Sirius XM Radio

ScottM

ScottM

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iBazinga!
Anyone subscribe to actually listen to the programming, not for the WX updates in cockpit.

What do you think?

I just got a new car on Friday and it has Sirius/XM in it, free for 6 months. I am listening to it to decide if it is something I would want to pay for when the free subscription expires.
 
Nope. It goes directly to the weather computer.
 
I used Sirius for a year or two, then the radio died so I called to cancel; they asked me why, and i told them, and they sent me a new radio for free (a nice one), and gave me four or five months free, something silly like that.

I really like it for the jazz programing (72 on Sirius, I forget which channel it is on XM). The other programming is really very good, but I am not that big a radio listener.

I canceled again, and they sure are persistent about trying to get me back on-board, offering free months again, but I believe I am going to hold out until I have an XMWX subscription, at which time I might go ahead and re-up for the music.
 
smigaldi said:
Anyone subscribe to actually listen to the programming, not for the WX updates in cockpit.
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I do. I've been an XM customer since December 2001, and won't have another car without it. It's a great thing to be able to drive down the road on a trip and not have to continually hunt for something worth listening to. In the car, I also listen a lot to the old time radio channel (XM 164/Sirius 118)...those old shows make the miles go by faster. I can't listen to that in the airplane, though, as ATC talks too much to allow following a story. :smile:
 
Yes, I have XM radio enabled on my 396. It isn't much more money I think $10/month. Certainly worth the $ for the entertainment in the plane. I do not yet have it in my car... nor am I in a hurry to get it. I typically drive in Chicago area and there is plenty on am/fm and of course CD/MP3.




smigaldi said:
Anyone subscribe to actually listen to the programming, not for the WX updates in cockpit.

What do you think?

I just got a new car on Friday and it has Sirius/XM in it, free for 6 months. I am listening to it to decide if it is something I would want to pay for when the free subscription expires.
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jmaynard said:
I do. I've been an XM customer since December 2001, and won't have another car without it. It's a great thing to be able to drive down the road on a trip and not have to continually hunt for something worth listening to. In the car, I also listen a lot to the old time radio channel (XM 164/Sirius 118)...those old shows make the miles go by faster. I can't listen to that in the airplane, though, as ATC talks too much to allow following a story. :smile:
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I have had it on a few rental cars and appreciated that aspect as I would drive across central Florida a lot
 
smigaldi said:
Anyone subscribe to actually listen to the programming, not for the WX updates in cockpit.

What do you think?

I just got a new car on Friday and it has Sirius/XM in it, free for 6 months. I am listening to it to decide if it is something I would want to pay for when the free subscription expires.
Click to expand...

I have it in my truck, my boat and my hangar. Great programing. I like the Blues channel on XM, plus they have the classic vinyl channel and another called the Boneyard (Heavy Rock).

When I'm driving a long trip I listen to Foxnews and America Right. If your preference is CNN or other news services they have that too.

I rarely listen to FM anymore.
 
smigaldi said:
I have had it on a few rental cars and appreciated that aspect as I would drive across central Florida a lot
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...what, you don't find driving across Florida ... stimulating? :D
 
SCCutler said:
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...what, you don't find driving across Florida ... stimulating? :D
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About like driving through west Texas.....nothing, nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing............
 
Tree tree tree tree tree sawgrass sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass gator tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass PRISON sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass pelican tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass roadkill tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass tree tree sawgrass sawgrass...
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Fixed that for ya! :D
 
Rotor&Wing said:
About like driving through west Texas.....nothing, nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing............
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jmaynard said:
I'll second that. I-10 from 100 or so west of San Antonio to Van Horn is about the dullest drive I've ever made.
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San Angelo to New Orleans in one day, all but a couple of hours on I10. There was nothing bu miles and miles.
 
I bought it for my wife's car- not too expensive, but I generally use it.

The down side is you lose the local flavor of an area- I remember driving throught a remote part of PA in the mountains and hearing banjo music I wouldn't have heard if I had XM radio. Of course, with ClearChannel buying up everything, most metro areas sound the same.

They also include a way to listen on the computer- that's sometimes nice as well
 
I put Sirius in my truck when I was going to School in the U.P. The ten hour drive was nice to have something where you could listen the whole way or change the station when you wanted. Also, I didn't realize how spoiled I had become by not hearing commercials until I was in a car without it and was listening FM radio.
Use it while it's free see what you think, some of the comedy channels are great.
 
The pickup I got had it for free (3 months free something like that). I let it expire, and then remembered that there aren't any radio stations here. Even then, I didn't renew it - instead waiting until being around the four corners and deciding I couldn't face the next six hours without some kind of noise. :)
 
We have XM on the 496, and occasionally use it on long car trips. Like the Margaritaville channel! :) It may be a 496 thing, but I note that the reception (and thus the sound) briefly cuts out when going under some underpasses or amongst tall buildings.
 
jmaynard said:
I'll second that. I-10 from 100 or so west of San Antonio to Van Horn is about the dullest drive I've ever made.
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I'd say that whole 550 miles or so from San Antonio to El Paso is pretty darn empty. I've driven the whole stretch of road. :)

To the original question: I first got Sirius when I was doing the trucking thing, and was very glad to have it. Of course, I was spending 12-16 hours a day in a truck.

I haven't gotten to the point of putting it in my plane yet (previous owner had XM). I pretty much have figured that I'll wait until I get a 496/696/whatever and listen to it through that, and in the mean time use my cell phone. I have enough vehicles where having a portable unit is far preferable to having it installed in-car. I definitely think it's worth having, though, even though I don't use it as much as I used to.

Normally when I'm in the plane, I listen to music on my cell phone through my headset. ATC interrupting doesn't cause me any issues with that, although I usually don't turn it on until I'm established in climb (or sometimes cruise, depending on workload).
 
I've had XM radio in my airplane and one car for several years. I also occasionally enable one in my boat and sometimes I just transfer the airplane's subscription to the boat when I'm not using the airplane. I had started to feel that the programming (I mostly listen to various rock music) was too repetitive but since XM and Sirius merged there seems to be an infusion of more variety.

For the airplane and boat the reception is way better than FM (my lake is well sheltered from FM signals) and in the airplane it's nice to have the same uninterrupted channels wherever I go. Originally in the plane I used a separate XM (portable magnet mount) antenna for the radio but now I've got it wired to the same roof mounted antenna that feeds the XM weather receiver located in the nose avionics bay. When I was using the portable antenna I had it under the plastic glareshield and occasionally I would lose the signal particularly if I was very far north (like over Ontario Canada) and heading away from the south. I assume that my cabin roof was shadowing the signal from the satellites which are 20,000 miles above the equator.
 
smigaldi said:
Anyone subscribe to actually listen to the programming, not for the WX updates in cockpit.

What do you think?

I just got a new car on Friday and it has Sirius/XM in it, free for 6 months. I am listening to it to decide if it is something I would want to pay for when the free subscription expires.
Click to expand...

The variety is nice, so is the lack of commercials. For $12/mo or whatever it is with tax, it's a good deal.

So did you get the Jetta TDI?


Trapper John
 
As a function of my rapidly increasing number of years, I find I don't listen to the radio anymore. Most of the time I just like driving in silence. If I want anything I'll pop a CD in.

My wife has XM in her car and she loves it. Has it on all the time. First thing I do when I get in her car is turn it off!
 
smigaldi said:
I hear lots of commercials on Sirius XM.
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Depends upon what channel you prefer. I listen to Bluesville alot and it has very few commercials. The news channels have the average number.

With the free trial period give it a listen and look around. If you decide you don't like it you can always not subscribe.
 
I have a portable XM radio for which I have a plug-in in the plane and for my car. I really like it. My favorite channels are 12 (bluegrass) and 14 (outlaw country), but we also listen to the Sinatra and various other jazz channels, as well as the classical, too. I really like it, and carry it with me to use in rental cars on business trips. No searching for stations I like.
 
Congrats on the new car Scott!! I have XM in my car but let it lapse after the three month promotional period. On long trips I plug in the Ipod and listen to exactly what I want to hear. To and from work I listen to whoever gives me the best traffic report.
 
I listen to my Sirius subscription on my long cross countries. I am very glad to have it. In busy ATC areas the frequent muting is kind of a pain.
 
I had to re-read this post... I didn't catch the 'car' usage the first pass and wondered how often you were flying under underpasses ! :smile:



gprellwitz said:
We have XM on the 496, and occasionally use it on long car trips. Like the Margaritaville channel! :) It may be a 496 thing, but I note that the reception (and thus the sound) briefly cuts out when going under some underpasses or amongst tall buildings.
Click to expand...
 
smigaldi said:
I hear lots of commercials on Sirius XM.
Click to expand...

Only the music channels are commercial-free.

I had Sirius for a while, and I had one of the "Sportster Replay" portable units. "Sportster" because it had a feature called "game alert" where you could set up you favorite NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, and college teams and it would alert you when a game was about to come on and you could hit a button to automatically switch to the home broadcast channel. "Replay" because it had a TiVO-like ability to record up to an hour and a half, pause it, rewind, etc. That was nice because I could pause the game if I got a phone call or something, and then start playing it again, jump through the commercials to catch up, etc.

That said, I mostly listen to podcasts these days when I need some in-car (or on-lawnmower) entertainment. They're free, and I like free. There's also no aviation channel on satellite radio. :)
 
My wife's 2006 Jeep Commander came with Sirius. On our drives across the state of Washington it is nice to not have to hunt for a station as you pass through the coverage areas of the local low power AM stations. And, in the fall it is great for listening to the Seahawks game on Sunday while returning from Pullman and a WSU football game the day before. No hunting for stations again. We are happy with it, even if you do have to pay for it. Some channels have commercials, others not so much. The 60s music channel (6) didn't have any that I recall on Saturday. Just had to put up with Cousin Brucie.
 
Ghery said:
My wife's 2006 Jeep Commander came with Sirius. On our drives across the state of Washington it is nice to not have to hunt for a station as you pass through the coverage areas of the local low power AM stations. And, in the fall it is great for listening to the Seahawks game on Sunday while returning from Pullman and a WSU football game the day before. No hunting for stations again. We are happy with it, even if you do have to pay for it. Some channels have commercials, others not so much. The 60s music channel (6) didn't have any that I recall on Saturday. Just had to put up with Cousin Brucie.
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Did you get the free trial subscription? If so when your subscription ran out did they make a special offer to get you to sign up?
 
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Oops deleted, nothing to see here folks, move along...
 
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I've had Sirius for 4 or 5 years now, I subscribed to it when I was living in an area with marginal choices for FM. Now I live near Detroit but I can't give it up, I'm addicted. I'm mostly listening to music so its nice to not have any commercials other than the stations own promos, but on news and talk radio the same commercials over and over get pretty annoying. It's also nice to be able to listen to college football on a long drive without having to change or lose the station.
 
smigaldi said:
Did you get the free trial subscription? If so when your subscription ran out did they make a special offer to get you to sign up?
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IIRC, the first year was free. Then got the next two years for the price of 1. I think.
 
Rotor&Wing said:
About like driving through west Texas.....nothing, nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing,nothing............
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Dirt dirt dirt tumbleweed dirt sagebrush dirt dirt jackelope dirt dirt sagebrush 18-wheeler duststorm tumbleweed dirt....


I've had XM pretty much since it launched. Usually set to Real Jazz - XM70. For the commute around town, it's WTOP (traffic), on trips, it's XM because radio has been rendered into a wasteland and (with Clear Channel's latest move to nationalized programming) is getting worse.
 
FWIW, the iPod route is to me just a lot of work. I'd have to keep checking places to find new music to hear and then downloading it, while XM has a constantly changing playlist including new stuff I'd never pick up on myself. In addition, I don't have to go choosing different sets of music for different moods -- I can jump from bluegrass to classical to sports to jazz at the touch of a button. I just wish that now that XM and Sirius have merged, they'd put NASCAR back on XM without having to pay for the "Best of Sirius" package; if nothing else, paying extra for that Stern fool to whom I'm not going to listen just doesn't set right with me.
 
I really like it in the car and in the airplane. At 85 knots (the airplane, not the car!) it helps a long trip go by quicker. Favorites -- baseball games, news, comedy, folk music.
 
Stern is for a different demographic than us. The 9 - 13 year olds. :frown3:
 
Another XM listener since day 1! Usually XM71 (smooth jazz) while my wife listens to XM22 (Gangsta-rap, WTF?)

Honestly, I tried listening to regular FM for an hour and I thought my ears were going to bleed!

I have a portable unit we take to the beach and use in the plane. Love XM!!!!
 
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