My in-laws spend their summers in a cabin in northwest Ontario with no electicity. They can receive very few radio stations except at night, and only if the weather is favorable.
My wife and I have thought about getting them a satellite radio service like XM Radio, but they would need a receiver that can run on regular flashlight batteries. They won’t be able to recharge a battery with a car, computer or wall socket.
Do receivers like that exist? I haven’t been able to find any.
Yes. I have one of these:
which can run on regular flashlight batteries (and during last year’s mega ice storm, did.) The receiver, which plugs into this device, came with the subscription.
The only drawback with the boombox style ones is that the battery life is only about 12 hours. That’s a heckuva lot of C-cells if they listen to the radio a lot-- maybe you should look into finding some sort of solar battery charger setup to at least try to cut down the number of batteries they need to haul in.
Another thing to mention is that since XM’s satellites are in geostationary orbit (at the equator), they are pretty low on the horizon at northern latitudes and depending on how far north the cabin is, it may be tricky to aim the antenna if you don’t have an unobstructed southern view. Sirius’ satellites are in a “tundra orbit” which means they’re usually a lot higher in the sky in central North America. The sirius.ca aiming map thingee says “straight up” for Manitoba and Ontario, so it should work great up there.
Not sure if this is something you’d be interested in but C Crane makes excellent radios for remote locations. And they have wind up radios that produce their own current.
Get something like this:
Solar Charger
and then you don’t have to worry about the actual player.
Thanks for this tip – they’re at about 50 deg. lattitude and in the woods, so a low satellite might be a problem.
Also gotta consider the impact of the cabin itself on receiving signal. I have XM in my vehicle and love it, but I also have one of the portable units, and as soon as you walk into a building, signal plummets to unusable levels. Thickness of walls, materials used in construction, trees, all block signal. Without an outside antenna, I wouldn’t count on it working inside.
The antenna definitely needs line of sight to the satellite. Unless you’re in range of a terrestrial repeater (unlikely in the woods), you’re going to need an antenna outside (whether that means an external antenna or just using the whole radio outside).
If you can get a recharging solution to work (like the solar one gumpy3885 suggested), and if you have wireless data coverage, using a smartphone app might be another option. I’ve used the Sirius|XM app on my iPhone on quite a few trips with good success (though never in a situation where I didn’t have electricity available). The biggest advantages it has over a dedicated radio is that it’s one less thing to haul around and it doesn’t need an outside antenna.
What about shortwave radio? Or even AM?
AM is what they are using now – it’s just that they can only get decent reception at nighttime, and in the summer (when they live there) the sun doesn’t set until after 10pm.
I don’t think they’d be interested in a smartphone. For one, mobile phone coverage is iffy and two, they’re much too frugal to pay for the phone and monthly charges on top of a radio subscription. Their kids had to beg them for years before they would even get a cell phone for emergencies.
For some strange reason I can access Sirius.com but not Sirius.ca from work, so I’ll have to do some more research. The Sirius radios look a lot more expensive than the XM radios for reasons I don’t understand.
For the most part the channels are the same between Sirius and XM anyway (at least in the US; not sure if it’s the same in Canada). The differences are mainly in sports and the “name” channels like Howard Stern and Oprah. If they’re mostly interested in music, the services should be pretty much equivalent.
Sadly enough, they’re mostly interested in conservative talk radio. I’m hoping to broaden their interest.
Try http://siriuscanada.ca/ ?
I’ve driven my in-car Sirus radio a bit farther North than Sioux Lookout, ON, which is near 50deg latitude, and it worked fine.