2010 Prius - Satellite Radio Signal Weak

In Mass I have a better experience when I was in Boston going off the ground repeaters than being on the roof of a parking lot with nothing above me.

 

Have had my Gen III ATP for 2 weeks now and the sat works a-ok in Ohio and NW Pennsylvania. No issues at all. Our terrain is mostly flat with few hills and deep valleys. Good luck tracking this down. I will stay tuned. No pun intended!

 

Mine cuts out a lot due to trees and hills. It does it in areas where I don't seem to have problems with my Sirius. I could live with it but the sound sucks so I'll not subscribe. I thought it might be the radio, but it sounds pretty good with CD's and my iPod Touch so it must just be the XM signal.

 

Have had my V for just over a week now and so far no problems here in Central MD unless I am in my garage or a parking garage. Lose signal immediately upon entering enclosed building, have not tried under trees yet.

 

No they haven't called me. it's seems that i will have to keep pushing this as far as it will get me by stopping in and bugging them. heck, i paid for it!
I don't know what i can do about it, since it seems like a satellite problem more that anything. I guess i am hoping they can install sirius at a discount or something. any ideas anyone?

 

I've had XM since they started, have used it with several cars with both permanent and portable antennas, and have had very few signal problems. I have a IV on order and will be driving it from my summer residence in WI down to Naples in November. There are a few spots with weak to no signal and I know exactly where they are so I'll be able to compare the Prius receiving capability with my past experience. Too bad it's two and a half months away.....

 

I had a weird experience yesterday. My satellite radio got zero reception. It was working perfectly fine, then I parked, went to a store, came out, and it quit working. I got home, restarted the car, and it worked fine. Odd!

 

I guess I don't care because I'm not going to subscribe. i have a lot of drop out spots. I have a ton of CD's. Why should I spend the $$$????

 

I've had my III for 5 days now, and I'm really happy with my XM reception in SE Mass. It does cut out when I get onto the side roads with "tree canopies" but the same thing always happened with my portable Sirius receiver. I think the sound quality is pretty good, considering they compress the living daylights out of the signal (all those channels are beamed to you via 1 datastream). I'm also not experiencing the FM reception problems others have posted. I wonder if there was a defective batch of antennae or something?

 

Took my 2010 Prius II in to the Toyota dealer to have them look into the signal problems. My complaint was, and is, that my other car with an after market XM radio gets much better reception with few dropouts. They ran the diagnostics three times and it is working as designed. They contacted Toyota Tech Assistance, who instructed to take it to a spot with a known poor reception and swap the factory antenna with an after market antenna. That's more than I'm likely to get involved until I do more testing. I am responding directly to Toyota asking that they resolve the issue and recommend a verified solution. I will probably at least make notes of suspect locations and try to duplicate them, first with the Prius, then with my other vehicle. I'm not 100% convinced at this time that the Prius cuts out every time at the same place. Can anyone verify this?

 

My XM cuts out if a butterfly flies over my car

 

I've had my IV for almost 2 months and never lost my XM signal.

 

I lose my sat signal under trees, overpasses, drive throughs, etc. It's definitely the Prius' antenna. I had a add on kit in a previous vehicle and almost never lost signal. The signal was so good I was convinced my XM radio had a buffer built into it.

 

+1 Same here. And XM radios (at least the RoadyXT I used to have) DO have a buffer built into them, afaik. I've been wondering in fact, if that isn't the issue with the Gen III XM... not so much weak reception as a small buffer causing any tiny interruption to come through.

 

Ahh well that explains it! Thank you for the info about the buffer. That probably is what the problem is with the Prius! So the real fix would be they would have to make a new unit with buffering capability. Yikes!

 

"Borrowed" from another forum ---

the xm signal is sent three times at different times first one sat then 5 seconds later the other sat and then the terrestrial signal. If you get any one of the three feeds or a mix of all of them you will have a continuous signal. If you are losing it under an overpass that means you are only getting one signal. This will happen often if the antenna is mounted in the car since the frame of the car likely blocks one satellite. So it sounds like your car is not getting both sats if you lose signal under an overpass unless there are other blockages at the same time such as a buildings shadow. The other thing that can happen is if the overpasses are spaced just right and your speed is just right you might get the perfect storm where your antenna misses both sats and terrestrial signal is not there or blocked. Most XM listeners can drive around all day and not be affected by overpasses, that's why I suspect you have a faulty installation

 

The XM has been great during our commute. We were in a parking garage today and the signal never went out. It used to with Sirius in the same garage. Must be the repeaters.

 

Like others here the XM signal cuts out in the same spots all the time. I will not be signing up for more. I purchased a Sansa Fuse and loaded it with my own music plus purchasing the pre-loaded "slot radio" card(s)....I only have "Rock" right now but it is a great alternative to XM. I only want music, not Howard Stern so there is no great need for me to keep XM.