CK530

Just leased a 2008 ML550. Activated the satellite radio on Monday 2/5/08 and as of today, it does not work. (the radio is not acquiring any signal). When I press the SAT button, the weather channel comes up (Ch 184). Called Sirius and they mentioned I should bring the truck back to the dealer.

Any help on this issue before I go to the dealer. Thanks.

cschmelz

Have you logged into Sirius.com and clicked the button that resends the activation signal to your car?

Initial activation can be tricky as you need to have the car out where it can see the satellite and active when the activation signal 'turns' the radio on. The signal is broadcast frequently right after activation then very rarely later on based on how I understand it. The weather channel is one of the free channels. It would seem the RADIO is working fine, it just doesn't think it is activated.

tkeskic

Check the ESN they have on record (I assume you had the radio system on and in clear sky's etc when activating the first time) - chances are your ESN was recorded wrong.. I think it was channel 0 would show you the ESN of the radio that is the one that needs to be used
tk

Brian_74

When in the SAT mode, there is a button on the COMAND on the left hand side that will display the radio ESN number and Sirius phone number. Since you are getting the channel 184, it seems to me that your radio is working fine, just not activated.

carson357

where did you get the ESN to activate? did you get it directly from the radio unit or from a document in the vehicle?

cschmelz

Really easy, just goto SAT, press SERVICE softkey (lowest on left) and it will give you both the ESN and the # to call.

CK530

Thanks everyone for your input.

I used cschmelz suggestion and it worked (truck outside, SAT radio on to Ch 184 and then called Sirius to activate.).

I used Sirius.com for the initial activation. It was Monday morning and the truck was park in the garage. When I tried to use the SAT radio on Wednesday, I couldn't get any channels. That's when I called Sirius 800#.

Thanks again.

trumpet1

I saw where XM and Sirius radio finally merged. Sure hope the song selections merged as I'm really tired of hearing the same stuff over and over. I have Sirius but I've always thought XM song selection was better. Of course those with XM probably think otherwise.

Floobydust

I agree. The wife has XM in her car and the programming selection is definitely better IMHO. I've actually let the subscription to Sirius in my 550 lapse - not because the of the programming, but because the audio quality is so poor. With massive dynamic range compression and an average bit rate of just 34 Kbs/sec it's just barely above wind noise in terms of quality. Same is true of XM (although I think they may have more channels at higher bitrates); they both want to squeeze as much material as they can into the available channel width. I guess it's the classic American choice to have quantity over quality. It will be interesting to see what happens post merger.

- FD