I installed a Sirius satelite radio and now I can hear the engine running over the speakers. When I go to regular radio I get no noise. . .only when I switch over the the Sirius. Any ideas???

 

Sounds like you may have a ground loop problem. Where do you have the Sirius unit grounded? How exactly is it connected to your radio?

 

I'm assuming it's grounded through the cigarette lighter since it has a power adapter that plugs into it and that supplies the power to the Sirius radio. The other two wires that connect to the Sirius radio are the antenna wire that mounts on the roof to pick up the satellite signal and the FM wire that goes from the Sirius unit to the back of the regular radio and plugs into the antenna slot. Then the regular antenna wire is plugged into this harness. Could it be that the cigarette lighter isn't grounded right??

 

I would start by trying to ground it to the same ground used by the radio. The fewer pathes to ground you have the better. If that doesn't help I would also try connecting the 12V from the Sirius to the same 12V wire supplying the radio. If that still doesn't do it I would try moving the wires from the Sirius to the radio around to see if the wiring itself is picking up RFI from other equipment nearby. If that still doesn't do the trick I'd take it back to wherever you got it and ask them what the deal is.

 

thanks for the help! I will try moving the ground to match that of the radio and see what happens. If not I will try the other and if nothing I will contact Sirius. In fact I have an 800 # for their tech support that I might call. I didn't do it yet because I find the info on here usually more helpful and reliable than tech supports.
Good luck tonight Ohio State! I'm from Florida but not necessarily a Gator fan but it should be an interesting game!!

Thanks!

 

moving the ground worked perfect. Thanks

 

I thought it would. Having more than one path to ground is never a good idea with a car stereo setup.