can anyone tell me how to use these wires that were for a sat radio (pic)?

[wcanyon]

I bought a used Lexus IS 300 and I was told when I bought it that there used to be a satellite radio installed. There were some holes in the dash for it. Well as I was swapping out the piece of the dash that had the holes in it I saw a 3.5mm jack. Sweet, I thinks, maybe I can plug in an MP3 player. Well, I plugged in my MP3 player but nothing ever happened. No big surprise since there were 4 wires and I only plugged in one.

Can anyone tell me whether I should be able to use these wires to play media from an MP3 player? Do I need to do something with the yellow and green wires and the back of my stereo? The CD player doesn't work, so I'm assuming that the sat radio was bypassing the CD player. The last guy who owned the car (for a short while) said he never tried to play the CD player so he didn't know much.

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[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

yellow and green are sat radio antenna connections. the DC plug was power for the unit. the audio jack may go back to an FM modulator behind the dash, or the guy may have just used the wireless FM transmitter in the unit.

best thing to do is pull the head unit and trace those wires, see if a FM modulator was installed.

what year IS300?

 

[wcanyon]

It's an 01. Dark blue. Prettiest car I've ever owned (I'm a bit cheap when it comes to cars).

Thanks for the assist.

I cracked it open and pulled out the head unit. At the end of the 3.5mm jack I found one of these:

Delphi SkyFi SA10003

Delphi SA10003 FM Modulator Allows you to add a Delphi XM receiver to any vehicle with an FM radio! at Crutchfield.com

Soooo, hmm. Plug in the MP3 and tune the radio to 87.9 Mhz or whatever the adaptor is set to? Well I'll go give it a shot. If you have any other ideas, let me know.

 

[wcanyon]

Well, that didn't work. Plugged in the MP3, tuned the stereo, nothing. Ideas?

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

you could buy another FM modulator and remove that one. you could probably sell that for the price of a standard FM modulator. it's a low fidelity option.

you could also replace the factory head unit and gain all the functionality you could want.

 

[wcanyon]

I don't understand. I have an FM modulator, don't I? Why buy another one? Or is that one specific to sat radio? Maybe this one doesn't work. I have my phone hooked up to the tape deck via one of those tape adapters; do you think that the FM mod would sound much better?

I'm not really interested in replacing the head unit. The solution that I have is decent, just wondering if the modulator would sound a lot better.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

that one is specific to a Delphi system, so it's not surprising it won't work for a standard mp3. it needs a signal to turn on - probably the voltage from the sat radio receiver on the antenna cable.

tape deck adapters wear down and are pretty poor overall. an FM modulator can't sound any better than FM radio - if you're happy with that then go that route.

it really depends on your expectations. i've used both, neither are that good, but given the choice - i'll chose an FM Modulator every time. it's a neater option.

 

[wcanyon]

that one is specific to a Delphi system, so it's not surprising it won't work for a standard mp3. it needs a signal to turn on - probably the voltage from the sat radio receiver on the antenna cable.

Ah, that makes much more sense. Thanks for the help. I think I'll give the FM modulator a shot. I dunno about removing the Sirius adaptor, it looks like a bit of work finding all those wires and removing them. I'm tempted to leave it in there, especially since I have no idea if it works at all.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

you'll have to disconnect the FM antenna connection to get it out of the signal loop.

i'd just pull the whole thing. you have those cables in your hand above, and their connection to the unit. you have the inline antenna connections (just replace the new FM modulator here), and you have the roof mounted antenna. pull the whole thing out, and put it on ebay (don't cut anything).

 

[wcanyon]

I looked this up on ebay and it sells for about $20. Not worth pulling open the dash for that much money, I'll just leave it in there. I traced one of the wires and it goes over to the other side of the steering column somewhere, way too much work to get to the other end of that.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

eh, it's relative. it would take about 30 minutes for me to do it. i don't consider that to be a hassle. but you never know, maybe it will become useful one day (like buying a sat radio receiver on ebay).