Best AUX cable for XM ?

[DemolitionMan]

I recently had a new cd player installed in my tractor that has the auxiliary input on the front of the radio. I went and bought a cheap cable to connect my XM to the cd player using the aux setting of the radio, instead of the FM stations. When I am using the aux setting with the cable I hear in the background what sounds like the turbo spooling up and down. At an idle the pitch is a little lower and the volume of the noise softer. As I accelerate, the noise gains pitch and the volume of the noise increases. I am thinking it is the cheap cable I bought from Radio Shack. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on what might be causing the noise, or for a good cable to use? Any help is appreciated, and sorry if this is hard to follow....I'm very tired.

[DemolitionMan]

Best way I can think to describe it is the background noise you hear if you are using a Cb without the noise blocking feature such as a Cobra 25.

[Guardrail]

You might have a bad ground on the truck radio. A lot of ours do the same. What kind of XM do you use? I've had that problem with my Roady 2 but using the same cable on my crackberry/mp3 player works fine. I haven't tried a new cradle for the XM yet, that's next.

[DemolitionMan]

I have an Audiovox Xpress. I thought about having a bad cradle; I got the cradle and reciever from the car and tried it as well...same thing. I will check about the bad ground. It does seem to make sense b/c I tried the cable in someone else's tractor, and it sounded great. The difference being the mechanic had to splice the pigtail from the old radio to the new one in mine b/c we were out of the jumper harness, and in his the mechanic used a jumper harness.

[LTL Lifer]

Originally Posted by DemolitionMan

I recently had a new cd player installed in my tractor that has the auxiliary input on the front of the radio. I went and bought a cheap cable to connect my XM to the cd player using the aux setting of the radio, instead of the FM stations. When I am using the aux setting with the cable I hear in the background what sounds like the turbo spooling up and down. At an idle the pitch is a little lower and the volume of the noise softer. As I accelerate, the noise gains pitch and the volume of the noise increases. I am thinking it is the cheap cable I bought from Radio Shack. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on what might be causing the noise, or for a good cable to use? Any help is appreciated, and sorry if this is hard to follow....I'm very tired.

If a). it's a cheap cable or b). not plugged in tightly, you can get this noise. My cb does this also.

Take a look at this image of my setup. Of course I have a cassette deck (thank god) but I wanted to be able to run my xm and ipod without having to unplug the cable from the xm every time. With this setup, I can unplug from my ipod everyday and leave the open plug just hanging. It is a 3.5 female input y adapter (what the cassete adapter plugs into) to 2 - 3.5 male plugs...one to the xm and the other to the ipod (the white cable in the photo). I have the cassette adapter excess cable wrapped around the mount of the xm radio. The xm radio is mounted to a 2.5" magnet and I fabricated a steel plate, painted it black and there you have it. The ipod is mounted with velcro. Had to move the jake, airbag dump and marker light switches to make the plate work.You can't have xm and ipod both on at the same time or you get a heck of a loss of signal integrity and the squeal you mentioned.

If you got a 3.5 y adapter, all ends male (3) you could do the same as I have here with one end plugging into your aux. plug of your radio. This can be found at radio shack but you could look at other electronics outlets. May be worth a try.

[packrat]

Originally Posted by DemolitionMan

I have an Audiovox Xpress. I thought about having a bad cradle; I got the cradle and reciever from the car and tried it as well...same thing. I will check about the bad ground. It does seem to make sense b/c I tried the cable in someone else's tractor, and it sounded great. The difference being the mechanic had to splice the pigtail from the old radio to the new one in mine b/c we were out of the jumper harness, and in his the mechanic used a jumper harness.

the problem might be your audiovox xpress.These radios have a history of not being good,in other words they stinko!!They are almost useless in high radio traffic areas like metro cities,atlant etc...they have a weak fm modulator and are walked over by even the weakest of radio stations.Also their guts are of poor quality, unfortunately newer radios not as gooder as older units.