Set up a portable XM Radio in your house.

This weekend I was bored and needed to do something. I had purchased a Roady2 XM Reciever for a exgirlfriend but broke up with her before giving it to her. Seemed like a shame to let it go to waste, and I had been curious about satellite radio for a while.

Examining the package, it was a standard car install kit. Including the receiver, the antenna, 2 types of mounts (vent and pedestal), a tape adapter, dc power supply (cig lighter), and a few colored faceplate accents. Standard fare really. Useful for a car install but useless for a house install.

After checking prices online for the home kit, I was surprised to find that it cost around $40. Way to much for essentially an adapter kit. I mean really, I only paid $29 for the radio itself. I knew there was a cheaper way. First to assemble the parts.

• Roady2 XM Reciever


• Multi-voltage DC power supply


• 1/8th headphone to RCA cable



Now I had everything I needed the assembly was straight forward. Configure the power supply. I used a old radio shack Multi-voltage 1000mah wall wart power supply. Radio shack has a bunch of replacement wall warts with they’re adapta plug connectors for a decent price. I set it for the output voltage of 6 volts, center positive, with the “B” tip.

Next I used a standard cheap 1/8th headphone to RCA cable. Plugged the RCA’s into my receiver, and the other end into the XM radio.

Then I found a convenient place to mount the antenna on my front window (so it has a good skyview). Applied 3M poster strips on the antenna, stuck it to the window, and just taped the lead to the window frame to hide it a bit. Ran the cable and then connected it to the roady2 unit.

I used more 3M poster strips to mount the pedestal to the side of the smallish table that houses my home theatre components. Mounted my new radio, plugged in the power adapter, connected it to the roady2, turned on my receiver set it to the inputs of the roady2 (in my case I used the MD/Tape input). I turned on the roady2 and in a sec or so after finding the satellite I had XM Preview playing in my house.

This install cost nothing to me (because I had the parts already) other than the subscription fee. Now if you use new parts you can do this for under $30. The subscription is about $12 a month and I feel it’s worth it just to not have commercials. The world news and genre specific stations are just great. Not to mention I can still move it back and forth from my car because (aside of one mount) I never used the stuff that came with it aside from the antenna. I’ll just get another antenna to mount in my car permanently.