I meant to say the blue "antenna remote" wire coming from the wiring harness is connected to the blue "antenna remote" wire on the empeg side

The blue wire from the sled and the blue wire from the tuner should NOT be connected to each other! They're both outputs, the one on the sled a traditional turn-on the amps thing and the one from the tuner is to power an antenna amplifier that many newer cars have (or by all means, a motorized antenna).
Depending on how your car is wired you may or may not need an adapter the get the power to the antenna amp - for instance in VWs and Audis you need one.

Be happy you didn't let the smoke out of something...

/Michael