Probably mentioned before but travelled to northern Maine across Vermont and New Hampshire with kevlar canoe on top and between the canoe and hills, a lot of lost SXM reception. Either one alone does not seem to impact reception much, but together, not good. Anyone else experience this or have a solution (besides ditching canoe or going a different route)? Not sure if I set canoe to one side it would uncover antenna.

I have a Bell BG Magic and a BG Northstar. I know Sirius is sat based, but with the boats on my reception is always good withing the Twin City region. It gets spotty when I get to about Forest Lake on Hwy 35. So for some reason the reception is better in the metropolitan area. The forest lake area is open. The reception is spotty all the way to Grand Marais, Though it does work more than not. Interestingly my GPS works just fine off the same antena. I have a Volvo wagon with the antenna nub on the roof. W/o the boats I get good reception all the way.

Buddy lost sat reception in his F150 with a Bell Magic on top. And that's in WI and MN, no mountains.

butthead

No issues with getting good reception with my Wenonah Prism, even on the Gunflint. Rare, very brief issues when a lot of trees are over head on a road, with or without a canoe. Vehicle is a 2012 Toyota Highlander.

Tomster

I have the same issue when my Bell kevlar canoe is on top of my Jeep Wrangler. Haven't really tried to figure out a fix for it...

sdebol: "Haven't really tried to figure out a fix for it..."

I don't think there's a fix short of moving the antenna off the roof.

Like I noted, it doesn't affect the GPS and broadcast radio is fine as well.

quark2222: "No issues with getting good reception with my Wenonah Prism, even on the Gunflint... Vehicle is a 2012 Toyota Highlander."

Does that have a roof mounted antenna?

Yes, my Toyota has a roof mounted roof bubble, just in front of the rear hatch.

Tomster

I wonder if a graphite Prism (if they exist), may have more of a propensity for blocking radio waves. Mine is a Kevlar skin style.

Tomster

I have never run into any problems getting SXM reception with my solo Bell Magic or 2 MN II’s on the roof of my Ford 150 pickup. I have driven 674 miles from Quad Cities in Iowa to Atikokan Ontario and 535 miles to Ely with no reception issues.

Over the 4th of July I carried a Wenonah Prism and Souris River Quetico 17 on roof rack of my Ford 150 from Minneapolis to Crane Lake with no drop in reception.

No GPS issues either.

quark2222: "I wonder if a graphite Prism (if they exist), may have more of a propensity for blocking radio waves. Mine is a Kevlar skin style.


Tomster"

Could well be Paul's (my friend with a F150) magic is a black gold layup containing graphite. He started carrying his canoe offset to one side for some reception.

Wally13, what layup is yours?

butthead

Butthead,

I have a 2006 Bell Magic in Black Gold layup, ash gunnels, walnut thwarts and deck plate.

I see the GPS ( and I assume the Sirius XM roof mount ) is on front passenger side of roof. It’s offset about 8 inches from passenger door/side roofline and right at front windshield line. If I were carrying one solo Magic ... I doubt the receiver would Interfere with reception as I center the Magic right in middle of roof. The GPS and XM receiver is not directly under the bow of canoe.

But when I carry 2 canoes, the satellite receiver would most certainly be under a canoe. I would think that with 2 canoes I would have interference but I don’t. Ummm.

Both of my boats are black gold with wood gunnels. The bubble antenna is located in the center of the car about 18 in. from the back. The cross bar is also close by. Moving that makes little difference.

Huh. Maybe it depends where your antenna is. Our 2013 F150 has the antenna to one side of the cab. We don't have any issues carrying our wenonah sundowner in tuffweave on the truck with xm, radio or gps signal, but the canoe isn't centered over the antenna due to the position of the rack on the topper. Antenna is roughly below the gunwhale, which is aluminum.

Sidenote, but our 2013 F150 has noticeably better sirius and am/fm reception than any car I've ever driven on roadtrips. We can get wcco (minneapolis) in the upper peninsula of Michigan in the truck.

On my Outback the stub antenna is centered at rear, directly under canoe.