Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Boat finally came back on Friday and I fired up the Sirius Radio. As usual, I had to do a refresh and was looking forward to listening to No Shoes Radio (Channel 62) this year in addition to Radio Margaritaville. Did two refreshes but it still did not add the channels. Called Sirius and found out that the Sirius receiver in my boat could not be upgraded. I asked why I had no issues with my 1997 Roady XM unit or my wife's 2007 Audi but did with a 2009 Sony radio and was told that it was due to the chipset used by Sony. Called Sony today and they not only told me that I needed an upgraded Sirius receiver but also a new Radio since the new receiver did not work with the older units. Finally decided to call Best Buy and talk to their installation guys and was told the that the reason that the new Sirius Receivers do not work with the old Head units is that they changed the adapter.

So if I were to completely swap out my current units (radio, sirius receiver, remote commander unit) it would cost around $400. Not going to happen for one radio station (there are actually 5 that are missing but I only care about the one). You would think that Sony would just sell an adapter to fit their older radios so that the upgrade was not as expensive but then again, it would not make them as much money.

A bit frustrated with the whole thing and I assume that eventually more stations will be lost due to upgrade cycles to force the upgrade.

What is the preference for Marine Radios other than Sony.

This is what works for me. I have a Sony radio on the Toon. My XM is around 5 yrs old. I tune the radio to 88.3 station and the XM will pick up and send the XM signal to the radio. So the XM is sending the signal to the radio and I'm listing thru the radio set on 88.3. It works for me, but may be where your at 88.3 may be used by another broadcast station

I use a portable Sirius unit that I bought off of e-bay for 30-40.00 a couple of years ago. I plug a jump cord it into the aux plug on the radio face and set the boat radio to Aux and works like a charm. The portable unit plugs into the cig lighter/charger port on the boat for power . Mounted the portable bracket directly under the boat radio with #m molding tape. Its out of the way and when we leave , I take the head with me, leaving the bracket in place . Cheaper than a new base radio and works great!!!

I dumped XM and use the IHeartRadio app from my cell phone....blue toothed to the stereo. You need cell coverage (which is not a problem on my lake) for it to work. The data stream is so small that it will barely eat into your data plan. Stations are just as good as XM.

Kramfam wrote:I dumped XM and use the IHeartRadio app from my cell phone....blue toothed to the stereo. You need cell coverage (which is not a problem on my lake) for it to work. The data stream is so small that it will barely eat into your data plan. Stations are just as good as XM.

We do the same thing as well. We use Pandora mostly. I have a Jawbone blue tooth speaker.

I droped sattilite after going through 4 radios in five years,they kept charging activation fees even after the said they'd wave them. To many calls back and fourth.

I don't even have a radio anymore, just a 4 channel amp with a RCA to headphone adaptor. I have Slacker Plus which is 4$ a month and it allows me to download stations to my phone so no cell service needed!

I just stream Sirius or other media from my phone. Blue tooth is all I need.