I did a search and the threads that came up are from last year and nobody had it.I figure some dopers should by now. Anyhow how do you like it? I am seriously considering purchasing one.
This isn’t exactly first hand knowledge but…
My brothers friend has it. My brother says it’s alot like the all music stations on digital cable. No commercials, no announcer. Just music. And very good sound. I guess there are a couple different package you can get, his friend has the basic. But I haven’t heard it myself so, I don’t know.
My brother got a receiver for his Explorer for Christmas, but I had to leave before he got it installed and activated, so I didn’t get to check it out for myself. I’ll get to listen to it sometime in May, probably.
He tells me he loves it. He lives in a mountainous part of Colorado (as opposed to the swampy bits? heh), and reception on regular radio is always, shall we say, iffy. When you’re driving, there’s always a mountain blocking one station or another. With the satellite system, he doesn’t have that problem. His job requires a lot of driving, so he really gets his money’s worth out of it.
This is IMHO territory, so I’ll move the thread over there.
At least one Doper has it…and I’m it.
I’m not sure how I ever lived without it. The signal is good (except for a few times like underground parking garages and such) and the selection of channels is amazing.
I’m not aware of program choices. You get the 100 channels and that’s it. There ARE different systems you can get to receive it, though.
As for your normal DJ chatter you can find that on a few stations (mostly the ‘DECADES’ channels, The fifties, the eighties, that sort of thing). But let’s admit it, most of those guys are useless drones.
And I can, with the press of a button, get BBC World News, ESPN Radio, African Music (their definition is a little broad there but it IS all from Africa, Special X( the strangest channel on earth), old country, new country, lite rock, metal, unsigned acts (having a station dedicated to unsigned bands is great), and more!
As I said, I think it’s a winner. And after installing the gear it’s only $10.00 a month. Can’t go wrong there. I spend WAY more time in my car than watch TV and my dish costs 4 times that.
Is it censored?
If satellites are anything like they say on those anti-satellite dish commercials, does XM radio work in the rain?
Works fine in the rain. As I said, only steel reinforced concrete has blocked my reception to date.
And it’s not censored. Several of the channels are listed as ‘adult’ content on my channel list. There’s even a parental control feature to block out those channels.
Other than a tendency for some of the channels to play the shorter ‘45 version’ of older songs I haven’t seen anything that smacks of censorship. It’s like pay cable TV, since you’re paying for it (ie it’s not being broadcast indiscriminately) they can pretty much do what they want.
I don’t have anything to add myself, but here’s a good cars.com reviewof the system as part of a review of the Cadillac Deville.