Hack your factory satellite antenna. XM Sirius shark fin DIY

You have an aftermarket head unit or you bought a portable sat radio with vehicle kit and thought, "hey, I already have a roof-mounted sat antenna so why not use that?"

Then you search the forums and discover that the plug is proprietary to Toyota and Lexus but that you can buy an adapter cable for anywhere from 50-70 bucks and you're like, "WTF?" Reeling from the bitter pill of having to pay for radio in the first place, the last thing you want to do is dole out even more money. So here's the down and dirty DIY to connect the radio's antenna cable to the truck's antenna cable.

How you route these cables is up to you. This is the Cliff's notes edition.

Note: you will be cutting the proprietary connector off the end of the shark fin antenna wire and you will be cutting the antenna off the vehicle kit's antenna wire then splicing them together. That's the name of the game, kids.

The factory satellite antenna wire runs under the driver's side sill plate and terminates under/behind the left side kick panel. Pull those panels off, unwrap the tape from the wire harness and look for the black coaxial cable that is a tad thicker than all the rest.



Cut the cable up near the foot rest and strip about 1.5" of the outer jacket and then carefully peel back the braided shielding.



Once the shielding is pulled back, carefully strip about 1/2 ~ 3/4 inches of the center wire's insulation. Then do the same with the antenna wire coming out of the XM/Sirius unit.

Remember to slip some heat shrink tubing over your wires before joining them together (if you're going to use that but you can get away with just electrical tape).

Twist and solder the center conductors together and seal up with heat shrink or tape or both.

Then slide your frayed shielding back together over your first connection. So long as the shielding from both wires is touching, you should be able to test-fire your connection.



If you have a good signal, continue by ensuring a sound electrical connection for the shielding by applying solder in a few locations around the perimeter of the cable. Then, seal it up with heat shrink.



For abrasion resistance, wrap it all up with more electrical tape.



Route your antenna wire as desired and put all your panels, carpet, etc back in.

Enjoy.

 

Pretty cool mod but I hate my shark fin antenna, my reception blows. My cheap aftermarket unit in my Camry, coupled with a $10 magnetic antenna, blows away the reception if my stock unit. If I had my choice, I'd ditch the OEM antenna.

 

No problems with mine whatsoever. Got it plugged into an Edge portable unit and it links up within 3 seconds and hasn't dropped yet.

 

exactly what I was looking for...don't want a second antenna on my truck!

 

I need more info on this one. What did you hack into it? A plug for the aftermarket radio or what? I feel like there is some missing info here.

I am going to be switching to an aftermarket unit here really soon and need to decide if I am going to get a converter plug which costs stupid money, or if I'm better off hacking the shark fin.

 

@vr6pilot

 

Totally doing that this summer

Although before I do, is the reception really that bad with the sharkfin XM?

 

No, but you do lose it going under overpasses. Which is annoying while listening to music.

 

You're going to get that with any XM unit / antenna. It's satellite radio just like satellite TV or GPS. When you don't have a clear view of the sky, you lose reception. Doesn't matter how expensive your components are, that's just how the technology works.

 

Mine on my 2010 drops off under clear open sky, and will stay that way for miles sometimes. Never could figure out why, neither could the dealer. Maybe I should of tried for lemon law.

 

Is this for 2016 or 05-15?

 

I did this accidentally in my 2011. I stripped the wire back and plugged it directly into the XM tuner. Plugged in is a stretch, I have metal tape holding it in place. Not ideal, but been good for two years running.

I thought it would be more similar to a coaxial cable (which is why I stripped it to begin with) and I could crimp on a tiny coax connector, but I was wrong about that.

 

Read the title of this thread and was hoping I was gonna learn how to get some free xm.

I was let down.

 

Still inquiring about this as I have everything ready to do the install today.

 

Signal blocked near airports, military, navy bases... do you live near/drive by alot of this kind of stuff?

 

Nope. I was driving today. Clear skies. No trees over head. Started breaking up and I lost it for 12 miles. Then it came back perfect

 

Huh that Sucks if Howard Stern got cut off during an interview id be pissed.... maybe there is a bad connex somewhere, maybe where the cable terminates at the radio or at the antenna? I had Sirius xm for years and I know their home antennas are very easy to ruin by messing up the shielding... maybe ask for a new wire and to have it run /installed for you. Thats why I checked out this thread, I wasn't aware the cable could be repaired, surprised that it can.

 

I don't even have a subscription. I listen to the preview channel when I can find nothing on the regular radio.

 

Did this today, but a little different. On my 2011 the OEM head unit had Sirius, but I wanted a better stereo so I set out to replace it, and wanted to continue using the shark antenna with the sat radio module for the new head unit. As the OEM unit had Sirius there had to be an antenna connection at the head unit somewhere, right? After hooking the new head unit up I went through the "left over" plugs and found a blue one with what looked like coax cable going into it... Snip, yep, coax like VR6. I then cut the coax going to the new Sirius control box, did a Frankenstein splice job of the two and boom, 3 bars of Sirius. No cables to run! I'm too embarrassed to show photos of the splice, but I did as VR6 did but with a crimp connector to connect the internal wire. I then used a piece of wire with lots of thin strands, not one thick one, and wrapped it around the outside of the plastic crimp connector a bunch, basically replicating the "weave" wire that was too short and frayed to connect. I was careful to make sure the interior single wire was totally encased in my plastic splice thingy so nothing would short. Finish by wrapping the while skid rig in tape, enjoy your factory antenna working with the new head unit!

 

Photo of the factory coax antenna cable at my head unit. The wire is black, the silver is the weave stuff inside, I'd already cut it and started stripping it then thought a photo might be useful...