg W Longitude and the east coast by the satellite at 85 deg W Longitude, so it would be a bit SE for the east coast. I would note that the aftermarket antenna is smaller than the Lexus OEM antenna and has a much stronger magnet, so no need for the adhesive mount.

daddykay24

Where might we find one of these antennas?