xm reception problems once in a while

When i got the car i ordered the xm. Was a lot.. think around 800 bucks for the receiver and installation, then i had to pay for a year's subscription. Took a few months for it to show up from backorder. Got the toyota dealer to install it. I head out of the city a little while after and the signal doesnt work. I'm there, what the hell, thats why you get this so if you're out in the boonies and there's no fm. I look it up online and the antenna was supposed to be in the right corner of the dash by the window. Bring it back, the guy had the antenna inside the roof between the seats. So he puts it in the top right corner of the dash where you can see it. Head out of town and it works past where the city repeater would stop. You can tell its using the satellite only if there's tall trees right beside the road.

Seemed to work ok.. then i think maybe a few months later it would only happen if i was driving for a couple hours. What would go on is all of a sudden the signal would cut-out every second or so of the station playing. Very annoying, and pressing the radio off button and restarting the radio wouldn't fix it. The fm's ok. The only thing that fixes it is if i turn the vehicle power button off and restart the car. Then the xm radio would be normal. Pain in the nice person if you're on the highway and it keeps cutting out every other second. Can't just pull over. Seems to be pretty random when it would happen. For a while it was bad.. i'd be working at night and it would crap out every hour or so, and sometimes maybe not. Was doing it lots maybe a couple to a few times a night, oh a few seasons ago. Lately seems to not do it.. maybe once every few days. I'll just stop the car and it'd be ok after. Can't exactly have it occur as soon as you start the car so difficult to bring it in and show them what's wrong. You'd have to drive it for a while before maybe it'd happen.

Another thing i got going on is after a while of driving at night if i shut off the car and the next time i restart, the odometer brightness seems to start on the daylight brightness almost. I have to use that round turn knob and push it up to the top where the notch is to even brighter then turn it down and it'll go back to night. Doesnt seem to be the full brightness i dont think but its still distracting and have to turn it down. The screen monitor doesnt go to daytime though. The first time i start the car during the night i think the odometer brightness might be normal brightness but after a few times of restarting it, then it'll be full brightness. Its the kind of thing where i just think oh i'll just turn that knob and it fixes it.. not enough to bring it in.

Anybody ever hear of these problems?

 

oh i noticed last night when i had to shut it off and restart it, the odometer brightness would go the same as if you'd click the little roll knob to full. But when you click that the video screen also goes to daytime. Yesterday thought it was less bright than full but its full. So i click it up till it hits that notch then back down and its normal again. Keeps doing it whenever i start the car up for the rest of the night. But the next day when i go to start up the car it starts out normally. But after i'm driving and have to shut it down and restart thats when i goes to full brightness again. Whys it doing that and how come it doesnt do it the first time i start it? And why does it start normally the next day but not the times after that during the same night. Is it cause the car sits for a period of time and something resets after a while?