Sirius Satellite Radio Reception Issues

Ever since I upgraded from the original RCD-510 head unit to RNS-510 the Sirius reception in my 2010 JSW has been questionable at best. Long Island and NYC has never been the best places to pick up satellite radio, but what irks me is how the reception got worse going from the non-navi head unit to the navi unit. I have been installing car audio equipment for many years, but I'm approaching the point of pulling the head unit back out and making sure the connector going back to the sharkfin is on properly. Does anyone have any ideas or personal experience with this issue?

4cefed4 said:

Ever since I upgraded from the original RCD-510 head unit to RNS-510 the Sirius reception in my 2010 JSW has been questionable at best. Long Island and NYC has never been the best places to pick up satellite radio, but what irks me is how the reception got worse going from the non-navi head unit to the navi unit. I have been installing car audio equipment for many years, but I'm approaching the point of pulling the head unit back out and making sure the connector going back to the sharkfin is on properly. Does anyone have any ideas or personal experience with this issue?

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I have what may be a similar issue. My satellite reception is good, but it cuts out for 1-2 seconds 8-10 times during my 1 hour commute. I understand some cutting out if I'm under an overpass or tunnel, but in broad daylight cruising up the 5? I have the same service in our other car and have never had it cut out. Is there any diagnostics one can do on the antenna?

Ditto for me...Sirius reception sucks on my RNS-510, I don't know why anyone would pay for it when FM sounds better and IPOD interface has the best sound and you actually get to listen to what you want to when you want to.

I have also noticed occasional breaks in the signal from time to time. I questioned if it could be worsened by weather-related issues, but not sure. I enjoy the iPod interface, but it also has the skips at the beginning of each song. I have not done the firmware update yet. In general, I think the sound quality of Sirius is OK. I have found traffic updates useful when traveling I95 thru NYC, but that is infrequent. I'm still trying to decide if I'll want to renew. I have free service in my Golf until year's end, but the Jetta has expired. Maybe if I can get a 2 for 1 deal?

I get occasional drops in the signal, however it's only when going under overpasses and such. My copy of the RNS-510 seems to do fairly well with satellite reception.

To the OPs point, if the connector for the antenna were loose / failing you'd likely see the radio flash "Antenna" on the display if the connection is broken.

Same daily occasional drop in signal in my 2010 Golf with RNS-510 - but is most often seen when going under overpasses or around tall buildings. My previous car (Honda Ridgeline) had XM and I NEVER had any drops - not even one. The Sirius drops are annoying and it is hard to tell if this is a Radio (RNS vs. RCD) issue or something else like a general Sirius transmission issue.

Anyone have feedback on the RCD or aftermarket radio reception?

interesting - I too am having rather poor Sirius reception in my 2010 JSW TDI w/ no Nav. Driving under bridges, parking next to tall buildings and in parking garages. I've tested friends cars (Toyota, Ford) and they do not seem to have that issue, and in addition to that the sat stations all sound horrible - like there is a hi-mid range boost and/or severely lacking low-mids. Playing with the limited 3 band eq does not help much...

brenodo said:

interesting - I too am having rather poor Sirius reception in my 2010 JSW TDI w/ no Nav. Driving under bridges, parking next to tall buildings and in parking garages. I've tested friends cars (Toyota, Ford) and they do not seem to have that issue, and in addition to that the sat stations all sound horrible - like there is a hi-mid range boost and/or severely lacking low-mids. Playing with the limited 3 band eq does not help much...

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The TDI audio system is mediocre at best, and satellite radio transmissions are highly compressed. The combination of the two does not allow for high fidelity, and you'll hear those audio limitations. You can upgrade the audio system, but there's nothing that can be done to make Sirius sound any better, it is what it is.
I have my treble control set below "mid", the mid-range just above "mid", and the base (what there is of it) set a couple of notches below max. For me, that makes the most of a very limited system.

timwagon said:

The TDI audio system is mediocre at best, and satellite radio transmissions are highly compressed. The combination of the two does not allow for high fidelity, and you'll hear those audio limitations. You can upgrade the audio system, but there's nothing that can be done to make Sirius sound any better, it is what it is.
I have my treble control set below "mid", the mid-range just above "mid", and the base (what there is of it) set a couple of notches below max. For me, that makes the most of a very limited system.

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Sure, my eq settings are a bit different than yours, but as compared to any other audio source (SD Card, CD, A2DP, FM) the Sat feeds just sounds like crap. Now, I also have an internet based Sirius subscription that sounds 100% better and I'll most likely just start to utilize either A2DP (if that works) or the 1/8" AUX in as a solution.

Sirius support told me that I must disable all in car Bluetooth and it will sound better. Then they had me do the following (expecting a change): turn off radio/turn off car/open drivers door/wait 30 seconds/close drivers door/start engine/turn on radio/notice no change!!! ARGH!

Whats more frustrating is that in other cars (with BT enabled), a Prius, a Ford Mustang and a Toyota Corolla - all with Sirius installed - the audio quality sounds fine.

I have been fairly happy with the audio quality of the Sirius, just have been suffering from the reception issues. My biggest audio quality complaint is with using the SD card slot. My system displays severe compression issues at mid to high volume, so that if you're listening to a song and there's a kick drum or low bass note, the overall volume drops significantly and then returns. It creates this annoying doppler-type effect. Still much better than the "upgraded" Monsoon radio in my MK4, so I guess I can't really complain too much.

I've had a couple of sat cars, not just VWs but others. The sat feeds have always sounded crappy...thin and tinny at best. In my opinion the only reason to have a sat radio subscription is if one drives long distances. I do, and love the satellite, listening to a lot of ESPN and comedy channels. But I don't have it in my 'local' cars...no real need for it to me.

My dealer just replaced my non-nav radio, after we dealt with the intermitant dropped satellite reception issues for 5 weeks. It made no difference in performance, as we are still expereinceing dropped signals. Reading through a number of other Sirius radio reception blogs, signal lose while passsing under large bridges and passing by large building is not uncommon. What doesn't make sense is that the radio is supposed to have a 4 second buffer, per the tech standard for the radio, to address these momentary lose of signal issues. I wonder if our collective VW radios do not have that buffer?

On the nav and non-nav radios you can press and hold the setup button for several seconds to get into the diagnostics menu. It will come up with a button for AM, FM, and SIRIUS.

The AM and FM button will give you the signal strength on decibels over a microvolt of the station.

The Sirius menu will give you the signal strength and signal to noise ratio of both the satellite reception and the terrestrial (transmitters located on tall towers and buildings in major cities) reception plus allot of other status indicators. There is also another indicator for the bit error rate (how much corruption of the data) and how well its decoding the data stream overall.

The AM signal strength indicator is good for picking up distant AM talk show stations while your sitting in your car eating lunch. Just dial it up and drive around the parking lot till the signal meter peeks.

Klystron said:

The Sirius menu will give you the signal strength and signal to noise ratio of both the satellite reception and the terrestrial (transmitters located on tall towers and buildings in major cities) reception plus allot of other status indicators. There is also another indicator for the bit error rate (how much corruption of the data) and how well its decoding the data stream overall.

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I have used that screen while driving through new york city in areas where I know they have terrestrial antennas from past experience, and that feature never seems to work with my JSW, which is confirmed by nothing popping up on that screen either.