I had one cut off by some jack @ss so now mine is inside the truck on the dash.

 

I wonder why people are cutting them off? Trying to splice these new micro antennas that have both the FM and XM signal in one single coaxial cable is dumb. The SQ is going to be horrible. Surely people cut them off only to be jerks or something.

 

How do you get the cowl off?

 

Just pop the tabs that hold the front and passenger side edge of the cowl in, and you should have enough room to get your hand (holding the magnetic antenna) to an flat spot on the cowl that's just barely big enough for the antenna.

In reference to using tape etc. Fanman on the FTE forum is a guru in this area and has the following suggestion:

I STRONGLY suggest that you do NOT mount your satellite radio antenna ANYWHERE INSIDE your truck.

The main reason for mounting it OUTSIDE on a HORIZONTAL, METAL surface is because the horizontal metal surface under the satellite radio antenna acts like a parabolic reflector for the antenna, much like that on a satellite "dish" TV antenna.....guaranteeing that you will always get the strongest, clearest signal possible.

And remember, DIGITAL signals are VERY DIFFERENT than ANALOG signals. A digital signal is very narrow and very precise, and is either there or not there.....PERIOD! Whereas, an analog signal is "tunable" and has a broader signal width, with more tolerance for inaccurate tuning.

 

Is the wire "splice-able"? I got my head unit and sirius tuner ripped of recently, but my antena and wire are still on the roof. They just ripped the cable out of the back of the tuner instead of simply unplugging it, so I have a loose end under my dash which would be GREAT if I could actually splice a new cord with fitting on to.

I have the antenna on the dash right now, and reception is spotty.

Anyone have any experience wiuth this type of thing?

CHIA

 

I'm with BRONKX1 - I have XM Radio and just set the antenna right on the dash. Works like a champ and I can remove the antenna easily. It makes it nice when moving the radio to a friends car for a long road trip.

Whatever you decide, good luck.

Moose

 

ok, whats another option to mount the antenna? i want to mount it on the roof but dont want to go through the brake light. whats the best way to hide the wires? there is alwasy going to be a wire showing if i just put it on the roof without going through the 3rd brake light?

 

the best way to hide the wires is under either weather stripping or some other type of trim. I thought of running mine through a rubber plug between the cab and the bed, but am now thinking about mounting it between the wipers under that cowl...will have to try that out, if it doesn't work I will just have to reinstall it...

 

You can see in this picture that when I first got mine, I ran the satellite antenna out the door, up along the windshield moulding, and mounted it on the roof. I have had sat. ant.s in a similar location on three other vehicles.



In the first eight months I owned this truck, I had to replace the antenna twice. Something about the shape of this truck makes this location very vulnerable-whether it's car washes, rocks, vibration, whatever. I moved the antenna back to the back of the roof, out through the third brake light, and have had no problems in the 7 months since then.

 

I tried to mount mine under the cowl and even under the fender right at the top of the hood and never got good reception. I stuck it on my fender right by the truck antenna and seem to get ok reception and it is not very noticeable. Should I mount on roof?

 

first thing to do is pull the wiper arms themselves...pull the plastic cover off the bottom of the wiper and remove the nut, on my 02 SCrew its a 5/8" socket.

The wipers will be a little reluctant to come off, a little muscle will convince them.

there are a number of screws (I think about 5 per side) that hold the cowl on that can be removed from the front of the vehicle...much harder to do from the side, leave the hood closed at this point. Pull the screws and you are halfway there.

Open the hood. There are about 5-6 clips that hold the bottom of the cowl on. Pull these with needle nose pliers. Once removed the cowl is mostly loose.

In the corner of each side of the cowl there is a press-in type fastener. Pull up on the cowl near the fastener to loosen it up, then pull it the rest of the way with those sneedle nose that you still have in your back pocket.

Pull out the cowl halves one at a time by lifting them over the recess for the wiper arms and rotating them towards the outside of the car.

hope this helps,

Dan