SiriusXM/GPS Antenna Relocation/Replacment

[amcdermond]

I have a 2022 2 door Wildtrak and bought a TrailRax TRMR rack for it last year. Overall I love it. We have some Küat kayak mounts on the top as well as RotoPax, a shovel and an axe on the sides. The only issue we've had with it is that it's made our SiriusXM satellite reception spotty at times. I read a couple of posts here on Bronco 6G that indicated that the antenna is on the rear crossbar underneath the hard top, which explains our reception problems since it now has to look for the satellites through metal at certain angles.

I have been an Amateur (Ham) Radio operator (NH6Z) for more than 30 years now and work for a company that makes radios. I figured that I could probably come up with something to relocate those antennas so that they'd work better. The dilemma that I saw folks here encountering is that the Ford unit is a combination GPS and SiriusXM antenna and that by replacing it with a SiriusXM only antenna, they lost their GPS capabilities on the head unit. I wanted to preserve both.

I couldn't find any suitable antennas that would cover both frequency ranges, so I decided that I would have to go with a two antenna setup. This means that I had to use a splitter/combiner (they're really the same device) to get the two antennas into one feed going back to the SYNC system. Since I had experience with the company (and they're used all over the RF industry for parts like this) I chose a unit from MiniCircuits. Since the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies are 1575.42MHz and 1227.6MHz respectively, I needed a splitter that would go down to 1227.6MHz. The SiriusXM frequencies are from 2332.5MHz to 2345MHz. That means the splitter has to go from 1227.6-2345MHz. There is a wrinkle in here, though. You need to be able to pass DC because many GPS antennas are active and have a bias voltage on the coax that supplies power to the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) inside the antenna. If you don't pass DC, this means that your antenna won't get power. So, we really need a splitter that goes from 0Hz to 2345MHz. I chose the MiniCircuits ZFRSC-42-S+ which goes from 0-4200MHz. Plenty for our purposes. Note that you can also get this from Mouser and your total cost plus shipping might be better.

After that I moved on to antenna choice. I wanted an antenna that was active, because I was pretty sure that there was bias on the coax. Also, we need the antennas to have SMA connectors on them to match the splitter. I ended up choosing this one from Amazon. Since they were available, I wanted to pick a standard NMO antenna for SiriusXM. This lets me change it out if it gets worn out or I find another one that might work better. I also wanted something lower profile since my plan was to mount it on the rear driver's corner of the rack. I ended up with this one. Note pretty much every SiriusXM antenna I saw had an SMB connector of some sort on it. I ended up cutting off the connector and attaching an SMA connector on it instead. You could also buy a standard NMO mount with SMA connectors on it from someone like Diamond if you didn't want to modify the cable. I also removed the NMO mount from their mounting so that I could put it in a mount of my own design.

You also need a cable to connect the splitter to the SYNC head unit. Based on articles here, I got a cable from vCableMart. The cable is a FAKRA SMB Z 50121 Male to SMA Male. I got it with RG316 cable at 50cm. I could have probably gone shorter with like 25cm now that I have seen how it gets installed. Here is a link to that part.

I fabricated a bracket out of 16ga stainless steel. I'm a lot better with electronics than metalwork, though. I laid out and drilled holes for both of the antennas and bent it in the middle. There are two holes on the other side that allow me to bolt it to the TrailRax rack using two of the bolts holding the crossmembers in. I ran the coax down the side of the rack and bring it into the rear by sandwiching it between the hard top and the body of the Bronco. This isn't ideal because it squishes the cables, and I may have to eventually replace them, but I don't see any other places to bring it in that would be clean and that I wouldn't have to drill a hole that might cause water intrusion (a major concern in Western Oregon). I brought the cable up along the crossbar to where the stock antenna is installed. I was then able to unplug the stock antenna and plug my replacement in. This way I could return it to stock relatively easily.

I wrapped both coax cables inside a Panduit cable sleeve like this one. The link is just an example since I had a role of cable sleeve already that I had bought surplus a long time ago. The cable sleeve is secured by putting double walled shrink tube at both ends. The end result looks pretty clean.

There are some great documents posted on this forum post on how to get everything apart back there.

After firing it all up, I tested the SiriusXM radio and it worked great. I also put my SYNC head into diagnostics mode to look at the GPS satellite signal state, and it's also looking very good. So, all in all it's a good upgrade so far and we'll see how it performs in time. I hope this helps someone else that's having the same problem.

Sponsored

 

[JediMcMuffin]

Uhh. Wow. You sir kick ass. If you did all that for satellite/gps I’m itching to see what you did for a HAM antenna. I started with a hood /lip mount and removed my a pillar lights so I could use the rugged radio NMO mount which came out nice and clean. I’m now picking up repeaters another 30 miles north of me.

 

[amcdermond]

Uhh. Wow. You sir kick ass. If you did all that for satellite/gps I’m itching to see what you did for a HAM antenna. I started with a hood /lip mount and removed my a pillar lights so I could use the rugged radio NMO mount which came out nice and clean. I’m now picking up repeaters another 30 miles north of me.

It's ma'am, but thank you!

There's an Yaesu FTM-400XDR mounted up front. I've been meaning to do a write up on that as well, but haven't had a chance. For the antenna, I use the TrailRax TSAM. The hole in it is perfectly sized for a NMO mount. My NMO mount has RG-316 on it, so it's thin enough to just sandwich in the hood. It works really well. I have a second one for the other side, but I haven't put it on because I don't really have an antenna for it.

 

[JediMcMuffin]

It's ma'am, but thank you!

I stand corrected, I even thought about that for a second after I posted it. Now any chance you can help us figure out where the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz antennas are located? I have a hunch that if we can put a higher quality antenna on the 2.4Ghz one that wireless carplay will be WAY more reliable. I suspect that its literally just one of those stupid little wafer sized ones embedded directly on a module behind the screen.

 

[amcdermond]

Now any chance you can help us figure out where the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz antennas are located? I have a hunch that if we can put a higher quality antenna on the 2.4Ghz one that wireless carplay will be WAY more reliable. I suspect that its literally just one of those stupid little wafer sized ones embedded directly on a module behind the screen.

I wouldn't think so. The vehicle has WiFi communications that you can use to download software updates while it's sitting parked at your house. No antenna inside a metal box is going to do well with getting outside the metal box. And I wouldn't think that they'd bother to use a couple different antennas on the same band. I could be entire wrong, though.

If you look at the TCU, there are at least two coax ports on there (the red and the yellow). Those have gotta go to antennas somewhere. There's no other reason that I could think of why there'd be coax connectors on there.

 

[Mammal]

I have a 2022 2 door Wildtrak and bought a TrailRax TRMR rack for it last year. Overall I love it. We have some Küat kayak mounts on the top as well as RotoPax, a shovel and an axe on the sides. The only issue we've had with it is that it's made our SiriusXM satellite reception spotty at times. I read a couple of posts here on Bronco 6G that indicated that the antenna is on the rear crossbar underneath the hard top, which explains our reception problems since it now has to look for the satellites through metal at certain angles.

I have been an Amateur (Ham) Radio operator (NH6Z) for more than 30 years now and work for a company that makes radios. I figured that I could probably come up with something to relocate those antennas so that they'd work better. The dilemma that I saw folks here encountering is that the Ford unit is a combination GPS and SiriusXM antenna and that by replacing it with a SiriusXM only antenna, they lost their GPS capabilities on the head unit. I wanted to preserve both.

I couldn't find any suitable antennas that would cover both frequency ranges, so I decided that I would have to go with a two antenna setup. This means that I had to use a splitter/combiner (they're really the same device) to get the two antennas into one feed going back to the SYNC system. Since I had experience with the company (and they're used all over the RF industry for parts like this) I chose a unit from MiniCircuits. Since the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies are 1575.42MHz and 1227.6MHz respectively, I needed a splitter that would go down to 1227.6MHz. The SiriusXM frequencies are from 2332.5MHz to 2345MHz. That means the splitter has to go from 1227.6-2345MHz. There is a wrinkle in here, though. You need to be able to pass DC because many GPS antennas are active and have a bias voltage on the coax that supplies power to the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) inside the antenna. If you don't pass DC, this means that your antenna won't get power. So, we really need a splitter that goes from 0Hz to 2345MHz. I chose the MiniCircuits ZFRSC-42-S+ which goes from 0-4200MHz. Plenty for our purposes. Note that you can also get this from Mouser and your total cost plus shipping might be better.

After that I moved on to antenna choice. I wanted an antenna that was active, because I was pretty sure that there was bias on the coax. Also, we need the antennas to have SMA connectors on them to match the splitter. I ended up choosing this one from Amazon. Since they were available, I wanted to pick a standard NMO antenna for SiriusXM. This lets me change it out if it gets worn out or I find another one that might work better. I also wanted something lower profile since my plan was to mount it on the rear driver's corner of the rack. I ended up with this one. Note pretty much every SiriusXM antenna I saw had an SMB connector of some sort on it. I ended up cutting off the connector and attaching an SMA connector on it instead. You could also buy a standard NMO mount with SMA connectors on it from someone like Diamond if you didn't want to modify the cable. I also removed the NMO mount from their mounting so that I could put it in a mount of my own design.

You also need a cable to connect the splitter to the SYNC head unit. Based on articles here, I got a cable from vCableMart. The cable is a FAKRA SMB Z 50121 Male to SMA Male. I got it with RG316 cable at 50cm. I could have probably gone shorter with like 25cm now that I have seen how it gets installed. Here is a link to that part.

I fabricated a bracket out of 16ga stainless steel. I'm a lot better with electronics than metalwork, though. I laid out and drilled holes for both of the antennas and bent it in the middle. There are two holes on the other side that allow me to bolt it to the TrailRax rack using two of the bolts holding the crossmembers in. I ran the coax down the side of the rack and bring it into the rear by sandwiching it between the hard top and the body of the Bronco. This isn't ideal because it squishes the cables, and I may have to eventually replace them, but I don't see any other places to bring it in that would be clean and that I wouldn't have to drill a hole that might cause water intrusion (a major concern in Western Oregon). I brought the cable up along the crossbar to where the stock antenna is installed. I was then able to unplug the stock antenna and plug my replacement in. This way I could return it to stock relatively easily.

I wrapped both coax cables inside a Panduit cable sleeve like this one. The link is just an example since I had a role of cable sleeve already that I had bought surplus a long time ago. The cable sleeve is secured by putting double walled shrink tube at both ends. The end result looks pretty clean.

There are some great documents posted on this forum post on how to get everything apart back there.

After firing it all up, I tested the SiriusXM radio and it worked great. I also put my SYNC head into diagnostics mode to look at the GPS satellite signal state, and it's also looking very good. So, all in all it's a good upgrade so far and we'll see how it performs in time. I hope this helps someone else that's having the same problem.

Great write up! Thanks for sharing!

How are you liking the trail sight mount? This is the method I’m leaning towards for 2m/440.

do you like your antenna? any regrets?

Cheers!

 

[Kilgore]

I have a 2022 2 door Wildtrak and bought a TrailRax TRMR rack for it last year. Overall I love it. We have some Küat kayak mounts on the top as well as RotoPax, a shovel and an axe on the sides. The only issue we've had with it is that it's made our SiriusXM satellite reception spotty at times. I read a couple of posts here on Bronco 6G that indicated that the antenna is on the rear crossbar underneath the hard top, which explains our reception problems since it now has to look for the satellites through metal at certain angles.

I have been an Amateur (Ham) Radio operator (NH6Z) for more than 30 years now and work for a company that makes radios. I figured that I could probably come up with something to relocate those antennas so that they'd work better. The dilemma that I saw folks here encountering is that the Ford unit is a combination GPS and SiriusXM antenna and that by replacing it with a SiriusXM only antenna, they lost their GPS capabilities on the head unit. I wanted to preserve both.

I couldn't find any suitable antennas that would cover both frequency ranges, so I decided that I would have to go with a two antenna setup. This means that I had to use a splitter/combiner (they're really the same device) to get the two antennas into one feed going back to the SYNC system. Since I had experience with the company (and they're used all over the RF industry for parts like this) I chose a unit from MiniCircuits. Since the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies are 1575.42MHz and 1227.6MHz respectively, I needed a splitter that would go down to 1227.6MHz. The SiriusXM frequencies are from 2332.5MHz to 2345MHz. That means the splitter has to go from 1227.6-2345MHz. There is a wrinkle in here, though. You need to be able to pass DC because many GPS antennas are active and have a bias voltage on the coax that supplies power to the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) inside the antenna. If you don't pass DC, this means that your antenna won't get power. So, we really need a splitter that goes from 0Hz to 2345MHz. I chose the MiniCircuits ZFRSC-42-S+ which goes from 0-4200MHz. Plenty for our purposes. Note that you can also get this from Mouser and your total cost plus shipping might be better.

After that I moved on to antenna choice. I wanted an antenna that was active, because I was pretty sure that there was bias on the coax. Also, we need the antennas to have SMA connectors on them to match the splitter. I ended up choosing this one from Amazon. Since they were available, I wanted to pick a standard NMO antenna for SiriusXM. This lets me change it out if it gets worn out or I find another one that might work better. I also wanted something lower profile since my plan was to mount it on the rear driver's corner of the rack. I ended up with this one. Note pretty much every SiriusXM antenna I saw had an SMB connector of some sort on it. I ended up cutting off the connector and attaching an SMA connector on it instead. You could also buy a standard NMO mount with SMA connectors on it from someone like Diamond if you didn't want to modify the cable. I also removed the NMO mount from their mounting so that I could put it in a mount of my own design.

You also need a cable to connect the splitter to the SYNC head unit. Based on articles here, I got a cable from vCableMart. The cable is a FAKRA SMB Z 50121 Male to SMA Male. I got it with RG316 cable at 50cm. I could have probably gone shorter with like 25cm now that I have seen how it gets installed. Here is a link to that part.

I fabricated a bracket out of 16ga stainless steel. I'm a lot better with electronics than metalwork, though. I laid out and drilled holes for both of the antennas and bent it in the middle. There are two holes on the other side that allow me to bolt it to the TrailRax rack using two of the bolts holding the crossmembers in. I ran the coax down the side of the rack and bring it into the rear by sandwiching it between the hard top and the body of the Bronco. This isn't ideal because it squishes the cables, and I may have to eventually replace them, but I don't see any other places to bring it in that would be clean and that I wouldn't have to drill a hole that might cause water intrusion (a major concern in Western Oregon). I brought the cable up along the crossbar to where the stock antenna is installed. I was then able to unplug the stock antenna and plug my replacement in. This way I could return it to stock relatively easily.

I wrapped both coax cables inside a Panduit cable sleeve like this one. The link is just an example since I had a role of cable sleeve already that I had bought surplus a long time ago. The cable sleeve is secured by putting double walled shrink tube at both ends. The end result looks pretty clean.

There are some great documents posted on this forum post on how to get everything apart back there.

After firing it all up, I tested the SiriusXM radio and it worked great. I also put my SYNC head into diagnostics mode to look at the GPS satellite signal state, and it's also looking very good. So, all in all it's a good upgrade so far and we'll see how it performs in time. I hope this helps someone else that's having the same problem.

Very nice solution! I generally find the Sat radio performance to be sucky just from the tree canopy, so this was a project after my HF radio install is complete. Thanks for saving me the research, just placed an order with Mouser for the parts.

Bob
WB6AGE

 

[gmac71]

Hi amcdermond thanks for the write up. Two quick questions. Does the plastic cover for the rear roll bar just pop off? And how did you get the GPS reading on the front screen?

 

[amcdermond]

Hi amcdermond thanks for the write up. Two quick questions. Does the plastic cover for the rear roll bar just pop off? And how did you get the GPS reading on the front screen?

There is a procedure to get to the antenna in the roll bar that I linked to above: this forum post. That'll show you how to get everything apart. The plastic cover itself was a little bit stubborn, but it eventually popped off.

The GPS status is in the "Bezel Diagnostics Menu." There's a key combination that I don't remember off of the top of my head that activates it. You have to hold down like the "Track Up" and "Volume Down" buttons on the dash IIRC.

 

[amcdermond]

Great write up! Thanks for sharing!

How are you liking the trail sight mount? This is the method I’m leaning towards for 2m/440.

do you like your antenna? any regrets?

Cheers!

I love the TSAM. It works really well. I mean, there's not much of a ground plane, but on a Bronco, there's not much of a ground plane anywhere. I have a second TSAM that I bought that I'll probably put a GMRS antenna on. The antenna is a Diamond dual band that I've had for years. It works well enough.

 

[Vcastag]

I have a 2022 2 door Wildtrak and bought a TrailRax TRMR rack for it last year. Overall I love it. We have some Küat kayak mounts on the top as well as RotoPax, a shovel and an axe on the sides. The only issue we've had with it is that it's made our SiriusXM satellite reception spotty at times. I read a couple of posts here on Bronco 6G that indicated that the antenna is on the rear crossbar underneath the hard top, which explains our reception problems since it now has to look for the satellites through metal at certain angles.

I have been an Amateur (Ham) Radio operator (NH6Z) for more than 30 years now and work for a company that makes radios. I figured that I could probably come up with something to relocate those antennas so that they'd work better. The dilemma that I saw folks here encountering is that the Ford unit is a combination GPS and SiriusXM antenna and that by replacing it with a SiriusXM only antenna, they lost their GPS capabilities on the head unit. I wanted to preserve both.

I couldn't find any suitable antennas that would cover both frequency ranges, so I decided that I would have to go with a two antenna setup. This means that I had to use a splitter/combiner (they're really the same device) to get the two antennas into one feed going back to the SYNC system. Since I had experience with the company (and they're used all over the RF industry for parts like this) I chose a unit from MiniCircuits. Since the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies are 1575.42MHz and 1227.6MHz respectively, I needed a splitter that would go down to 1227.6MHz. The SiriusXM frequencies are from 2332.5MHz to 2345MHz. That means the splitter has to go from 1227.6-2345MHz. There is a wrinkle in here, though. You need to be able to pass DC because many GPS antennas are active and have a bias voltage on the coax that supplies power to the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) inside the antenna. If you don't pass DC, this means that your antenna won't get power. So, we really need a splitter that goes from 0Hz to 2345MHz. I chose the MiniCircuits ZFRSC-42-S+ which goes from 0-4200MHz. Plenty for our purposes. Note that you can also get this from Mouser and your total cost plus shipping might be better.

After that I moved on to antenna choice. I wanted an antenna that was active, because I was pretty sure that there was bias on the coax. Also, we need the antennas to have SMA connectors on them to match the splitter. I ended up choosing this one from Amazon. Since they were available, I wanted to pick a standard NMO antenna for SiriusXM. This lets me change it out if it gets worn out or I find another one that might work better. I also wanted something lower profile since my plan was to mount it on the rear driver's corner of the rack. I ended up with this one. Note pretty much every SiriusXM antenna I saw had an SMB connector of some sort on it. I ended up cutting off the connector and attaching an SMA connector on it instead. You could also buy a standard NMO mount with SMA connectors on it from someone like Diamond if you didn't want to modify the cable. I also removed the NMO mount from their mounting so that I could put it in a mount of my own design.

You also need a cable to connect the splitter to the SYNC head unit. Based on articles here, I got a cable from vCableMart. The cable is a FAKRA SMB Z 50121 Male to SMA Male. I got it with RG316 cable at 50cm. I could have probably gone shorter with like 25cm now that I have seen how it gets installed. Here is a link to that part.

I fabricated a bracket out of 16ga stainless steel. I'm a lot better with electronics than metalwork, though. I laid out and drilled holes for both of the antennas and bent it in the middle. There are two holes on the other side that allow me to bolt it to the TrailRax rack using two of the bolts holding the crossmembers in. I ran the coax down the side of the rack and bring it into the rear by sandwiching it between the hard top and the body of the Bronco. This isn't ideal because it squishes the cables, and I may have to eventually replace them, but I don't see any other places to bring it in that would be clean and that I wouldn't have to drill a hole that might cause water intrusion (a major concern in Western Oregon). I brought the cable up along the crossbar to where the stock antenna is installed. I was then able to unplug the stock antenna and plug my replacement in. This way I could return it to stock relatively easily.

I wrapped both coax cables inside a Panduit cable sleeve like this one. The link is just an example since I had a role of cable sleeve already that I had bought surplus a long time ago. The cable sleeve is secured by putting double walled shrink tube at both ends. The end result looks pretty clean.

There are some great documents posted on this forum post on how to get everything apart back there.

After firing it all up, I tested the SiriusXM radio and it worked great. I also put my SYNC head into diagnostics mode to look at the GPS satellite signal state, and it's also looking very good. So, all in all it's a good upgrade so far and we'll see how it performs in time. I hope this helps someone else that's having the same problem.

I have several Newbie (electronics) questions. I’m tired of my ‘broken’ reception and your solution is incredibly well detailed. I have a new replacement roof and a Half rack on my 4 door. It is solid (not like Ford honeycomb roof).
1. Is it possible to buy another matching Ford replacement antenna, (leaving original in place) and mount it to the roof, using a “splitter” on the OEM wire and running it to the new antenna?
2. Does a splitter exist, and would one interfere with the other?
3. If a splitter isn’t available, can the OEM antenna be unplugged and an extension of the cable be run to the new mount?

thank you!
Vince

 

[SeptuagenerianSasquatch]

I have several Newbie (electronics) questions. I’m tired of my ‘broken’ reception and your solution is incredibly well detailed. I have a new replacement roof and a Half rack on my 4 door. It is solid (not like Ford honeycomb roof).
1. Is it possible to buy another matching Ford replacement antenna, (leaving original in place) and mount it to the roof, using a “splitter” on the OEM wire and running it to the new antenna?
2. Does a splitter exist, and would one interfere with the other?
3. If a splitter isn’t available, can the OEM antenna be unplugged and an extension of the cable be run to the new mount?

thank you!
Vince

I've been having those annoying reception breaks on Siriuis, too. You posted these replacement parts and scheme, but ask how this is, or can be, done--confuses me. Or you posting this scheme for purposes of inquiry or confirmation or what? Also, are all those part numbers on the scheme from Ford? Do you know how much this package would cost, minus installation?

On a somewhat unrelated Sirius matter, maybe somebody can help me with a Sirius programming problem. I'm listening to a musical piece (classical, so these are usually long) in the truck, then I stop, get out, and go somewhere else. I take out my Android and put my earbuds in, turn on that channel and that musical piece starts from the very beginning! All I want is to continue the piece from where I left off when I turned the truck off. Very annoying..

Is there a way I can just resume play from the same spot in the truck? Or is this problem baked into Sirius?

 

[Vcastag]

I've been having those annoying reception breaks on Siriuis, too. You posted these replacement parts and scheme, but ask how this is, or can be, done--confuses me. Or you posting this scheme for purposes of inquiry or confirmation or what? Also, are all those part numbers on the scheme from Ford? Do you know how much this package would cost, minus installation?

On a somewhat unrelated Sirius matter, maybe somebody can help me with a Sirius programming problem. I'm listening to a musical piece (classical, so these are usually long) in the truck, then I stop, get out, and go somewhere else. I take out my Android and put my earbuds in, turn on that channel and that musical piece starts from the very beginning! All I want is to continue the piece from where I left off when I turned the truck off. Very annoying..

Is there a way I can just resume play from the same spot in the truck? Or is this problem baked into Sirius?

——————————-
I was hoping member amcdermond could respond, her expertise is evident.

I posted the pics and scheme I found on Ford as a reference to the OEM PARTS I found.

I wanted to know if I buy these parts ( same antenna) is there a splitter cable Available that would allow me to leave the current satellite antenna in place, plug into the splitter, run the new wire to the second satellite antenna and then mount it to my hardtop.

 

[amcdermond]

I have several Newbie (electronics) questions. I’m tired of my ‘broken’ reception and your solution is incredibly well detailed. I have a new replacement roof and a Half rack on my 4 door. It is solid (not like Ford honeycomb roof).
1. Is it possible to buy another matching Ford replacement antenna, (leaving original in place) and mount it to the roof, using a “splitter” on the OEM wire and running it to the new antenna?
2. Does a splitter exist, and would one interfere with the other?
3. If a splitter isn’t available, can the OEM antenna be unplugged and an extension of the cable be run to the new mount?

thank you!
Vince

1. You should be able to split the signal between two of the same antennas. I'm not sure how well it would work. There is a chance that the signals could add together in some cases and cancel each other out because they are out of phase. That could happen because you have the wrong coax lengths which cause the signals to be 180° out of phase. I'm not sure I'd do this.
2. A splitter certainly does exist. The same MiniCircuits splitter I used should also work to split two Ford antennas.
3. You can certainly extend the cable to the new mount. You might be able to mount it up so that you can switch between the two easily if you want. You'll just need a cable with the correct ends on it. Something like this would be an extension cable for that weird FAKRA connector: https://www.vcablemart.com/fakra-sm...male-rf-cable?search=FAKRA water blue&page=10

Good luck with your install!

 

[Vcastag]

1. You should be able to split the signal between two of the same antennas. I'm not sure how well it would work. There is a chance that the signals could add together in some cases and cancel each other out because they are out of phase. That could happen because you have the wrong coax lengths which cause the signals to be 180° out of phase. I'm not sure I'd do this.
2. A splitter certainly does exist. The same MiniCircuits splitter I used should also work to split two Ford antennas.
3. You can certainly extend the cable to the new mount. You might be able to mount it up so that you can switch between the two easily if you want. You'll just need a cable with the correct ends on it. Something like this would be an extension cable for that weird FAKRA connector: https://www.vcablemart.com/fakra-smb-z-female-fakra-smb-z-male-rf-cable?search=FAKRA water blue&page=10

Good luck with your install!

Thanks. So essentially, if I terminated the one inside the vehicle, and extended the cable directly to the new antenna mount on the roof - that should work. Correct?

Sponsored