20 Most Recent Sirius Sportster 4 SP4-TK1 Satellite Radio Receiver with Car Kit - Page 2 Questions & Answers

idk

Hi try and reset it, it's freezed.

Take care.

From the sounds of it your connection between the radio and the cradles has probably degraded due to dirt, dust, and all the other good stuff we have to drive with. On either the back or the bottom of the radio will be the copper contacts that connect to the cradles connectors. Pick up some contact cleaner form your local electronic store and give all of the contacts a good cleaning. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully as you don't want to damage them anymore. If you can't find any contact cleaner you can use Isopropryl alcohol and Qtips but be extremely careful about using it sparely and making sure that the contacts are completely dry before you make the connection.

Remove the batteries from the boombox. If there is no batteries in the boombox, and it still does this, then the boombox itself is no longer any good.

Use the AUTO OFF feature or set a 'sleep timer' for 60 minutes.

Yes, the whine could be coming from the ignition system in the car. Does it go away when you turn off the engine? Does it go to a higher pitch when the engine rpms increase?

If so, the noise is ignition based and you must obtain some ignition filters for your car. Car parts places can usually supply you with such devices. Crutchfield.com also carries them.

If the whine is constant pitch and just remains the same does it go up and down with the volume setings? Or does it remain constant always? If it is constant it is rfi getting into the power amp. If it goes up and down with volume it is coming from in front of the volume control on the stereo set.

And, you might check with the supplier/manufacturer of the sat unit; they may have a filter accessory for it.

Ensure that power cables do not run next to RCA signal cables. If the cables are too close, engine noise, which may sound like a high-pitched whine, can get into the system. If whine is unavoidable, you may wish to use a Noise Filter. In addition to having your RCA cables mounted away from power cables, make them as short as possible, as signal strength is lost over distance, and higher frequencies are attenuated.

Connect the main power (+) for the amplifier directly to the battery. Check here for the proper wire gauge

I work for sirius so I know about all of these different issues and the most common one is the connections. It is imperative that the radios be connected to power with the cig lighter adapter. This adapter had circuitry in it that lowers the cars 12 volts to 5 volts which the sirius unit ooerates on. The old units were 12 volt and could hard wired into the vehicles fuse block, but all of the new radios operate on 5 volts. If this is not the issue with either of you then you have defective units. Being that all warranty replacement are with remanufactured units, your chance of getting a problematic unit increases after the initial return of your new unit.

you have a live going to ground meaning a live wire is touching another wire or touchin the caseing thus blowing your fuses
regards Doug

Shouldn't need one. Does the rear antenna connect to the direct FM box?

I, my brother and a guy at work had the same problem. I don't know how it happends but your antenna went out. You need to get a new one.

The issue will have to be the sportster unit. It would be too much of a coincidence for bothe the car cradle and Boom-Box to have something wrong with them. I have seen this before...most of the time, the connections on the sportster will have a bad solder joint. This will cause it to turn on and off intermittently. You can confirm this by wiggling the unit when it is docked and getting it to turn on and off. This is not something that would be easy to repair as you will want an electronics repair to fix. The Sportster comes with a 1 year warranty from the manufacturer, so if it is covered, then you can get a new tuner and apply your old subscription to the new one.

it could be the wire that connects from the actual antenna and the radio. Even if it is new it might just be wrong from the factory.

Directed Electronics is the maker of this product. You will need to find a local stereo shop to have them send it in for repair, or you can contact the manufacturer directly. Visit their website at www.directed.com for a dealer or for contact information.

it does ont keep the memory

It could be the antenna wire is shorted especially if its the lower gauge wire.

Antenna's are fairly inexpensive to replace you could test it by setting a different antenna on the dashboard and see if the previous antenna is bad.

No need to get to the back of the radio to connect this unit as it will broadcast over an fm frequency. But if you have have issues with static, you may need to install an FM Direct Adapter which plugs into the back of your car stereo where the antenna plugs in now. Professional installation is advised, but not required. If you need more specific help, let me know.