XM on Carputer THE GUIDE

**wallaceacura** · 03-12-2006, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by DaveB

We don't have a Frys in Minnesota. I may be able to locate an apple serial printer cable though. I don't think Best Buy or rat shack has them but Compusa might. I'll have to do some more looking. I was hoping to find stuff locally today so that I could get to work on it.

I tried OfficeMax, Office Depot, Circuit City, Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc. and none had it. Ended up buying it on eBay for about $7 shipped. I can PM you the guy I bought from.

**Saturated_Fat** · 03-12-2006, 08:22 PM

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Terk-...oductDetail.do

I used something similar to that, got it from circuit city. It was basically just a big long cable with the correct style plug on one end and the brand name headunits interface on the other.

Not sure if thats the exact one I used but check your local bestbuy or circuit city. Should be around 10 bucks.

**DaveB** · 03-12-2006, 09:55 PM

Thanks guys. I found an Apple PC store and bought the serial printer cable.

I bought a Terk XMD1000 and installed it and I have everything working under Road Runner. Its pretty slick!

The only problem I have now is that the Terk XM radio introduced noise. I'm getting a rythmic noise that cycles up and down. Its kind of a white noise with an underlying tone of some kind. This is with the engine turned off. Its not alternator noise.

I assume serial cable is shielded and I did solder the braided ground wire to the outside of the DB9 connector. So I have a good ground on the cable. I also have a shielded shroud around the DB9. The two power wires, which are powered from my M2-ATX power supply, are plain 18 guage wires (no shielding)

The RCA cable I bought looks like a pretty cheap cable. Its a 6 foot Y adapter cable that goes from two RCA females to the 1/8 inch jack -- which plugs into the line-in on my PC. I'm guessing I may need to replace it with a shielded cable.

I have no idea whats causing the noise in the system, though. Has anyone else run into this problem. You guys agree that it may be the RCA cable?

**kamikaze2112** · 03-12-2006, 10:10 PM

i just ordered the solder cup mini-din connector from mycableshop.ca (.com for the US folks, dunno about overseas) http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/C8DSM.htm and then got a Female DB9 connector, and I forget the cable that I used, but it worked out really well.

**Saturated_Fat** · 03-13-2006, 07:29 AM

Originally Posted by DaveB

Thanks guys. I found an Apple PC store and bought the serial printer cable.

I bought a Terk XMD1000 and installed it and I have everything working under Road Runner. Its pretty slick!

The only problem I have now is that the Terk XM radio introduced noise. I'm getting a rythmic noise that cycles up and down. Its kind of a white noise with an underlying tone of some kind. This is with the engine turned off. Its not alternator noise.

I assume serial cable is shielded and I did solder the braided ground wire to the outside of the DB9 connector. So I have a good ground on the cable. I also have a shielded shroud around the DB9. The two power wires, which are powered from my M2-ATX power supply, are plain 18 guage wires (no shielding)

The RCA cable I bought looks like a pretty cheap cable. Its a 6 foot Y adapter cable that goes from two RCA females to the 1/8 inch jack -- which plugs into the line-in on my PC. I'm guessing I may need to replace it with a shielded cable.

I have no idea whats causing the noise in the system, though. Has anyone else run into this problem. You guys agree that it may be the RCA cable?

Hey I had the same issue, the noise is caused by either a poor cable terk xm or rca. I did the lazy thing and just bought a simple noise filter and put it between the rca from the terk and the 1/8inch jack for the computer, works fine now. Try unplugging the 1/8 from the cpu and see if you still have the noise.

**DaveB** · 03-13-2006, 10:42 AM

Thanks for the suggestions and info. I see that Radio Shack carries a monster cable that goes from RCA to the 1/8 jack. The price is decent at $8. I'm going to pick on up and see if that doesn't help. If it doesn't clear it up I'll try that filter that you mentioned. Did the filter affect the sound quality at all?

**wallaceacura** · 03-13-2006, 11:41 AM

I'm using Rat Shack's cheapest RCA to stereo adapter without any problems. The Monster should work great.

**DaveB** · 03-13-2006, 07:42 PM

Just an FYI for everyone. I picked up the monster cable RCA cable and all my noise issues went away.

**Cinfraco** · 03-29-2006, 10:16 PM

Does anyone know where to get more information about the terk protocall. I am looking to use the terk adapter to manipulate the stereo deck with the computer. Any information will be helpful. Once again I am not looking to connect to the XM unit but the box that it usually plugs into. It would save me a lot of time form doing my own reverse engineering.