Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Sandman on November 20, 2003, 03:22:59 PM
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I went on travel this week and the rental car had XM satellite radio (http://www.xmradio.com) built in.
I was fairly impressed. It's a cool system.
One of the guys at work just went with the Sirius (http://www.siriusradio.com) system.
Anyone have any experience with this? Comparisons between Sirius and XM?
Also, I've been browsing Crutchfield (http://www.crutchfield.com) and looking at in-dash receivers. It appears that they both use an add-on tuner and additional antenna. Not sure which is the best "deal".
Anyway... it's been interesting so far. If you have any experience with this sort of stuff, I'm all ears.
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I pretty much only listen to AM radio and get a kick out of tuning the local stations as I drive across the country.
For music, I use an MP3 player with about 8000 tracks in it. I put it in "shuffle" mode and I get my own radio station. :)
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Originally posted by FUNKED1
I pretty much only listen to AM radio and get a kick out of tuning the local stations as I drive across the country.
For music, I use an MP3 player with about 8000 tracks in it. I put it in "shuffle" mode and I get my own radio station. :)
Well... that's the cool thing... quite a few of the CD/MP3 players are also wired to control satellite radio tuners.
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doesnt the term satellite make the term radio unneeded??? or does the satellite some how transmit radio signals to your receiver...
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I read somewhere that it can have reception problems where there are overhead obstructions like near tall buildings and overhead tree branches, etc. Basicly, direct line of sight to the satellite is required. Is this really a problem?
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Is is cool enough to be worth $10/month?
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Originally posted by SOB
Is is cool enough to be worth $10/month?
Absolutely!
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Originally posted by Jack55
I read somewhere that it can have reception problems where there are overhead obstructions like near tall buildings and overhead tree branches, etc. Basicly, direct line of sight to the satellite is required. Is this really a problem?
The only time the radio cut out was underneath an overpass in town. On the freeway, at speed, it never cut out.
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Originally posted by vorticon
doesnt the term satellite make the term radio unneeded??? or does the satellite some how transmit radio signals to your receiver...
Exactly... the radio transmitter is in space.
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I drove a friends truck through the salinas valley, he had XM I believe. I played with that thing for hours, definatly worth the $10/month.
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Id pondered going satellite radio too...my new car radio can accept it, just need the sat antenna, decoder and subscription
XM is up and running, Sirius took a while to get up to speed. No idea which is better, or what differences they offer.
Consumer Reports?
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cool but if its just a radio transmitter in space then why can they make you pay 10$ a month...its not like you can selectivly block radio signals at the transmitter side...is the quality fairly good (to be honest i cant tell the difference between a properly tuned FM channel and a cd...)
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So why's it worth the $10? I'm interested too. No commercials? Does it have irritating DJs or just nonstop music?
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Judging by the questions being asked in this thread, I think they need to find another ad agency, as the current martketing aint cutting it.
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*shrug* im canadian and dont bother with ads...
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Why pay for radio?
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Almost all after market CD head units should come with an auxilary capability, this is where the reciever would go.
They use to be "line of sight" only, but now they have ground based re-transmitters that are stationed around the country.
The $10 means you don't have to listen to those ******* DJs that think you want to hear their voice at 8AM during your already stressfull drive to work or where ever.
You also get a far better range of music on each individual station, with each station being the same as radio - Country will play country, rock will play rock, and then they are broken down into categories.
The reciever has the capability to browse categories, and shows what songs are currently playing on each station with the artist listed. They also don't only play mainstream stuff, which is mostly crap anyway, so you get a much better choice of music and the music isn't limited to "radio approved" types. Instead of a cut down version of a certain song, its full length. It also has a significantly better reception, and when driving far distances you don't just start losing the station and then have to drive through a area completely void of any worthwhile radio stations.
Theres also no commercials, and only the occasional "You are listening to [whatever station]" - but most importantly, for me anyway, is no ******* DJ talking. Man I hate those *******s, they just talk and talk and talk. I don't want to listen to those *******s, why does anyone want to listen to those *******s? They are more annoying than I am!
Anyway, its worth $10/mo if you like to listen to music rather than hours on end of commercials and some ******* DJ talking.
-SW
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2 reasons it is worth $10/month. No DJ's or ads, you can listen to digital quality music, coast to coast with out changing the channel.
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you're not paying for the radio, you're paying for the lack of commercials.
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I have an MP3 player and I download MP3s for free:aok
Therefore I don't pay fer nothin but the blank CDs:D
And guess what I get to pick what music I listen to as well.
and no $10bucks a month
Sounds like someone else with there hands on you'r wallet:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by BEVO
you're not paying for the radio, you're paying for the lack of commercials.
Oh so you are paying for something you aint getting.
I see now:(
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mrblack your paying so that you DONT get commercials...
but your right its better to just buy yourself a ipod or some such...
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Hey mr black, how many hours did you spend downloading those mp3's and setting up that player? I don't know about you but at my hourly rate that would pay for quite a few months of sat. radio.
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hourly rate? What is this hourly rate?
Internet in the age of Napolean!
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Hourly rate while on the internet LOL.
The Internet is the great time waster of this century :aok
And I download MP3s while im surfing and doing other things.
You got to love Hyper threading.
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Quite a few fellows on another car BBS rave about XFM. Personally, I can't justify the $$ for commercial free sound waves.
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Originally posted by mrblack
Why pay for radio?
Same reason you pay for television. Better content, better quality.
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Originally posted by SOB
So why's it worth the $10? I'm interested too. No commercials? Does it have irritating DJs or just nonstop music?
No commercials. No disc jockeys. Sound quality is excellent, noticeably better than FM. I have to admit, I spent the better part of a day listening to nothing other than the XM comedy channel. It was just non-stop... George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, you name it...
I understand that Sirius has lots of talk radio available.
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Originally posted by mrblack
Oh so you are paying for something you aint getting.
I see now:(
No you don't... with programming subsidized by advertising, you're the product. With services such as XM or Sirius, you're the consumer.
Anyway... I looked at Crutchfield and a few of the CD/MP3 players throw in the satellite tuner for free. The only thing left to buy is the subscription and the antenna. Doesn't seem like a huge investment.
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Same reason you pay for television. Better content, better quality.
I guess so?
but I find lately I hardly ever turn on the radio in my car.
If I go on a trip I just bring Cds.
To each his own I guess.
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We have XM sattelite in on of our touring vehicles. It's great. I'd reccomend it to anyone that likes a wide variety of music or talk shows. Hell, I think you can even get the Playboy channel on it (I don't know why'd you want to listen to it though). About 7 news stations (CNN/ABC/fox/) and sports (espn/espn2, ect..)
Anyway, for $10 bucks a month it's wonderful- cheaper than a cd...
Just my 2 cents
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but I find lately I hardly ever turn on the radio in my car.
Exactly, because radio sucks now-a-days. Constant commercials, bland corporate lists, the same songs being played on all the stations. Why?
Here's why:
(http://www.clearchannel.com/imgCore/index_01.jpg)
ClearChannel has made the radio band so annoyingly worthless to listen to, I'd almost think it was a conspiracy to get people to switch to satellite.
If you get satellite radio, go for Sirius. XM has commercials, and I don't know about y'all, but I'm not a big fan of paying to listen to commercials.
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Because I want Pam Anderson to wash my truck!
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From Consumer Reports
Each provider offers a diverse selection of programming. XM broadcasts 71 music channels (36 commercial-free) and 29 other channels, including news, sports, comedy, and talk radio. For the complete list, go to http://www.xmradio.com. In March, XM began carrying Consumer Reports' Report to Consumers broadcasts. Sirius (http://www.siriusradio.com) broadcasts 60 commercial-free music channels and 40 channels of other programming. This wide range of channels can be particularly inviting in areas where choices are limited.
For now, XM is the only service available nationally, so that's where we focused our testing. XM's service costs $10 a month.