Sirius - Reception Problems - SOLVED!!!!
 

Hope this is the right forum for this. Here's the senerio...

Purchased the X (CPO) just over a month ago. Sirius was still active from previous owner. Noticed when scanning/searching through channels that several stations would be skipped. Didn't pay much attention b/c they were mostly channels that I weren't interested in listening to anyway.

Well yesterday while driving home from work, audio goes out and monitor displays "Call Sirius - 1-888-539-Sirius". Needless to say, the previous owner's prepaid 2 year subscription had expired. So, I get home, get the ESN, go online and activated my own account for 1 year. Went to truck and verified that all the stations that I'd previously pre-set were still there and playing.

Okay, here's where the problem/confusion begins. Still noticing that when advancing from one station the next several are skipped. When trying to tune to those stations manually getting message in display "No Channel". According to owner's manual "No Channel" indicates the following condition... "If an unavailable or invalid channel is selected or a memorized channel has been deleted by Sirius from the channel line up, 'No Channel' will be displayed for 3 seconds and will automatically return to the last selected available channel. If you have subscribed to the Sirius family package, some channels may not be available in the channel line up. If a memory is recalled and contains a non subscribed channel, 'No Channel' will be displayed for 3 seconds and will automatically return to the last selected available channel".

Verified with Sirius that I do not have any restrictions on my account, not signed up for the Family Package, and should be receiving all available channels. An example of some of the channels I'm unable to tune to are... 106, 108, 111, etc. in the Entertainment Catagory. I haven't tried any of the other catagories yet as I've already arrived to the office and didn't have time to do more troubleshooting. Just grabbed the SAT manual from the glovebox to read over in the office. Wanted to make sure I wasn't being an idoit before I called Sirius or contacted the dealer.

Any ideas or suggestions?

This can happen when the receiver is activated without a clear signal.

Try having Sirius resend the signal when you are in an open area, like a parking lot with the vehicle parked.

Will definitely give Sirius another call and have them resend the signal again. They supposely did that twice while I was on the phone with them, driving in to work. This time I'll have them do it while I'm sitting in the middle of the parking lot eating my lunch.

Needless to say, after resending the signal twice this morning, Sirius was quick to say that the problem was with the radio and to contact BMW for service or replacement. Dont' you just hate when people blow you off and try to pass the the problem off to someone else without first throughly investigating the problem. :mad: I then asked to speak with someone more technical and unsurprisingly was disconnected in the transfer. That's how I ended up talking to the seond moron and receiving another signal. At the problem is still there.

I'll posted the results of the 3rd activation signal after lunch. Thanks again the quick response.

Well wouldn't you know it... I go out for lunch and all the channels are there. When I first turned the truck on Sirius was completely silent on all channel (no audio, no messages, no nothing). I turned the radio off and back on the it begins to play. I scan through all the channels noticing specifically that all the ones that I wasn't receiving this morning are now working perfectly. Go figure!

Prehaps the system just needed time to update from the signal(s) that Sirius had sent it this morning. I'm assuming that the original activation signal didn't update the system properly and then the 2 subsequent singals sent back to back may have caused some conflicts as well. Obviously sitting for a few hours and prehaps even turning it off and back on reset something

Whatever that case, I'm boppin' my head again. Thanks again your reply and suggestion Tom G.