SERVICE
$10 Per Month, Plus Receiver
No more bad reception
To inaugurate my VW Jetta's new satellite radio, I embarked on a 2-day, 1,100-mile road trip from Washington, DC, to Charleston, South Carolina, and back again. With 100 channels of music, entertainment, and news at my disposal, I barely noticed the epic bumper-to-bumper that plagued I-95.
Setup is easy: Purchase a receiver (I went with Sony's $299 DRN-XM01C) and a service agreement from XM Satellite Radio. Initialize the account by entering your credit card info and the receiver's ID number on XM's Web site. Peel-and-stick adhesive simplifies the job of mounting the receiver to the dash. Finally, plug the power cable into the lighter socket, slide in the cassette adapter, and slap the magnetic antenna on the roof.
Voilá! From 22,300 miles above, XM's dual satellites broadcast tunes into my car at an eargasmic 64 Kbps. For a quick sound test, I switched between the receiver and my in-dash CD player. There's no apparent difference. But talk channels are pared down to 24 Kbps. This creates problems: BBC was barely audible unless the volume was cranked, and CNBC distorts at any level.
Still, there are 29 news, sports, comedy, and other niche stations. Add to that 71 more choices of CD-quality music - from bluegrass to opera - for hours of surfing up and down the dial. You tune with a jog roller bar on the receiver's topside or with the included remote. However, there are only five preset buttons and no way to directly punch in a station's two- or three-digit code. This meant that if I was shitkicking it on channel 15's Nonstop Country and wanted my fix of reggae on The Joint 101, I had to scroll through dozens of stations, carefully watching the backlit LCD - instead of the road - so as not to overshoot.
The most impressive thing about the XM service is the astounding reception. There's no static, and not once did a station fade or drop out. Part of that is due to the receiver's 4-second memory buffer that takes over when reception is blocked by a building or overpass. XM has also placed nearly 1,000 repeaters throughout the Lower 48. These capture the satellite signal, then rebroadcast it to areas where line-of-sight reception is obstructed.
Although more than 24 receivers are compatible with XM's service, only Sony's unit is portable - the docking cradle remains on the dash, but the 7.8-ounce receiver pops out for piping XM into the apartment. I still need the $149 Home Accessory Kit, but it's the only option if I'm set on getting XM everywhere. The dilemma now is where to drive next.
XM Satellite Radio: (800) 852 9696, www.xmradio.com; Sony: www.sony.com.
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