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Sirius Revolutionary
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 Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 3:39 pm Post subject: The Revolution Continues |
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| Quote: | This is taken from a So Cal radio industry membership site - www.laradio.com - the essay brings up some concerns that should be addressed:
Desperately Seeking Howard
Thursday, Jan 5: After three days of Adam Carolla, I realize I need to ditch terrestrial radio. First I go to Fry's, which is sold out of the S50 [the first portable Sirius receiver], my first choice, and pretty much everything else. Head to Best Buy to look for Sirius hardware on my lunch break. My main concern is being able to listen at work, as I only spend about 30-40 minutes in the car in the morning, and again in the evening. The local Best Buy is all out of the S50, as well as all plug-in boom boxes. They do have the Starmate Replay receiver, which I purchase. The salesman suggests I go to Circuit City across the street to look for the home kit. Leaving the Starmate receiver in my car, I find the S50, going for $300. The home kit is on back order, it will take about 2-3 weeks, and costs another $100. So instead, I purchase the home kit for the Sportster Replay. Which is not compatible with the Starmate Replay, I discover, when I get back to work. Fry's, Best Buy, and Circuit City all have plenty of XM radios, boom boxes, portables, you name it. What's funny is, the Sirius products look way cheap, compared to XM's. Too bad Howard Stern is not on XM.
Go online to Sirius.com and see that Radio Shack carries Starmate home kits. Their Web site shows that one store near work and another near my house have it in stock. I'll get it tomorrow.
Friday Jan 6: At lunch I head to the Radio Shack at the South Bay Galleria, after checking online again and seeing the receiver is in stock. The saleslady says, sorry, we sold out a while ago, and no, I don't know when we'll get more. Okay, second option is the Radio Shack near my home. This time, I call ahead before leaving work. The guy who answers puts me on hold for at least 10 minutes before I hang up. I swing by on my way home (again, after checking online). "Nope, we're sold out," they tell me. I mention that the Web site shows some stores have the home kits in stock. I don't know anything about that. My computer says no one around here has any home kits, and some stores show up to 8 people have ordered them.
Saturday, Jan 7: Back on Sirius.com I notice that Office Depot carries Sirius equipment. Go to my local OD, find a boom box for an Xact Stream Jockey, but no Stream Jockey receiver. The nice salesman asks if I want him to call around other Office Depot stores to see if they have the receiver. Ever the pessimist, I say sure, doubtful he'll find any. A couple of minutes later, he informs me that the Buena Park store has one left, and he asks them to hold it for me. I head over there. Right next to Office Depot is a Circuit City. I go inside in a last ditch effort to find a Starmate Replay home kit. This Circuit City has less Sirius inventory than the Hawthorne store. Oh, well. I go next door pick up my Xact Stream Jockey receiver, for $99, plus the boom box, which is another $99, for a grand total of $215. I think Xact is the only equipment manufacturer that doesn't have a $50 rebate deal with Sirius. That's probably why it was still in stock.
Sunday, Jan 8: The wife takes the kids to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I reluctantly stay home. I go online to activate my Sirius subscription, to save $5 on the activation fee. I wait for about 45 minutes to see if the receiver gets activated. Nothing happens. I move the boom box around the house, but all I see is channel 184 and a "Call Sirius to activate" message scroll. Also an "Acquiring Signal" message. I head upstairs, where the "Acquiring Signal" message disappears, but not the "Call Sirius to activate." message. Assuming Sirius is getting overwhelmed with last-minute Howard fans such as myself, I wait another 45 minutes. The Web site says it should take a few seconds to a minute for activation. So I call the 800 number, or rather, the 888 number. First time, I get placed on hold for 15 minutes before I have to hang up. Next two tries are met with a busy signal. I finally get onto the wait queue on the third attempt. Luckily my phone has speakerphone capability, so I put on speakerphone and settle back to watch the Panthers kick the crap out of the NY Giants, followed by the Pittsburgh/Cincy game. After about 45 minutes on hold, I finally get a person on the line. I have to giver her all my information again, address, credit card, etc. After a few seconds, voila, I am now part of the Sirius family!
I read some of the Sirius message boards, especially the ones detailing people's fruitless attempts to listen at work I know I will be in that group come Monday, but I figure I can give it a shot.
Monday, Jan 9: I have the car kit ready to go in my car. I plug the power adapter to my cigarette lighter, throw the antenna up on the dashboard [being too lazy to properly place it on the roof], find an unused frequency, and BAM, there's Howard and the gang dropping F-bombs left and right. Life is good. However, the real test is coming up. Sure enough, once I have the boombox and antenna set up in my office [close to a window that unfortunately faces South and West, instead of the recommended North and East], I get nothing but "Acquiring signal" on my receiver. I take it to another location, one that faces LAX, and the reception signal jumps to maximum. Everything is coming in loud and clear. Oh well. Since I already paid for my year's subscription, I guess I'll listen to Howard in the morning and evening [he has a rebroadcast at 6 p.m.].
Tuesday, Jan 10: Nothing new to report. I do take a trip to Best Buy and Circuit City to return the Starmate Replay unit and the Sportster Replay home kit.
Wednesday, Jan 11: When I plug in the car power adapter, nothing happens. The little fuse at the end is at an odd angle. I jiggle it, but nothing happens. I drive to work in silence. At lunch time, I head to Radio Shack [which, by the way, is no longer advertising the Starmate Replay home kit online] where I purchase a replacement car power adapter for $35.
Things have been fine since then. One thing I noticed in my searching is, overall, the XM products are much nicer looking. I don't know how well they function. The Sirius products all look cheap, except maybe the S50, and that one costs $300. Also, there has been a serious [pun intended] shortage of equipment. Howard has mentioned it a couple of times on his show. I don't know what Sirius was thinking, but it doesn't seem they anticipated that many people would wait until the last minute to switch to Howard.
The Howard Stern show, by the way, has been great. It's a lot looser and way, way, funny. They had a hilarious bit where an Arnold impersonator called in and interacted with George Takei, who apparently wasn't in on the joke. I was crying from laughing so hard, even when I heard it for the second time.
Also, I've been listening to the music channels, which are streamed online. It's great to hear the music uncensored. Howard has mentioned a couple of times that his show will eventually be streamed online as well, so I can't wait for that. I don't miss anything about regular radio, it's becoming a lumbering dinosaur.
Finally, this week you had a comment from someone who streams Country music online or something, who asked the rhetorical question about whether one will be willing to pay $20 for a bunch of streaming stations, or $13 for Howard plus 100 channels. The answer is, the two are not mutually exclusive. The sound quality of online music sucks big time. Talk radio is another story, you don't care that much about how the voices sound.
Okay, that's the end of my adventure. My conclusion is that Satellite radio is great, once you've discovered it, it will be very hard to go back. |
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