I cant for the life of me get my sportster 4 to work now. i had it in the truck for a few months, took it out to work on a new center console/box, and finally decided to put it back in. well i connect it all back up like it was, but it tells me antenna not detected. but its freakin plugged in. no wires were removed, just the receiver, so everything is where it was when it worked.

what the hell can i do to get it working again? i hope it not a new antenna, becuase theres no reason for this not to work anymore.

 

try to wiggle the antenna connector or push to make sure its plugged in all the way

 

had the same problem..the antenna was toast..if you call sirius let them know they usually will send you another one free of charge very good to deal with!

 

x2...

for some reason, their antenna's are crap. the plugs are anyways... i need to have mine replaced, but i'm lazy. i've got mine jammed on there well enough that i can deal with it.

 

x3 on the antenna, same thing happened to me.

 

Also, make sure your wire wasn't pinched too much and shorted or something, or was stretched and broke the VERY thin center conductor of the tiny, tiny coaxial cable.

I think it sounds from all these posts like a production problem and maybe they will fix it.

The way the Sportster and all other sat receivers know there is an antenna connected is not by the signal -- you could have no signal at all and still have an antenna. The way they know is by the antenna's internal signal amplifier pulling power from the receiver. The receiver sends DC power out the coax to the antenna's amplifier, and the amplifier sends amplified satellite radio signal down to the receiver.

So an open circuit in particular dooms the system for several reasons, but also triggers an "antenna not detected" message.

Generally a short circuit just results in loss of signal. The receiver's limit the current being sent out so a short doesn't damage anything (in the designs I'm familiar with anyway).

I'd inspect the cable very carefully.

 

My antenna kinda did it yesterday. nut it seems fine now.......

 

yeah I have to wiggle the wire sometimes or push it into the reciever harder. Maybe I'll look into getting a new antenna soon.