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Music Media

Satellite Radio Is Officially Here 405

Posted by timothy from the just-when-my-car-gets-a-decent-cassette-deck dept.
dragons_flight writes: "XM Satellite Radio has officially launched, initially selling equipment only in the Dallas and San Diego markets, but going national by Nov. 15. A reciever for home or car costs ~$300 plus a $10/month subscription service. Many new cars will be pre-equipped with satellite-ready radios. XM provides 100 digital channels, a signicant number of which are commercial free. Sirius satellite radio says they are committed to launching be the end of the year." Any readers out there with the equipment for this have comments about it? ($10x12 + $300 makes $420 I'll be putting toward other things.)
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Satellite Radio Is Officially Here More

Satellite Radio Is Officially Here

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  • commercial free (Score:4, Insightful)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:46PM (#2349747) Journal
    It is hard to sell commercials without an existing user base. Once you have the customers, than you can zap them with ads.

  • What, no techno? (Score:2, Informative)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 )
    I don't see any electronic or techno music in the listings.

    • Re:What, no techno? (Score:3, Informative)

      by roche ( 135922 )
      There are 3 channels that look like they play techno. They are....

      Ch 80 The Move Dance One Nation, Underground

      Ch 81 BPM Dance The Spirit of the Weekend, All the Time

      Ch 82 Club 82 Dance Urban Dance Music.. In the Mix.. 24/7

  • Subscription Fee (Score:3, Interesting)

    by matthewg ( 6374 ) <matthewg@zevils.com> on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:48PM (#2349760) Homepage
    How do they enforce the subscription fee? Do they just make you send back the receiving equipment if you don't pay? If so, I predict that the DirecTV hackers will have a new toy to play with. ;)
    • I'd imagine that they would just send a signal to your receiving equipment telling it to shut off until you pay up again.

      Digital satellite TV works a bit like that.

    • Re:Subscription Fee (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SpamapS ( 70953 )
      "DirecTV hackers' .. that almost sounds affectionate. I'm so sick of this geek culture accepting criminals just because they find a way around the control system.

      They're providing a service. Pay for it. Its not like they're price gouging either. And by "they" I mean both Satellite TV and Radio providers.

    • Re:Subscription Fee (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Krellan ( 107440 )

      Enforcing the subscription fee is a pretty easy problem to solve, assuming that each subscriber's radio has a unique serial number and that the channels of the satellite are encrypted with a modern encryption system (public key, and at least 128 bits).

      There isn't enough bandwidth to send each subscriber an individually encrypted signal, of course. So, they encrypt the overall signal with their private key, and change this key fairly often. There is enough bandwidth to send individual public keys to each subscriber, though. These public keys are encrypted somehow with the serial number of the radio -- this is a second layer of encryption. The radio receiver, using its serial number and other stored information, decodes this. Returning to the first layer of encryption, it can now be decoded, because the radio now has the proper public key.

      Suppose you don't pay? They simply remove your radio's serial number from the list of public keys that are transmitted. When they next change the private key, your radio never receives the new public key. The encrypted channels no longer decode correctly, and your radio goes dead.

      Now the harder problems appear. What to do about cloned radios, where more than one unit shares the same serial number? What to do about hacked radios, "rogue clients" that share the decrypted public key with others, relieving them of the need to pay for it? How to hold subscribers accountable, when there is no reliable back channel? DirectTV has been wrestling with these problems for years. If digital radio catches on, expect to see Canadian stores selling cloning and reprogramming equipment... interesting times are ahead.

  • Yeah, I'll probably pass.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:48PM (#2349765) Journal
    Honestly, this could turn out to be worthwhile, *if* they provide stations that play a wide enough variety of music, and remain well-organized by music category. Having all music and no commercials/talk is a big plus. The big problem is that $10 monthly fee for the privilege of listening to a pre-determined playlist that you have no control over.

    With the era of MP3 music upon us, I think many people will prefer to spend that $10 a month on blank media, and buy an in-car MP3 player (for roughly the same price as these satellite radios), and control what they listen to and when it's heard.
    • Crutchfield started hawking satellite radio in their catalog, it certainly isn't marketed locally.

      I don't know about the in-car MP3 player thing, some compatible CD decks are being made but I'm not seeing them available locally either. They might be interesting to try out but by default they assume the owner has a CD writer and I don't care to deal with the hassle.
    • MP3s are great, but there's a service that a good DJ/radio programmer serves, which is to introduce us to new music. Assuming that it comes with a bit of metainfo, like track name, artist name, etc that's been shown with MTV videos, it would be a great way to find new music.

      Take me. I like progressive rock. That's a pretty narrow genre, that never gets airplay outside of the few big commercial bands (Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, etc) that get play on Classic Rock stations. There are a lot of other bands that fit the genre, but never get radio play. Spinner was good for that, and I ended up getting some Brian Eno, and a few other cool bands after hearing a couple of tracks on there.

      But I don't really dig listening on my computer, and I wasn't getting consistent bandwidth for Spinner. I'm too lazy to download random tracks on MP3. I might pay a little money for a good random mix.

  • good concept, marketing plan isn't there yet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fetta ( 141344 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:52PM (#2349790)
    Satellite radio is a great concept, but I have a hard time seeing too many people subscribe under the current terms. The "itch" that this addresses (too many commercials, not enough variety) isn't severe enough to justify the $300 + $120/year. Especially not when cheaper "scratches" exist, like CD players. The audiophiles that I know are more likely to spend their money on MP3 and CD alternatives.

    Maybe if they can get enough cars to come with the hardware preinstalled, they have a shot. But until they have that installed base of hardware, this service is a pilot project at best.
    • Another point that is worth mentioning is the quality of the signal. I have digital cable at home and notice that the picture quality of the digital channels, while better than traditional analog channels, still has some of the MPEG'y look to it. Things like fog / smoke have visible signs of lower color depth. The audio on the stations is pretty good, but the music stations tend to suffer the same fate as some of the video stations.

      Having a sensitive ear towards music quality makes me hesitant to look into this too much (and too soon).

      Another question that I have, that I didn't see answered on the home page was the coverage areas. Just because it is being offered in Dallas and CA, does this mean that those are the only current coverage areas? If I travel from city to city (more importantly one that isn't currently in their market) will I loose coverage?
  • Accept the fact that some people like not knowing exactly what's available or do not have the time to compile playlists. Take the time to come up with a valid complaint, like why the hell would I spend $420 the first year to listen to the radio?
    • People who travel a lot by car for work/pleasure might like this. Some possible people who would like it: rural mail carriers/delivery people that use their own car, sales people who move all around the states, all those retired people with their RV's, semi-truck drivers etc. etc. So for you it might not be worth the money but others would probably love it.

  • A better idea (for most people) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Da VinMan ( 7669 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:55PM (#2349812)
    Instead of supporting this form of broadcast, why not send some money to your local public radio organizations instead? (Sorry to everyone else if this is largely a US idea.) They insulate you from the blatant and sickening commericialism. They don't ask you to install special equipment. They (usually) broadcast things which expand your mind and make you more informed. They do not just allows themselves to be swept along in every popular culture movement you can think of, etc.

    In short, they don't ask for much, and they deliver quite a lot in return. It's an excellent investment. Please consider sending them the $420 instead.

    • Public radio != no commercials (Score:5, Informative)

      by Old Man Kensey ( 5209 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @06:09PM (#2349904) Homepage
      Da VinMan wrote:

      Instead of supporting this form of broadcast, why not send some money to your local public radio organizations instead?... They insulate you from the blatant and sickening commericialism.

      This is not, in fact, the case.

      Listener donations are an important part of community radio, but corporate sponsorships also play a big (often a majority) role. The only difference between a sponsorship spot and an out-and-out ad is:

      1. A sponsorship spot is read by the DJ on the mic, instead of being a flashy canned ad.
      2. A sponsorship cannot contain a call to action. You can't say "Call MyCo at 1-800-CHEAPER!" -- but you can say "The number for MyCo is..." or "MyCo can be reached at..."

      Apart from those, there is very little difference between the ads you hear on commercial radio and the spots you hear on public radio.

      I worked for a community radio station in Charlottesville, VA called WNRN (91.9 -- still have my t-shirt). They started off with 4 breaks per hour -- :03, :20, :35 and :47 plus the top-of-the-hour station ID live/liner break (or something close to that -- it's been some years). During donation drives the number of breaks doubled.

      By the time I moved out of Charlottesville this past year they had added I think 2 promo spots to the hour. You can't get enough on your calendar otherwise to support the station.

      Don't get me wrong -- I'm not knocking community radio. I loved WNRN and the people who work there. But let's not talk about how public radio is "non-commercial" when that's simply not true.

      • KKUP in Cupertino & Truckers... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BumbaCLot ( 472046 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @06:49PM (#2350118)
        Thankfully the Bay has one truly Public Radio station, KKUP. None of the DJ's are played, they have 15+ genres, and are 100% listener supported (quite possibly the only station in the country). Not that I would bet too many /.'ers are big reggae fans, but they have the most reggae hours on radio period. (XM just happens to have 1 reggae station I am streaming right now)
        A point on XM radio, the trucking industry will be the first to take great use of this, on a trip to Mardi Gras from Indiana with my father, I failed to bring anything to read with me, and picked up all the free trucking magazines I could at local gas stations, and they were looking forward to XM in great force. It also interested me the amount of trucking companies who provided e-mail services built into their rigs to their employees so they could keep in touch with both their dispatchers and families.
        Always remember not 'ALL' tech is created by geeks for geeks....
        • I think there are plenty of 100% listener-supported stations in the US. The best-known is probably KPFA in Berkeley, the nation's first public radio station. The Pacifica Foundation, which owns KPFA, also operates four other stations around the country, including WBAI in New York.

          Another well-known all listener-supported station is WFMU in New Jersey, whose coverage area includes all of Manhattan.
      • Obviously, I'm not able to speak to the VA public stations (I'm in MN), but I do find that public radio here (91.1 FM and probably others in this area) contain so little commercialism that I experience no dilemma of conscience in describing them as non-commercial. Many public radio stations will license the National Public Radio and follow their guidelines, so beyond that, YMMV. In MN (MPR), they point out key sponsorships with a little phrase behind it probably every 15 minutes. Apart from that, it's just content. Maybe I should've promoted MPR specifically, but I'm guessing that public radio practices nationwide are probably good enough to warrant a blanket endorsement.
      • Work at a commercial station for a while. Then listen to both types of stations. You'll be able to listen between the lines and detect a considerable difference.

        If I were flaming you I wouldn't have meta-modded your "insightful" as "fair".

    • I can listen to public radio for a couple of weeks.

      AFter that, the begging sessions turn me off.

      It's a shame too. Public radio in my area (Albany, NY) is some of the best in the country.
    • I do this, mainly to hear NPR, but my God, the do fundraisers OFTEN and LONG. It's painful to listen to them begging for money for a week and a half, when you *could* be listening to Morning Edition. g
  • Is there some particular reason why you couldn't just grab this radio feed out of the air? Sure, you might have to reverse-engineer/hack the top secret elite XOR key out of an existing radio, but after that, what's stopping you?
    • This news comes just in time for the great magnetic storms (1 GT of solar mass headed our way...) Too bad the service was not launching today ;)
      • Ooh, good point! I'd be pretty bent out of shape if i was paying for radio service and it started to get all out of shape because of solar activity. As it is, FM reception in my city is pretty nearly perfect. Artifacts in a digital satellite service would be really disappointing.

        BTW, I'd definitely buy this service if the receiver has a digital output. And if they carry NPR.

  • But it begs the question: Why bother? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by spiderfarmer ( 141667 ) <spiderfarmerNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:55PM (#2349816) Homepage
    I dunno, I've gotten so weary of commercial radio that I almost never listen to anything but CD's anyway. And remember when cable TV was introduced and the big motivation for paying for it was so that you got broadcasts without commercials? That didn't last too long...and now consumers can pay up to $100.00 a month for cable that consists of more advertising than is allowed by law on network channels.

    So, I don't really believe the non-commercial aspect, at least not once they get a big enough subscriber base.

    And reviewing the available channels, it seems to me that it would be easier and cheaper to just buy CD's. At $12.00 a pop for a new CD, you could buy 35 CD's of music you want to hear instead of constantly flipping through another 100 channels of crap.

  • 10 bucks for this? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nf1nk ( 443791 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [kn1fn]> on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:57PM (#2349827) Homepage
    From the Article
    Besides music and talk programming, XM will also carry radio channels or live audio simulcasts from CNBC, CNN Headline News, USA Today and C-SPAN among others.



    Of the music channels, 30 of 71 will be commercial-free. The rest, along with 29 news, talks and sports channels will carry commercial blocks of varying lengths.


    The service will cost $9.95 a month, with new radios to upgrade older cars to make them compatible starting at $225.

    so if I understand this right for ten bucks a month I only get 30 stations that are comercial free and 100 + that arn't any any different than what I already have.

    excuse me if I don't run out grab one.

    • The Washington Post has had lots of coverage of XM, since it's a local company, and they report that there will be far fewer commercials than are on, say, Clear Channel. Oh, and XM has some former DJ's from WHFS. Those of us who've lived in DC for many years remember HFS, fondly, as a true alternative radio station. It used to play lots of reggae, punk, other non-mainstream formats. Looks like XM will do the same.

  • Buy it before they make it SSSCA compliant! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ghoser777 ( 113623 ) <fahrenba.mac@com> on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @05:57PM (#2349828) Homepage
    I bet you could hack one of these things to instead of playing music to encoding to mp3 or ogg right on your hardrive. On normal radios, this is kind of pointless because the sound quality is so poor, but on fully digital music, this could be sweet. Hmmm, maybe that's what we'll have to start doing: hacking the hardware to be able export digital music, like CD's and such, to software. Mayeb I should switch from Math-Edu to CompE so I could make a bundle setting up something like this.

    F-bacher

  • SONY decks (Score:2, Informative)

    by hugecrow ( 311366 )
    most higher end sony car audio decks come ready for XM recieving. I got one i am really looking forward to the launch
  • XM and Sirius units use different standards and are incompatible with each other.

    Imagine if I had to buy a different TV for watching ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, Disney, etc...

    Deja vu... can't we all get along?
    • They're not currently compatible, but they soon will be [wired.com]:
      • The first Sirius and XM receivers will not be compatible, however, so customers will have to choose which service they prefer. The companies did agree to cross-license their technologies so that future receivers could access both signals.
  • Finally someone comes out with a radio service that can get me the 24-hour electronica fix that I so crave! And 3 channels nonetheless!! Not too sure what everyone else's situation is but here there's rock, country, rock, oldies, country, talk, country, and maybe some rock. Doesn't go so well if you just have this insatiable urge to listen to some Digweed in the car (mind you, I have no CD player or AM radio to speak of (then again, it's AM)).

    Had I the cash to throw down on something like that I'd definitely have it by tomorrow. Sadly there's these things called food and shelter. . . . .

    But I hope that this takes off, if only for the sake of having what may actually be some quality programming and reception! Who knows. I might be able to afford it in a while. Oh yeah, and if you don't like techno, I think there's some other channels, too.

    • Some of the digital cable services have similar techno music 'channels' that are mixed. They're pretty good, IMO one of the most appealing things about this kind of service is that you end up with music types that most radio stations do not already play. Though I have no idea why the hell they are carrying KISS on digital satellite, one of the most damn annoying stations down here in LA.

  • $ 420 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dolly_Llama ( 267016 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @06:03PM (#2349872) Homepage
    if im going to spend 420, I'm going to smoke it too.
  • What a deal? I mean the other broadcast crap is free, but this broadcast crap only cost $420. And remember back in the '80s when all your friends had cable and didn't have to sit through commercials. Well, now you won't have to listen to commercials on the radio, until everyone has a satellite radio and they decide to add commercials.

    Really people. Is /. concerned about anything other than where their next bit of entertainment is coming from? $420 to listen to the same crap that my wife tortures me with now? Sheesh!!

  • weed perhaps?

    (if you don't get the joke, please just ignore it)

  • Cassette deck?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pope Slackman ( 13727 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @06:14PM (#2349933) Homepage Journal
    from the just-when-my-car-gets-a-decent-cassette-deck dept.

    Jesus. What did you upgrade from, an 8-track?

    C-X C-S
    • What did you upgrade from, an 8-track?

      1970 VW van has two turn tables and a microphone.

      Why is it that the airwaves are not more like the internet? There are plenty of enthusiastic volunteers ready for free broadcasts on all that empty spectrum, and I thought that educational institutions were free to broadcast whatever they wanted without royalty concerns. The people in control of the airwaves are NOT serving the public interest, that's for sure. Let's push back.

  • Aside from the occasional fund raiser, NPR and college stations are already commercial free.

    Plus, they tend to be inane-DJ-chatter-free as well. I don't know what's worse, actually.

    Of course, since my radio was 'removed' upon moving to DC, I haven't had to suffer through commercials or moronic DJs.

    Regardless, both this and the Rio Empeg cost more than my car is worth, so fat chance I'd buy either one...

  • Why this might work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skoda ( 211470 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @06:24PM (#2349991) Homepage
    I see a few repeated thoughts against subscription radio. Here's a some thoughts on why they're wrong.

    Anti-1) Just buy CDs.
    At $10/mo. you can't even buy one CD/mo. Assuming good playlists, this is a cheaper way to get a variety of music. As for the $300 one-time cost for the radio, that will come down. CD players debuted at $500 - $1000 (?? just buy blank tapes at $0.50 ea.!); likewise for VCRs, DVD players, etc.

    Anti-2) Listen CDs for good selection; don't rely on radio.
    CDs play for 70 min max. Then it either stops, repeats, or you must switch discs. The point of radio is fire-and-forget. Pick station, and not have to interrupt work to fiddle with music selection. Multi-discs CD players reduce the problem, but don't remove it.

    Anti-3) Use MP3 player to play large compilation discs.
    Like Anti-2, it reduces effort, but still requires effort (both up-front to make the MP3s, and possibly to switch discs). But it's also Anti-1 -- you gotta have discs before you can rip 'em. Unless you steal music, but that's another discussion.

    Anti-4) Just make your own mixes, and listent ot them. Why listen to corporate-run radio?
    Uh huh. Just like you make your own DVD mixes, rather than getting cable-TV for movies, news, variety, etc.

    For many of those people, the objections will be sufficient deterrent to trying digital radio. But early adopters are funny beasts, and are not easily stopped :) Subscription-based media access works (cable TV, newspapers, magazines), despite the wide variety of high-quality, free sources (network TV, indie 'zines).

    There are many obstacles, but I think subscription, digital radio could work.
    • I think what would be really useful is a combo CD player/HD unit, that would rip to the HD while you were listening.

      Granted, without net connections you wouldn't get track info right off BUT - how big is the whole freecddb database? Since storage is cheap you could include the whole thing locally and provide some means of updating (like a new DB burned on a CD).

      With that combo you would still have the variety of your CD collection without the typical pain of burning all your CD's and then transferring the MP3's around.

    • A multi-cd changer in your car, loaded with all discs of a certain genre, will generate the same amount of content before a repeat as XM does, I bet.

      Go turn on any given radio channel on your digital cable tv service. Listen to it and note how long it is before you hear a repeated song. It's pretty darn short. These "channels" are nothing more than banks of multi-CD changers.

      After 3 days on any given XM channel you will be dying to hear something new.
  • Will Canada just come over to the States and buy the dishes, only to get the signal for free across the border?

  • When does the TiVo version come out? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @06:38PM (#2350064) Homepage
    Considering how small an mp3 stream is, it wouldn't be hard to capture the stream to a 128meg DIMM chip so you can precache stations.

    Without commercials and without commentary, there's no disincentive to timeshifting digital satellite radio. Why not make a system that will cache the last 100 songs, so you can just skip the ones you don't like?
  • I think I'd buy it. There was a radio station here in Salt Lake City that played for about two weeks straight with no commercials, most of which was music I liked. It was great. They will be offering 30 or so channels of no commercials... as well as some 40 more channels of music.. in addition to 20 or so news feeds. I think that's a great deal for $10 a month.

    I'd love to be able to listen to CNN in my car. I don't know how many stations I can pick up here, but I don't think it's 100. And I'd bet that they add in channels later if the service was popular.

    K, that's my .02 cents.
    • Thought I'd throw this in too... they said you can pick up the stations while driving from California to Washington DC for about 98% of the trip. I don't know about you guys, but I hate trying to find local stations when I am driving cross country. It's not that it's a pain in the ass, I just like having the tried-and-true music that I am used to.

  • Why it's no good for me (& many others) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @07:01PM (#2350174) Homepage Journal
    I commute almost weekly between work in Boston, Mass. USA & home in Montreal, Quebec Canada. It's about a 6-hour drive through mountains and with a very limited choice of stations, both FM and AM. As someone with a strong dislike of both religious programming and country music and with limited endurance for Delilah [radiodelilah.com] (an impossible-to-escape syndicated program) I'd be very interested in radio programming that I could receive uninterrupted en route.

    My first choice would be for a live NPR [npr.org] feed though PRI [pri.org] and of course CBC [www.cbc.ca] would be welcome. All-music would be useful as an alternate though I'm really looking for something to keep me engaged on the long and at this hundredth-time boring night drive. Mp3's or other pre-recorded music aren't what I'm looking for (I already have a large collection of CD's & tapes) and so aren't interesting as an alternative. I could download some news & interview programming I like and burn it to a CD before each trip but this would be far more preparation then I care to do so regularly.

    Unfortunately it appears that "satellite radio" will be as problematic for me as conventional radio. Driving through the mountains at ~45 North will likely result in service interruptions (doubtless the same as with conventional radio: always at the most interesting points.) Without much likelihood of repeaters in these rural areas this appears an inherent bug in the service and one which (at least for me) brings it from a strong possibility to something I'm not willing to pay much extra for.

    A couple of tangential thoughts:

    1. As Canada's CRTC takes no action to prevent piracy of US FCC-licensed satellite television broadcasts (aside from refusing to allow the services to be directly sold in Canada) I wonder if the same will hold true of radio broadcasts?
    2. Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.
    Finally, Howstuffworks [howstuffworks.com] has a much more complete explanation of the history of this technology and how it really works (the corporate web sites are careful not to identify problems such as the need for repeaters.)

    • My first choice would be for a live NPR [npr.org] feed though PRI [pri.org] and of course CBC[www.cbc.ca] would be welcome.

      While the link to howstuff works is nice, it's hard to belive you live in Montreal and prefer NPR to the Canadian version. Hell, I only visit Montreal and Quebec City and I prefer Canadian. CBC, if that's what they call themselves, are so much less full of themselves. They are direct, far more in depth and intelligent and less fluffy. They do not play anoying segway music, like those awful horns, at inaproprate times, like reporting plauges, wars and the death of thousands.

      For that six hour ride, which is wonderful with or without canned music, you would be better off with ogg and mp3's than this play for pay scam. Check out ABCDE [lly.org] to take control of your media again. Then get yourself a nice little portable player with a random button. The hours will fly by with music YOU really want to hear.

      • Well, I thought I made it clear I'm not interested in bringing along music with me, either in a digital format or on CD/tape. It might be nice as an alternate or for a break but I've already got a fair collection of material and don't need to buy another gadget for this.

        I also thought I made it clear that producing material more to my taste (CD's containing downloaded news & interview programs) is simply more effort then I'd like to invest every week. I'm already spending 12 hours on the road on top of just living my life, what free time I have is at a premium and searching / downloading / burning radio programs every week is just too much to ask. However paying for a device and service that offered what I want would be worth it for me if it worked.

        Finally while it's nice that you like Canadian radio programming (and yes the CBC is one network though there are many others) please don't insult my other choices. I enjoy many NPR programs: Terry Gross on "All Things Considered [npr.org]" is a fantastic interviewer and "This American Life [thislife.org]" often rises to brilliance. Being a US citizen living in Canada I appreciate hearing news and material from both sides of the border. YMMV.

    • Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.

      This is what RDS [qsl.net] (Radio Data System) does in the UK and Europe. Apparently this is available in the US too, although on a much more limited scale (it's more or less universal here, and any new car radio supports it).

      You get station ident on the display, traffic alerts from nearby stations and automatic search for particular types of program (PTY) - have your radio search for classical stations.

    • Re:Why it's no good for me (& many others) (Score:4, Informative)

      by hfcs ( 22012 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @07:59PM (#2350402)
      DeLorme's Street Atlas, at least V7 and the newer Road Warrior edition, let you pull up radio station listings (am & fm, w/ freq and genre) for any location along a given route. Does that help?
      -Bill
      • Thanks for being helpful.

        It's good to know that there's an applicaton that handles this for points along the way but I'm looking for something that could generate listing for the entire route, not just from the dozen or so control cities I'd have to manually plug in.

        I assume the FCC has some sort of database of stations, frequencies and transmission areas (I've seen highly detailed maps for individual stations showing thier transmission areas) and there must be a table of stations-to-formats out there. With these two datasets it seems it would be trivial to overlay this on a route and generate a listing of stations of the sort desired and note where they begin & end.

        Instead i expect (and well could be wrong not being at all familier with the product) that DeLorme is simply listing stations registered as serving a particular metropolitan area and not actually matching their transmission areas to the exact geographic location.

    • From the HowStuffWorks site, the repeaters are for urban areas, not for mountainous areas. Not that Boston to Montreal is really "mountainous". Because of the urban canyons created by tall buildings, the satellite signals can be blocked. In wide open country the signal should be fine. Once you get back in the urban canyons of Montreal, you might run into signal issues.
      • Not that Boston to Montreal is really "mountainous"

        Have you ever actually driven I-89 through New Hampshire & Vermont? It's mountainous all right, that's why I'm always passing the idiots in SUV's spun out in their mad rush to go skiing in the winter (downhill skiing implies mountains to most folks, indeed it's a significent part of both state's economies.)

        The White Mountains & the Green Mountains aren't the Rockies or the Tetons but they're considerable ranges nonetheless and more then sufficient to block reception from geosynch satellites. I agree that it's unlikely there will be repeaters placed in the dead-zones along my route but it's due to the lack of listeners, not because there's some magic difference between being in the shadow of Place Ville-Marie and Mt. Whatever just north of exit 2 on I-89 in Vermont.

  • XM vs DirecTV 800? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @07:08PM (#2350207) Homepage Journal

    I've really enjoyed the piped music coming in on the channel 8?? range on DirecTV. It's commercial free, and they display the artist/title/CD/label on the screen for your information (which is more than I'll say about most FM stations that just assume you know).

    But of course it's a stationary service, rooted to my home system.

    It would be nice if I could just receive those same audio channels from DirecTV in my car, on my personal CD/MP3 player/tuner instead of having to subscribe to yet another service. The BW requirements seem minimal enough in principle but perhaps there's no convenient way of extracting just those channels from their feed with a dinky antennae?

    Of course, another alternative might be if cell phone time comes down in price enough so that we can stream audio over the web via WAP(?)

    • For the fanatical DirecTV user, there's a gyro-stabilized auto-tracking steerable dish antenna system [kvh.com] available. It's intended for larger recreational vehicles and boats. Variations on this unit make it possible to get all the usual satellite services on mobile vehicles, including data uplinks.

      This is, though, a 12" or 18" parabolic dish in a radome, so it's a bit much for small cars. It would be cool to replace the fibreglas radome with a clear one, so people could watch the dish track as you drove along.

  • NOT just music (Score:2, Insightful)

    by meekjt ( 94667 )
    Why is everyone talking about the music possibilities of satellite radio. I'm looking forward to getting NPR and the BBC. Nether of witch I can get very well here in Florida with analog radio.
    • Hey, check out our provincial public radio, CKUA [ckua.com]. After living in the US for a few years, I definitely find that it's a significant improvement over NPR, and webcast to boot.
  • I'll pay as much for this as I do for cable TV now: nothing. I strongly doubt that there's going to be more than 5% of this that's worth listening too, and I can get about 95% of that from my own music, our two good broadcast stations (CBC and CKUA), and the odd moments of silence that are quite enjoyable when they happen.

    5% new of 5% worthwhile isn't enough to justify paying any money at all for.
  • Ok, so XM Radio has one metal channel [xmradio.com], playing wannabe metal such as Korn, Limb Bizkit, and Marilyn Manson. But, out of "100 channels", there's still not one that offers melodic death metal such as In Flames [inflames.com] or power metal such as Helloween [helloween.org]!? Bah. (And, FWIW, it doesn't look like Sirius fares any any better [siriusradio.com])

    But, to their credit, XM Radio does offer BBC World Service [xmradio.com], which is almost reason enough alone to sign up :).
  • meaning, a good concept that no one wants.

    what percentage of the driving radio listner would want coat to coast radio stations, and pay 10bucks for the privilage?

    truckers, trains would be the biggest market, and is that enough to keep your business floating? probably not.

  • Everyone is missing the point! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Tuesday September 25, 2001 @10:17PM (#2350900)
    I think everyone is seriously missing the point of XM satellite radio.

    The problem with today's music radio stations is that they've been so market-researched to death that the only formats I hear commonly are Adult Contemporary, Country & Western, Hip-Hop and some Heavy Metal. They've essentially wiped out Classical, many ethnic formats, Easy Listening, and Jazz formats, just for starters.

    The potential for XM is enormous: a lot of music formats we used to hear widely and/or niche format music heard only regionally can now get national distribution again. Imagine being able to listen to techno and dance music from Europe and Japan (great music few people in the USA hear)--XM could provide an outlet for that soon.
  • To all of you touting how XM is "commercial-free" take a look at the disclaimer on xmradio.com's sample page:

    Following is a sortable list of XM Satellite Radio's channels. You'll also find an option to listen to XM programming samples. (Although all of our samples are commercial-free, some of the actual channels may carry minimal advertising.)

    Interesting -- so where's the benefit again? Incidentally, crutchfield is already selling the XM recievers and add-ons Here [crutchfield.com]

    ~arbitrary
  • $10x12 + $300 makes $420 I'll be putting toward other things

    I can take a hint. Try smokedot.org
  • I mean really, who wants random objects to fall out of the sky when they turn on the radio?
    Or even worse -- Snoop Dogg?
  • I have a suspicion what the answer is going to be, but does anyone know if XM and Sirius are using the same hardware/software? That is, if I buy an XM radio, then learn that my favorite DJ or Band is getting their own 24-hour channel on Sirius, can I cancel XM and join Sirius with the same hardware?

    I'm afraid this is going to be too much like DirecTV vs Echostar -- each using their own systems. Why, oh, why, can't we develop STANDARD content delivery systems and simply use the inherint subscriber / key information to control which bird you're listening to?

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