XM WX Antenna Help

[splatt]

I'm flying a Beechjet 400a. We just bought a portable XM WX reciever that only downloads the weather going South. It has a half dollar size antenna that plugs into the reciever and is then bluetoothed into our Tablet PC which runs Jepp Flight Deck. Any ideas on how to get this set-up to download the wx going north?

 

[Choppy]

Try putting the antenna on the other side of the cockpit. This has been a problem with portable antennas

 

[splatt]

Thanks for the reply... we did try that.

 

[SabreFlyR]

I'm flying a Beechjet 400a. We just bought a portable XM WX reciever that only downloads the weather going South. It has a half dollar size antenna that plugs into the reciever and is then bluetoothed into our Tablet PC which runs Jepp Flight Deck. Any ideas on how to get this set-up to download the wx going north?

I had the same setup in a 400 and same problem. Try several different locations on the glareshield while northbound. I finally solved the problem by having an external antenna put on.

If you haven't tried, put the antenna in corner of the glareshield and see what happens.We have a 400A now and though I have the XM displayed on an Avidyne I can only get my gps receiver for the efb's to work this way.

I never tried this, but if you haven't, you might try putting it at the top of the side window to see what happens.

 

[400A]

Our GPS an XM antenna's are located on the front part of the glareshield on the co-pilots side about 3-4 inches back from the windshield itself. Hawker/Beechcraft installed it for us. Only a few flights with it so far, but no problems yet. We have not done extended northeast bound operations yet. Noth and South it did good.

Ours is a Flight Cheetah 190. The service center puts the antenna in the same place for the Garmin 496 and say they have had no complaints.

 

[splatt]

I'll give that a try. Thx

 

[400A]

Our system also says not to have the two antenna's
closer than 6" apart and not to tie wrap the wires together.

 

[moonship]

The is for a mooney so I don't know if it will work in your case but I typically fly north-south on a commute and had connectivity problems northbound. I was told by the tech that XM has 2 sat's (rock and roll) which are geo-sync'ed southeast and southwest. The solution that worked for me was to purchase a splitter that comes out of the XM box and place one antenna in the lower left and lower right side of the glareshield deflected ~45 degrees with the shape of the window. Additionally I got suction cup mounts to hold the antenna alined with windshield. Hope this applys/helps.

 

[splatt]

That seems like a good idea. Thx. I'll try to find a splitter.

 

[ibpilot72]

This is a problem on electric winshields. We fly Excels, and we finally had external antennas installed due to reliability issues. We have not had any problems with it ever since. I know it is an expensive solution, but that should resolve your issues with reception.