yaseen Posted October 8, 2008 Share Posted October 8, 2008 I have a 1997 LS400 and my antenna is not working and I am thinking of replacing it with those new shark antennas but I don't want to make any holes on the car. I thought of the XM antennas, they look nice and you can attach them to the car easy. The question is would they work??? I am gonna use it to receive AM/FM frequency and I am not sure if it would work for that purpose or not??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TA in KC Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 The short answer, is no. Being a licensed ameteur radio operator has taught me more than I ever wanted to know about antennas. The XM antenna is not really designed to receive the same type of signal the regular antenna does. Actually, if you take a look at the back of the head unit, I don't even think the connectors are the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKperformance Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 Do most newer shark fin antennas not use 2 antennas built into one . One provides navigation and radio support and the other for radio frequency with 2 separate pigtails? It would look more than weird to have a shark fin on the side of your trunk as you do not want to drill holes and is not made for that position on a car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Young Posted October 22, 2008 Share Posted October 22, 2008 I think the shark fin is only for XM, the AM/FM antenna is in the back glass and the GPS antenna for the nav is under the instrument panel skin. The original XM antennas had two leads, one for the satellites and one for the ground based repeaters (in most cities) that give you the better reception than Sirius. It turns out the signal strength was better than XM anticipated and the later XM radios went to a single antenna lead that carries both the satellite and ground feeds. If my memory is correct,the XM signal is on the order of 2300 MHz, which is a long ways from anything else in the car. Also, like all XM antennas, the shark fin contains a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) that draws power from the XM radio and I'd be surprised if it would be of any use on something other than XM (possibly a Sirius radio could use it, since Sirius is on nearly the same frequency band). I had looked into using the wasted Lexus link antenna for XM, but that would not work due to the issues discussed above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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