Post FCC rules vs Pre FCC Rules FM Modulator units

[JamesFromMI]

I have two Xact Visor SiriusXM units and a question. Back in the day, the FCC got involved in the FM Modulators in some SiriusXM radios. I'd imagine that some put out more power than others or it could be frequency related.. Anyway, is there a way to tell if one is a pre FCC unit vs Post rules?

 

[raoul5788]

I have two Xact Visor SiriusXM units and a question. Back in the day, the FCC got involved in the FM Modulators in some SiriusXM radios. I'd imagine that some put out more power than others or it could be frequency related.. Anyway, is there a way to tell if one is a pre FCC unit vs Post rules?

to Satelliteguys JamesFromMI!
Perhaps the manufacturing date would be the way to go. Compare it to when the rules were changed.

 

[harshness]

Sirius didn't typically mark their products with a manufacturing date so that probably isn't going to help.

If you can find a decoder that translates the SID or PSN to a date, you might have something.

If the car radio uses a roof-mount antenna, a visor-mounted radio probably isn't going to work no matter how hot the modulator; metal roofs make for a good ground plane. If the vehicle has a window antenna, it should work if there is line-of-sight.

There is a certain danger in buying 14 year old technology. Some or all of it may be left behind as the service adds new stations and shuffles existings stations around.

 

[Droford]

I have a Pioneer Inno that I was able to downgrade the firmware on thanks to XMFan forums a long time ago. The firmware it came with nerfed the FM Modulator on it, but by downgrading it back the FM modulator worked. I used it for probably a good 5-6 years before the battery swelled and broke the back cover off. It still works in the cradles but its no longer portable. I still have a bunch of recordings of really old XM stuff with the old bumpers from Fred Ethel Lucy and the like too, but I primarily only use the app on my phone or my echo dot. I have to turn it on to keep all the recordings alive. The recordings were a bigger deal since you could set the thing to record several hours at a time and then delete out songs. For the amount of storage it had, it held a lot of songs. The RIAA had issues with the recording capabilities which is why they did away with the recording features. It still works though, but I lost the antenna headphones so even If I got a new battery somehow it still wouldnt be portable.