Is there a conversion available?

 

XM radio can be installed, I believe, and the XM device will produce a sound output. The difficult part is to somehow get that sound to play on the car speakers. I suppose you can get a new head unit with an external input. Most people want to keep the existing radio to preserve that factory look, so this external sound has to be brought in to the factory radio, somehow, as it does not offer aux-in. There are 3 basic options

1. Find/buy or build a tap into the CD changer sound cable. The sound of the XM device will play when a CD is played. Some of these devices have a "switch" to be allowed to switch back to the actual CD. Sound quality will be good. This late in the game, these devices are typically no longer available so a home-made wire splicing might have to be done.
2. Use a WIRED FM transmitter hooked up to the antenna port and listen to the XM device through a pretend fixed-frequency radio station. Sound quality is OK (FM radio), way better than a wireless FM transmitter, but the XM sound has to be first modulated to then be de-modulated by the head unit.
3. Use either a pre-made pretend cassette tape with auxiliary input, of "hack" the cassette-part of the head unit to solder in an external sound source. This has been documented before on this forum as feasible, but I have no direct experience. I assume a cassette would have to be inserted into the head unit, and "rolled" for the XM sound to be heard.

 

If you can find a XM radio with bluetooth output, there are bluetooth upgrades that piggyback onto existing system too. I've been using one that preserves CD playback. Though the songs from my phone over the bluetooth sound better than the CD player IMO.

John

 

My 79 YO dad still uses XM, but Unlimited Cell data+Large cell coverage has made satellite radio dead to me.

Cell+Bluetooth is the future. Get a Scosche FM-MOD01 Modulator and you can hook up an XM receiver through the Antenna and tune the radio to 87.9 or 88.3.

After you give up on XM, you can plug in a Bluetooth receiver to the same modulator (like a Milennia Bluetooth Dongle (47102)) and use your phone for Waze, while you listen to Bluetooth audio