[Edited at February 25, 2008 10:21:21 AM.]

They’ve been slipping them in here and there for months now. I’m quickly becoming bored with XM and am seriously considering Sirius (I made that up all by myself) for my new car.

Ok, just checking to see if we were neighbors. I’m in Columbus, IN.

Julie wrote:

bcoutlander:

70 miles from Indy? Which direction?

East, I live in Richmond.

70 miles from Indy? Which direction?

I’m still happy with my XM radio I use it every single day. It’s on whenever I’m driving. It’s really nice to have your favorite stations with you where ever you go.

I never got into the ipod thing. In anticipation of a road trip I bought an Alpine receiver/cd player with XM built-in for my car.

First of all, no commercials (other than XM promos) is wonderful. In urban driving listening to FM I got plain fed up with the loud obnoxious ads and even more obnoxious DJ’s, did not need traffic reports every five minutes during rush hour. Music variety is fantastic.

A five week trip through west Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma convinced me. Navigating a mountain pass on an old dirt road the XM cut out for a few seconds (I was against a treed rise of a couple of hundred feet). Other than that one moment XM worked perfectly through mountains and desert. Subsequent trips to rural areas have further convinced me. When I promote XM to friends I talk about the proramming variety and close with, “It works everywhere!”

(OK, it won’t work in a parking garage)

Now when I hit the road I’ll carry only a few CD’s.

I work @ one of the customer Service centers fo XM radio. I was glad to here such wonderful comments about our service. Even though I get great reviews over the phone.

I have the same unit your using at the moment. It’s wonderful. And sorry for them not getting back to you with that email. We are expanding rapidly and hiring more and more Customer Service reps every chance we get.

So everyone out there keep on enjoying your XM service. If you ever call and hear. “Hi this is Lisa bringing your radio to the power of X.” That’s me. I’m at the Toronto Location.

mber wrote:

Great write up. Just so that everyone understands, XM may work better inside garages and homes in about 70 urban markets because they have terrestrial (that is ground based antennas) in those markets. Those of us who live in rural areas will get no inside reception without mounting an antenna outside our homes/offices. My friend who lives in Richmond, VA gets great indoor reception with no exterior antenna. Not sure what, if anything, Sirius does.

I live about 120 miles from the nearest terrestrial repeater for XM, and I get great coverage in my garage using my car or home kit. I think a lot depends on where you are, what your garage is made of, LOS to the bird – trees, clouds, etc.

I have a home kit I didn’t need to mount anything outside, I just pointed the little XM antenna south and it gave me full bars. I forgot how much fun listening to music was – compared to 60% advertisements, 15% annoying DJs, and 25% of the “new hits”…

I’ll give up satradio when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

XM is increasing their prices to equal Sirius – 12.95/mo

But they are including free online streaming radio (previously $3.99/mo for radio owners, $7.95 for everyone else) and access to Opie and Anthony’s High Voltage channel (previously $1.99/month extra).

XM also will be covering every single MLB game from the first pitch to the last out of the World Series. I would have rather had access to football games… but went with XM for the price.

On a side note – XM’s satellites pump out 18,000 watts of digital music goodness in a geosyc orbit. XM just launched a 3rd satellite and is planning on a 4th in 2006. These two new birds will be replacing the existing ones that have a faulty solar collectors. Covered by insurance, it was cheaper to send replacements.

Julie wrote:

Wow, I guess I didn’t realize that it had an internal antenna. I wonder how well it would work inside a building not near a window?

Yeah, that’s really the premise of the Myfi. The fact that’s is so portable. I haven’t tested it yet away from one of it’s cradles yet so I don’t know the answer to your question yet…….

I definitely do not live in any urban market. I’m in a rural area (living in 12 acres of woods) and was quite surprised that my XM radio worked inside the garage.

On another note, I just saw a rumor that XM and Sirius might merge… Not sure this will ever happen since that would make them a monopoly.

But if you need an extra boost of signal while using the Myfi away from either the home or car cradle it comes with this another antenna which you can also plug into the Myfi. It’s a small tube (about three inches long) which comes with a clip that you can then clip onto your belt, bag, strap etc. It’s also good if you want to keep the Myfi inside your bag while listening to it. You can simply run the antenna out and leave the device hidden.

It’s not part of the headphones. There is a separate port/hole on the side of the device for this antenna.

Hope that’s clear.

Julie wrote:

lgreenberg:

So, how did you decide between XM and Sirius? How do you like the Myfi? Are you using it in your car, house or both?

It was actually a tough choice. I do like listening to Howard Stern and Sirius has the NFL. But I figured I have to live in the here and now. Stern won’t be on Sirius for another year and the NFL season is one game from being over.

XM has Major League Baseball starting soon and plenty of other decent channels which interest me. For now I’ll stick with XM. If I find I can’t live without Howard and the NFL come next year, who knows.

I set up the Myfi in my house first. I used it there all last night, FM transmiting to various devices around my house. I did install all the car components (cradle, antenna, chanrger) yesterday as well and will be taking it with me in the car today.

I like the Myfi alot. It comes with everything! Car cradle, car charger, car antenna, home cradle, home charger, home antenna, leather case, plastic holster, remote, walk-around antenna, audio cables, built in FM transmiter, car mounts and more. Everything you could possibly need is included in the box.

So, how did you decide between XM and Sirius? How do you like the Myfi? Are you using it in your car, house or both?

I’m enjoying it so far.

technolvr wrote:

Good article. It’s a nice overview for those of us considering satellite radio. I have a couple of questions if Julie or Judy or anyone else knows:

1. How does the breadth of musical offerings of either service compare to a free service such as accuradio? I am primarily listening in the home, so mobility is not that big a deal to me.

I’d never heard of Accuradio, but just give it a whirl this morning. Pretty cool! The selection of music channels on Accuradio seems a little more eclectic than Sirius and XM. I’m loving the Celtic channels at the moment.

I would say that if you are liking Accuradio, stick with it because it is FREE

2. What is the technical lowdown on the compression used? I have seen widely varying reviews of the sound quality, everything from “unacceptable”to “better than CD (??)”. Are any objective details available?

I did a little googling and was unable to find any info on the bit rate used by each service. I can only comment that my hears tell me that XM sounds slightly better than Sirius. I know that’s not the level detail you were hoping for… Does anyone else have the answer to this question?