Problem with Sirius Sat Radio Power

[dayhead]

Got Sirius satelite radio for Christmas, I use it in my car. It quit so I took it back to Radio Shack, where I was told that I have to unplug it from the cig lighter whenever I start the car, apparently there's a voltage surge or excessive drop when I start the car that damages the sat receiver. This ain't gonna fly. I was thinking maybe I can install some kind of electronic gizmo in the cig lighter adapter, such as a capacitor or relay actuated switch to keep this from re-occurring. Any of you electronic techs or engineers care to post an idea or two I'd be much obliged.

[Comatose]

Sounds like a really really cheap car adapter to me. If the radio is well designed then brownout voltages (above zero but below operating voltage) won't damage the device, and any regulator worth its salt should be able to filter out any spikes die to starting the car.

On the other hand, I've not found the folks at radio shack to be the most technically savvy, so maybe he was just feeding you a line in order to tell you something.

[dayhead]

I don't think the adapter has any circuitry. The sat receiver runs on 12v so the adapter is just sending car system power straight to it. I don't know if the receiver is well designed or not. I would think they would design it to run ok up to 14.2v as most car charging systems should put out 13.8 to 14.2. Maybe I just got a lemon. If I can find a good voltmeter I'll check my car out. I posted here figgering someone may have previous experience along these lines.