so i got a new deck
 

went to the alpine dealer and got myself the cda-9856. quite an impressive gadget if you ask me :smilie_da since my previous deck was a panasonic from '98, lol.

so i was told this things satellite radio ready? does that mean it controls the radio? i bought the line in adapter, and that works... but what do i need to control the radio? or does it? hah, questions...

It will not control a add on Sirius radio through the Aux input which sounds like is how you are operating it. It will operate the Alpine Sirius radio tuner (probably model# SIR-ALP1) which is a Sirius radio tuner only. No control and no mess of wires on the dash. All control functions for the Alpine Sirius radio tuner should be built into the CDA-9856. A quick look in the instruction manual may show you this.....