Go beyond AM, beyond FM, go to XM

"10 bucks a month for radio service?! Who would in their right mind pay for something I can get for free or listen to CDs for my music. 10 bucks a month, yeah right."

I said this to myself when I heard of XM radio, and was telling myself this until last month.

My first exposure to XM radio was at Best Buy in their display. Yeah, it was cool and all, but worth 10 a month. Nahhh. I'll pass. Local radio is all I need.

Fast forward another year. On the way to work in the mornings, I might be lucky to hear one song I like on the radio. The rest of the airtime is full off ads and blah blah blah radio DJs talking about their personal problems (as if I care). So I pop in a CD. Dohh, tired of all these songs. Not enough room in the truck for what I want to carry.

Then my brother flew to town and rented a car, hey, free XM radio in this thing, cool. After being in the car 10 minutes, I was sold.

First about XM radio. 101 stations of various kinds of music. Decades (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s), Jazz, Blues, Bluegrass, Country, Dance, Pop, Rock, various News, Comedy stations, etc (visit www.xmradio.com for all the listings). The way I feel about XM radio's lineup, if you can't find a song to listen to, you just haven't flipped the channels enough. Service is provided by two satellites in a geosync orbit. There are a few ads on this service (none in Sirius), but I can handle one or two minutes of adds (and it's not for some annoying car dealer in my area).

So after reading about XM's service and being in a car that had it, I wanted one for my truck. So I shopped around and decided to get the SkyFi unit from Delphi. There is another cheaper unit made by Delphi called the Roady, but I wanted the option to use my radio in the house as well, the Roady pretty much has to stay in your vehicle. The SkyFi detatches from the cradle in the car, and can be plugged into a cradle wired to your home receiver (I will go more into this later) or you can purchase a jam box for it.

I found my SkyFi unit at Circuit City for 129 dollars - 30 dollar rebate from XM - 30 dollar instant rebate from Circuit City if you purchased the car adapter kit), so my total cost for the receiver was 69 dollars.

Now back to the later part from above. If you buy the SkyFi receiver (you get receiver, remote, battery for remote), you will also have to purchase the car kit (holder, mounting bracket, power supply, cassette tape adaptor, antenna) if you want to use it in your car (another 69 or so dollars), and if you want to use it in your home (holder, power supply, antenna, cable to hook up to home stereo), get ready to drop another 69 dollars. So to get me up and runnin in my car, was 69 + 69 = 178 dollars. My girlfriend also bought a receiver, car kit, home kit. She spent more than I did, but I have to admit, I am going to pick up the home kit next pay check. It's nice having the serice you pay 10 dollars a month for available in your house without paying for another service on another unit.

Ok, back to installing this thing in my truck. I have a GMC Sonoma pickup, so first thing was to figure out where to mount the receiver. It is about half the size of a DVD box, so it small, but not small to mount on my dash board in a good location. My truck didn't have any good areas to mount the kit as is, so I removed my trucks ashtay, fabricated a bracket, and attatched the unit to the bracket, right under my environmental controls. I mounted the antenna on the roof near the drivers side (the antenna is about the size of a half dollar but a little thicker, magnetic), ran the wire through the door gasket, behind paneling in vehicle, and then to the center console. You get 20 feet of cabling, so you can run it how you like without running out (in most cases, I'd imagine in an SUV, if you put the antenna in the back and try to hide the cable going to the front, you MIGHT run out of cable, depends on installation). So I got my unit installed, then hooked up the casette adaptor and popped it in my stereo. I had instant sound and a few sample channels. Everything was running and I had full strength from the satellites. I then went online to register my radio with XM (9.99 for activation, 9.99 per month). After activating, it took about 30 minutes and I had all stations available.

The Delphi SkyFi Unit has a nice large display showing channel, artist name, song title. It can show it in a large scrolling display (good for home use, you can see it across the room), or you can have the display show 5 lines worth of info (what I use in the car). The unit has 20 preset stations as well as buttons to scroll through the different generas of music XM carries. The unit is simple to use and if you can use the radio in your car, you will have no problem using this one. There are options to have the unit cut off after one hour, two hours, three hours etc (I set it to an hour in case I forgot to turn the unit off). The unit itself is light weight, the remote is small but handy, there is a dial on the receiver's right side to turn to change stations or you can type in the numbers on the unit to go to the station you want, or just use a preset.

Again, the unit is very easy to use and to set up. I'm not an automobile installer by any means, but running the antenna was easy (the cord is thin enough to stuff into any cracks inside the car to hide) and setting everything up was a breeze.

The only thing I will change with my setup in the future, is to buy a radio to replace my factory unit so I don't have to use the tape adaptor and to get a nice clean looking install in my vehicle. You can get a radio with auxillary inputs on it that you can plug your SkyFi unit into for as little as 109 dollars online. I also think this will help improve the sound quality (not that the tape adaptor is terrible, but there is a small amount of buzz that comes from the tape player, acceptable but I'm a perfectionist). You could also have an FM modulator installed, but I have read many pros and cons, and for a little more money, I can get and install my on stereo for what the FM modulator costs and to have it installed.

I hope I have gone over any questions you might have about the SkyFi unit and XM radio. It is hard to talk just about the SkyFi without going into what XM radio is about.

10 dollars a month for radio, heck yes! Its like having your own jukebox with you wherever you go. Since I have had the unit for one week, I have not listened to an FM radio station. It makes my two hour drives to visit family a lot more enjoyable.

My only gripe, they should include at least the vehicle adaptor kit with the receiver for maybe 30 dollars more, otherwise, no complaints for me.

Just for a minor update, starting February 1st of 2004, all channels on XM radio will be commercial free!