OK, first time post so be gentle. I just picked up the Sirius Sporster and car kit to install in my '05 Mini Cooper. I just can't justify the expense of the OEM kit through the dealership yet -- especially since you can't buy them up here in Canada -- and I didn't want to install the PnP antenna on the roof because I'm still hoping that someone will definitively state one way or the other about whether I can use the official Mini Sirius antenna with a PnP unit or only with the OEM receiver.

So, with that in mind, I decided to mount the antenna on the dashboard up by the windscreen as others have tried (I apologise for the lack of cleanliness of my car! Rest assured I'm reading everything I can in the detailing forum and learning, learning, learning!):




With the antenna here, I have only experienced two dropouts on my drive to work -- once in a heavily treed area and once going under an underpass. Quite acceptable for me. In order to clean this up a bit, I'm contemplating trimming the supplied plastic cable cover to a length that will fit between the antenna and the front windscreen to hide the antenna wire.

Here is the antenna from the inside:





From there, I ran the antenna cable along the front of the dashboard (along the windscreen) to the passenger side door. From there, I pushed the cable behind the door's weather seal and ran the cable down to the bottom of the dashboard:


Closeup of the bit of cable that is left exposed:


The remaining cable is tucked up under the dash behind the glove box and cable tied in place. I left just enough to run over to the centre console where I have mounted the radio cradle.

I didn't like the thought of pulling my car apart to install a bracket and I didn't want to stick the cradle to either the windscreen or the dashboard. But the large mounting base wouldn't fit anywhere else. So, I decided to trim the base down until it would fit into the driver's side cupholder. Those of you who own a Mini will know that this is no great loss as you can't fit any but the smallest cup of coffee into these holders. Once I had the base trimmed to fit, I peeled the backing off of the remainder of the base and stuck it into the cupholder. Unfortunately, it didn't dawn on me to take pictures until after I had "permanently" stuck the base to into the cupholder so I can't take pictures of the modification I did to the bracket.

To get the sound into my stereo, I purchased the official Mini AUX cable but opted to install it myself (the dealership will charge a fortune and install the AUX jack inside the glovebox. Instead, I ran the cable down the back of the centre console and installed the jack down in the change well behind the power plug:


This puts the connector behind the mounting bracket for the Sporster and more or less completely out of sight when seated normally in the car.

After that, it was just a matter of plugging in the power adapter and making all of the connections into the back of the cradle:


I still need to clean up the cabling a bit but it's not too bad.

End result as seen from driver's seat:

From passenger seat:




I hope this was useful. At the risk of adding a bit of "fan-boy" to my post, I'm loving my new Sirius radio. I've gone from hating to drive to somewhat liking it by buying my new Mini. Now that I've added sat-radio to it, I've found myself looking for excuses to go for a drive.

John

 

I have the Sirius Sportster in my Cabrio & found a mounting made specifically for the MINI. It attaches to the pillar right about the same place as your cupholder. Easy to see & use. A friend of mine installs for Best Buy & did his first MINI last week. He put the antenna in the same spot you did. I just slid mine out the top & then hid the wires down to my unit. Having a Cabrio made that part pretty easy I love my Sirius & like you that's all I listen to

Lois

 

The "tail" that comes out of the antenna is molded to the wire, so don't try to remove it, it will expose the shielding....

 

Agreed. The car kit came with a 10-15 cm semi-flexible plastic strip with a groove in the underside and a strip of double-sided tape. It is supposed to be used to cover the antenna cable from where it emerges from the housing to the edge of your car's roof. I didn't install that piece so it's not in the pictures. That's the piece I'm contemplating trimming to length and installing over the wire to run it straight from the housing down to the windscreen.

John

 

For your Sirius Sportster and the Aux input? Was it cheaper than purchasing an XM Direct box?

 

I have no idea what the XM Direct box costs as I was pretty much set on going with Sirius from the get-go.

The Sporster w/car kit I got from eCost for US$149 (there's a US$50 MIR but being in Canada I pretty sure I can't get that).

The Aux input cable was CDN$70 from my dealership.

John