Satellite Radio

[04fizzer]

With the weather getting nice, and me spending less time inside to watch tv, I'm wondering if anyone's got experience with satellite radio (xm, sirius, etc.)?

I want it mostly to listen to NASCAR races, and Bills football games while I'm out and about.

Thoughts (about the radio/services, not my intended use), opinions, etc.?

 

[AJ_rider]

Sorry man, dont know much about satellite radio. Just wanted to say, GO BILLS!

:bow:

 

[madmanmaigret]

I have had it (i believe Sirius) in a few rental cars. It works great and one of them has exclusive rights to NASCAR broadcasts

 

[mstewar1]

My honda element came with xm, which is now sirius. At first my attitude was, "what? pay for radio..?" Then I started listening to it and got hooked, primarily because I really loathe radio commercials and the majority of channels on satellite don't have them. Big plus in my book, almost worth the expense right there.

Reception:
It's kinda cool that you can go anywhere and get the same channel. The reception seems to drop out more abruptly than regular radio will, but I could be mistaken in that regard. I haven't been listening to "regular" radio for years now so I may not be remembering that aspect correctly. It will drop out when you go under freeway overpasses and in places where you lose your "line of sight" to whatever direction the signal is coming from. But it's not so frequent that it's annoying.

Channels:
I used to love listening to the "uncensored" comedy channel on xm but since the acquisition by sirius it's turned into this frat boy tribal neck tattoo toilet humor garbage and is pointless and annoying. ugh. Yes, I'm that annoyed.

There are tons of different music channels such that you could surely find something to suit your tastes. Then there are the sport channels, such as what you're after. I don't follow any U.S. sports so that's really lost on me and I'm sorry I can't give you any direct insight as to the quality of the game coverage/commentary.

There are dedicated traffic/weather channels for a number of major urban areas. This has come in handy more than once.

I really must be getting old because lately I really only find myself listening to cspan and the bbc.

Subscription costs and devices:
The cost is about $11/12 month, which seems kind of expensive when I write it out like that... The price comes down based on the number of years to which you commit. The price I indicated is based on a 3 year subscription. If you cancel, they'll refund the months not used.

You have to pay for each device that want to use with the service. This kinda blows, IMHO. So you may want to research devices that are not only portable but are also "dock-able", such that you can use it with a home system instead of having to get multiple devices.

I've only had to call customer service maybe two or three times in the four years that I've used the service. Usually because of some sort of power issue causing my radio to go off-line which then requires the input of a code, blah blah. The folks on the phone, IIRC, have been helpful and courteous.

I hope this helps.

 

[Motogiro]

I've been using XM for a few years and find that after Sirius acquired XM the programming changed for the worse. That's what I didn't like about Sirius and why I picked XM. But I still think it worth it because you really can't listen to broadcast radio or TV anymore because it's like staring at a wall anyway. Commercialism is so bad these days.
The neat thing about XM is for I think 3 bucks more a month you can listen to Sat Radio online. You have limited channels but it's pretty good. It used to be free with your regular subscription but then they saw the light....

I have to say I like it especially on long trips and I bought additional radios and when they were cheap and rigged up an antenna and cradle in the house where I pump it into a little computer speaker system w/subwoofer and it sounds great.

 

[04fizzer]

I've been using XM for a few years and find that after Sirius acquired XM the programming changed for the worse. That's what I didn't like about Sirius and why I picked XM. But I still think it worth it because you really can't listen to broadcast radio or TV anymore because it's like staring at a wall anyway. Commercialism is so bad these days.
The neat thing about XM is for I think 3 bucks more a month you can listen to Sat Radio online. You have limited channels but it's pretty good. It used to be free with your regular subscription but then they saw the light....

I have to say I like it especially on long trips and I bought additional radios and when they were cheap and rigged up an antenna and cradle in the house where I pump it into a little computer speaker system w/subwoofer and it sounds great.

I intend on getting a portable one, so I can just listen to it wherever.

 

[BranNwebster]

I love it! I've had it for a couple of years in two cars. I will never go back to broadcast radio.

 

[Hellgate]

I've had XM for about two years and love it. I'm hooked on Bloomberg News (129), and Politics of the United States (130). The music channels are great too, I tend to listen in the 40s to 50s range. I can find whatever you want to hear. It's also fun to simply explore the various stations. I pay $3.99 a month for basic XM, gotta great promo deal, no Sirrus stuff however.

 

[cv_rider]

I've had XM for a couple of years, and enjoy it. I mainly listen to music. I've expanded my music horizons listening to channels that I'm not familiar with. Even though they play 100x the variety of what a commercial station plays, there are a limited number of songs available, and after a few months, you start hearing the same things over and over. At least it's not like commercial radio, where you start hearing the same thing every hour.

The type of radio you get greatly impacts your experience. I have a Pioneer Inno, a portable docking radio, so you can put it in multiple docking stations. The thing that is really good about this radio is that it has the ability to pre-record channels, and you can then listen offline. You can skip songs that you don't like, skip irritating DJ chatter (unfortunately some channels have too much of this), and skip commercials if you listen to one of the few channels that has it. This is a feature of the radio, not XM. The other advantage is that you can listen to the music "offline" (not connected to the satellite).

That last point is a major advantage. I don't consider XM to be "portable". Teh radio doesn't work if it's not connected to an antenna. If you are in the middle of a house, it probably won't work. Need to be near an outside wall/window. If you want to move to another room in the house, you need to bring the antenna with you. It's doable, but the PITA factor will prevent you from moving it around in the house, most likely. FM radio is far more portable than XM. You can turn on an FM radio anywhere and receive something. Not the case for satellite radio.

 

[Bruce McCrary]

I have XM on the bike, in conjunction with my J&M system. Love it, love it, love it.

Using it on a motorcycle can be an issue with the wrong antenna. With the standard roof mount unit signal strength is sketchy. If your body blocks the antenna you lose signal, if the trees block the antenna, you lose signal. The problem is that the standard antenna uses the cars roof as a receptor to bounce the signal. Using it on a bike takes away from it's effectiveness.

I found a motorcycle specific antenna (imagine that, and I didn't buy it at Walmart ) several months back and tried it with amazing results. Now I get signal nearly 100% of the time.

Bruce

 

[Ghost Weim]

I had it in my Honda - but then discontinued it when the warm weather came since I planned on riding the bike more. I also had XM - and they have a great channel line-up. Cost was pretty decent - I got a good deal off a mailer they had sent.

It was really nice when we traveled - you never lost the station. And the comedy channel is hilarious. I think a lot of folks I passed wondered what I was laughing so hard at.

Now I am back on regular radio and pretty much have it tuned to NPR - I am a talk radio junkie...