Sat radio
 

I am thinking of getting either the Sirius or XM radio service. I'd like
the portable type, so I can move it from the car, house and boat. (boating
content)

Anybody with experience with these services and recommendations of either?
The problem in this part of Florida is lack of program diversity with the
commercial stations. There is one decent station, but it plays the same
songs at the same time everyday and right now they are playing Christmas
music for the whole month of December. Other choices are a couple of
country stations, but I can only take so much of that. The rest seems to
be all smooth jazz or rap music which I really dislike.

Eisboch

Eisboch,

I have XM. It is a very flexible system. I have their table model
radio, the Roady (fits my truck radio via the tape deck) and a couple
of 12 V cords to play the table model aboard my boat and motorhome. I
move it easily anywhere I want to take it. And I have just the one
receiver and one monthly $10 fee. I use their Roady antenna in my
truck, the table model antenna works fine at home and in the boat and
the motorhome.

XM has all commercial free music stations. Other programs (CNN, Fox,
lots of such programs) are also available over the 100 channels.
I love my XM.

Dale
(Formerly MowerKing)

In article ,
Eisboch wrote:


I am thinking of getting either the Sirius or XM radio service. I'd like
the portable type, so I can move it from the car, house and boat. (boating
content)

Anybody with experience with these services and recommendations of either?
The problem in this part of Florida is lack of program diversity with the
commercial stations. There is one decent station, but it plays the same
songs at the same time everyday and right now they are playing Christmas
music for the whole month of December. Other choices are a couple of
country stations, but I can only take so much of that. The rest seems to
be all smooth jazz or rap music which I really dislike.

Eisboch

I have an XM unit and use it in my house, car, and boat.

Love it.

Sirius is more expensive monthly, and unless you want Howard Stern (coming
there in '06 or somewhere around there) I see no reason to go that route.

--
--
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http://www.denninger.net My home on the net - links to everything I do!
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On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:53:19 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

I am thinking of getting either the Sirius or XM radio service. I'd like
the portable type, so I can move it from the car, house and boat. (boating
content)

Anybody with experience with these services and recommendations of either?
The problem in this part of Florida is lack of program diversity with the
commercial stations. There is one decent station, but it plays the same
songs at the same time everyday and right now they are playing Christmas
music for the whole month of December. Other choices are a couple of
country stations, but I can only take so much of that. The rest seems to
be all smooth jazz or rap music which I really dislike.

I have both. In my experience, Sirius is much better that XM.

Point for point, the programming is about the same - different channel
names, same type of genre programming. It's wash actually. Pretty
amazing considering the two different corporate programming
approaches. Sirius does have an edge over XM as they rotate their
music programming on a regular basis tweaking the playlists more often
that XM - usually twice a month. XM does it once a month - some
channels once every two months.

XM does have a pay-for-play subscription for some of their services,
in particular Opie and Anthony (the NYC WNEW idiot jocks who were
fired for playing a couple having sex in the foyer of St. Pats
Cathedral). Sirius is pretty straight forward, but I've head that
Stern will be a pay-for-play. I never cared for either one of them,
so that's not a big deal for me.

The major joy of both systems is the strange music programming -
mostly world music which can be an absolute giggle. You haven't lived
unless you have listened to "Rock A Hula Baby" or "Gilligan's Island
theme" sung in Hawaiian.

The one thing I noticed immediately is the difference in reception.
Sirius has it all over XM. I'm not sure why considering that the two
satellite systems are about the same latitude and longitude in terms
of orbit. It might be a power thing or maybe the digitizing scheme is
different, but Sirius does not have same amount signal fade as I've
experienced with XM. My wife's car has XM (it came with it) and she
has a free subscription (long story) so I can compare the two fairly
readily. At this latitude/longitude, with the satellites so low on
the horizon, that's a big consideration.

Dollar for dollar, they are fairly comparable. The equipment costs
are about the same depending on what you want to purchase. Both
systems are fairly portable (you may have to purchase new cradles and
antennas to make the receivers totally transportable). XM has just
introduced a new Walkman style receiver which I have played with a
little at a store. It's subject to fade and needs a fairly clear view
of the sky in order to get relatively uninterrupted reception. It's a
neat concept though.

Sirius allows you access to their programming via the web if you want
to go that way - I believe that XM does the same - it's built into the
subscription package.

It all comes down to price and performance. As I said, in my
experience, Sirius is better.

To tell the truth, it's a coin toss.

Later,

Tom

Eisboch wrote:

I am thinking of getting either the Sirius or XM radio service. I'd like
the portable type, so I can move it from the car, house and boat. (boating
content)


I think that SIRIUS has the edge on sports, if you're into sports. NFL,
NHL, NBA, and about 30 college teams.

Look for their latest radios to have a Game Alert feature. You program
your favorite teams and the radio alerts you when the teams are playing.

Roger.

Thanks all for your inputs.

I ended up buying a Sirius system, mainly because it was the only one that
had all the components I needed for car and home setup. These must be
selling like hotcakes, because several stores were out of stock.

Now to hook it all up and mess around with it. After that, I'll read the
instructions because I am sure it won't work.

Thanks again.

Eisboch

"Eisboch" wrote in message
. ..

Thanks all for your inputs.

I ended up buying a Sirius system, mainly because it was the only one that
had all the components I needed for car and home setup. These must be
selling like hotcakes, because several stores were out of stock.

Now to hook it all up and mess around with it. After that, I'll read the
instructions because I am sure it won't work.

Thanks again.

Eisboch



Not so bad. Other than spending an hour on the phone with some guy in
Canada to set up an account, it went smooth. I think I am going to like
this.

Eisboch

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 17:04:45 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:


"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

Thanks all for your inputs.

I ended up buying a Sirius system, mainly because it was the only one that
had all the components I needed for car and home setup. These must be
selling like hotcakes, because several stores were out of stock.

Now to hook it all up and mess around with it. After that, I'll read the
instructions because I am sure it won't work.

Not so bad. Other than spending an hour on the phone with some guy in
Canada to set up an account, it went smooth. I think I am going to like
this.

You will enjoy it muchly.

A few of my favorite channels - 97 (Vacation), 31 (New Country), 64
(Chill), 71 (Jazz Cafe), 63 (Area 63).

Later,

Tom

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:53:19 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:
There is one decent station, but it plays the same
songs at the same time everyday and right now they are playing Christmas
music for the whole month of December.

===================================

I thought that station was only on the west coast :-)

I just had a Hertz rental in NY for a couple of days that had Sirius
satellite radio (seriously). It seemed to work reasonably well except
in the Manhattan canyons it would sometimes fade. I'd guess reception
in FL would be near perfect. You can also listen to Sirius on the
internet to get a feel for their music selection.

http://www.sirius.com

I just drove the vehicle that I installed the Sirius system in from FL back
to MA.
Other than while in tunnels, I never lost the sat signal or even noticed
that it faded. The unit I got was made by JVC.

The car docking station has both audio outputs and a selectable FM modulator
output. The car radio does not have an aux line input, so I had to use the
wireless modulator.
I found that as I traveled from state to state I would get some interference
if a strong FM station existed on or near the freq that I had set the
modulator to.

I finally took a wrench and removed the car antenna. Perfect quality music,
news and everything after that.

Eisboch