Can the Sirius radio be set to a different FM frequency?
===============
If your Sirius Radio has an audio output and your car radio a cassette
player ; you will be able to either homebrew or purchase an audio cassette
shaped transducer with an audio input ,which you stick into the cassette
player , such that by "playing the transducer" you can listen to its audio
input being the audio output of the Sirius radio.

That would solve your 'free FM channel " problem , although perhaps with a
somewhat reduced sound fidelity compared with the FM radio route.

A long time ago I have seen articles for homebrewing the above transducer.
It is a coil inside the cassette placed at short distance from the cassette
players 'head' ,the coil being fed by the audio signal source. It is also a
simple way to connect a ham radio transceiver to the car's loudspeaker
system.
I thought that Ratshack might sell the above type of transducer.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

"Highland Ham"
wrote in
message
...
Can the Sirius radio be set to a different FM
frequency?
===============
If your Sirius Radio has an audio output and
your car radio a cassette
player ; you will be able to either homebrew or
purchase an audio cassette
shaped transducer with an audio input ,which
you stick into the cassette
player , such that by "playing the transducer"
you can listen to its audio
input being the audio output of the Sirius
radio.

Until recently, all of the sat radio boxes came
with a fake cassette of this type. Since cassette
players have vanished from new car radios, the FM
modulator is the answer these days.

I too have the interference problems using the FM
output from my XM. Fortunately my car radio still
reads cassettes. We have strong FM stations every
400 kHz around here, in some cases stations in the
Balto/DC area are just 200 kHz apart.

One of the serious problems using the FM approach
is that one must set the audio level far below
what you get from over-the-air FM stations. FM
stations process their audio to be LOUD, yet do
things to negate the 75 us preemphasis curve.
Your XM/Sirius FM modulator doesn't have all that
fancy processing, so you may have to set it as
much as 10 or 15 dB lower in level to avoid
overdeviating.

The only really good way for sat radio is a direct
audio connection of some type.

R J Carpenter wrote:
"Highland Ham"
wrote in
message
...

Can the Sirius radio be set to a different FM

frequency?

===============
If your Sirius Radio has an audio output and

your car radio a cassette

player ; you will be able to either homebrew or

purchase an audio cassette

shaped transducer with an audio input ,which

you stick into the cassette

player , such that by "playing the transducer"

you can listen to its audio

input being the audio output of the Sirius

radio.

Until recently, all of the sat radio boxes came
with a fake cassette of this type. Since cassette
players have vanished from new car radios, the FM
modulator is the answer these days.

I too have the interference problems using the FM
output from my XM. Fortunately my car radio still
reads cassettes. We have strong FM stations every
400 kHz around here, in some cases stations in the
Balto/DC area are just 200 kHz apart.

One of the serious problems using the FM approach
is that one must set the audio level far below
what you get from over-the-air FM stations. FM
stations process their audio to be LOUD, yet do
things to negate the 75 us preemphasis curve.
Your XM/Sirius FM modulator doesn't have all that
fancy processing, so you may have to set it as
much as 10 or 15 dB lower in level to avoid
overdeviating.

The only really good way for sat radio is a direct
audio connection of some type.



The 2005 Dodge Caravan we just ordered comes standard
with an AM/FM CD Cassette radio. Yup, it has BOTH a
cd player AND a cassette player!

BTW those cassette adaptors use a tape head run in
reverse for the coupling.

I tried one of the cassette audio couplers and now it will not exit!
Looks like I will have to remove the Philips car radio and take it apart.
The head had a small head-only plastic cover and this may have had to be
removed :-(

"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
...
R J Carpenter wrote:
"Highland Ham"
wrote in
message
...

Can the Sirius radio be set to a different FM

frequency?

===============
If your Sirius Radio has an audio output and

your car radio a cassette

player ; you will be able to either homebrew or

purchase an audio cassette

shaped transducer with an audio input ,which

you stick into the cassette

player , such that by "playing the transducer"

you can listen to its audio

input being the audio output of the Sirius

radio.

Until recently, all of the sat radio boxes came
with a fake cassette of this type. Since cassette
players have vanished from new car radios, the FM
modulator is the answer these days.

I too have the interference problems using the FM
output from my XM. Fortunately my car radio still
reads cassettes. We have strong FM stations every
400 kHz around here, in some cases stations in the
Balto/DC area are just 200 kHz apart.

One of the serious problems using the FM approach
is that one must set the audio level far below
what you get from over-the-air FM stations. FM
stations process their audio to be LOUD, yet do
things to negate the 75 us preemphasis curve.
Your XM/Sirius FM modulator doesn't have all that
fancy processing, so you may have to set it as
much as 10 or 15 dB lower in level to avoid
overdeviating.

The only really good way for sat radio is a direct
audio connection of some type.



The 2005 Dodge Caravan we just ordered comes standard
with an AM/FM CD Cassette radio. Yup, it has BOTH a
cd player AND a cassette player!

BTW those cassette adaptors use a tape head run in
reverse for the coupling.