Anyone have a functional Shark Fin Antenna?

What color is your car, by the way, Cairo? It looks like the Magnetic Grey, but that's not available yet... Maybe it's just the lighting in some of the pictures, because in others it looks like the Classic Silver Metallic.

 

Just installed my Shark Fin antenna and new micro XM antenna hidden beneath it. Thanks a LOT to Cairo for his helpful photos and hints.

Just a couple points on the things I encountered and did a little differently as well as emphesising a few other points that need to be paid close attention to.

1)I couldn't figure out how to detatch the light on the roof...but I didn't try all that hard either. I found that I could reach what I needed to just by removeing the 3 little retaining buttons and pulling down the roof liner. A little more awkward and tight, but not that bad.

2)Be careful when pulling down the liner. I managed to completely lose one of the retaining 'buttons'--thought it went behind the kids' car seats, took them out, felt b/w the cushions, looked under the seats, on the garage floor, everywhere I could think to look...never found the dang thing. Hopefully it'll turn up one day. I never even saw it pop off, it just disappeared.

3)Feeding the long wire through the hole in the roof is a bit of a pain. Mine ended up tangled. I detangled enough to reach my tuner without much problem and just left the rest of the 'spagetti' up under the roof liner.

4)The notch in the seal on the old antenna base does not need to be very big. Indeed, in hind sight, I wonder if it's needed at all. Be sure to look at the guage of the wire for the XM antenna before you start to cut. I might even consider just using a tiny round file or something just to make a slight groove for the wire so that the seal will be tight if you do make any kind of mod to the seal.

5)Definately use the painter's tape to align the Shark Fin before you try to attach it. Esp. with the XM antenna there's just barely enough room for the Shark Fin to fit over them front to back (maybe a centimeter of 'play'), but side to side there's plenty). Even checking, double checking, retaping when I thought it was off, then aligning neatly within my tape I ended up slightly off center. I don't think it's noticable unless you are intentionally looking for it, but it's not perfect to my moderate disappointment.

6)BE VERY CAREFUL removing the paper over the adhesive on the Shark Fin. I made the cuts as recommended before trying to remove the paper but still ended up pulling off the adhesive part from the foam for about 1/3rd of the seal! I had some spray adhesive at home so I carefully sprayed some of that onto the remaining foam that did not have adhesive on it and I think that saved the day. I had to do some clean up of the spray that leaked onto the Shark-fin and onto the roof of the car, but Goo-gone took care of it without any problem.

I'm very pleased with the appearance. Getting rid of the 10cm x 10cm ugly black box of an XM antenna I had before alone would have been worth the effort of replacment...wish I'd done that 2 years ago. But having both antennas hidden and a very nice Shark-fin that seems to fit with the curvy and sleek styling that the Prius has just seems to be a more logical antenna and appearance to me. I wouldn't have done this just to be 'cool', I honestly think it looks more natural and aerodynamic on the Prius.

 

BTW,
I just went out for a test of the antenna's reception.

Definately decreased reception...both for the AM/FM stations (some local stations actually seemed staticy) and for the XM. I used to be able to pick up my XM channels from inside the garage with minor break up of the signal as I pulled in. Now it really doesn't pickup at all inside the garage.

XM was fine outside so I'm certainly not changing anything, but folks should be aware before they do the mod.

And Darell, I haven't pulled off the wheel trims yet...maybe I'll do that today just for grins and to see if I like it. I've looked bofore and always thought the indent at the outside of the wheel looked unnatural, but the concensus certainly seems to be that it looks a lot better.

 

I've done several hours of driving since installing the new XM antenna under the shark fin.

This is sort of a combo warning and suggestion for anyone else considering doing the install this way.

My reception is markedly decreased. It's fine with open sky, no buildings and no power lines, but almost any powerlines will interfere and even areas in valleys that I have driven in many times before with no reception problems caused brief drop outs of XM reception today. So be warned, there is absolutely an impact, if I had to assign a number I'd say it's about a 50% lower reception.

Recommendation...consider moving the antenna built into the shark-fin to an area as remote to where the XM antenna will be as possible...like to the very front narrow slot. Not sure what will be involved to accomplish that, but I have to think that that array is part of the problem if not most of it.

I may write to the shark-fin guys (Darell, do you have an e-mail addy you can send me?) and see if they'll send me a new adhesive and then just redo the antenna myself with pic and other info.

 

Evan - drop them Arthur an email at [email protected]