Sirrus Radio

Diplomat Don wrote:
supercub.....Sirius/XM radio does not need a ground plane like an AM/FM radio antenna or CB does. It comes with a small puck that some people just mount on the dash near the windshield. On my Monaco, I ran the wiring up the "A" pillar and into the front cap. There was a section of metal frame in my front cap that I attached the magnetic puck to. It shoots right thru the fiberglass and does not need to be mounted externally.

Two ways to buy. Every time you buy a Sirius/XM radio, you pay for service to that radio. If you put a Sirius/XM radio in every vehicle it will cost you a fortune. My motor home has a Pioneer AM/FM/XM/GPS/DVD unit. I wanted service for that radio because it had a Sirius Tuner attached that worked through the radio.

When I was working, I drove a lot and liked having XM radio. For my work car I bought a portable unit. You buy one portable radio and then as many mounts for that radio as you have vehicles. I used the radio in my work vehicle during the week, moved it to my motorcycle mount on the weekends and my boat mount when we went boating. I even had an extra mount when I took a work truck on a long trip.

By having various mounts that are fairly inexpensive, you only pay one fee for the radio and just move it around. I ended up paying two fees for several years because I wanted to use the built-in tuner in the MH.

You get a better rate if you pay for more than one year. Bicker with them a little and they will drop the price. I wouldn't go too long of a term because they came close to going out of business a few years ago.

Thanks for the info Don!

Hogwash!
They are discouraging you from going lifetime for the reason I listed above. Both of my Sirus radios went directly from free to lifetime with a phone call and a credit card.

After thinking about the possible savings from a "lifetime" subscription I went to the Sirius/XM website to learn more. Per my previous post both of my receivers were dealer installed in vehicles when I purchased them and came with "free" service for s specified period of time. Because of this neither of my receivers are eligible for "lifetime" contracts. Guess I will just continue to negotiate with them each year when I renew. The good thing is that one of my receivers is portable so I could transfer if from vehicle to vehicle at some later date should I choose to. The problem with that is I would loose the ability to have satellite radio via my main dash controls since the portable unit was Sirius and the other vehicle was XM. It is my understanding that the hardware is not interchangeable.

I like the non-music stations. Lot's of talk tv with the audio. Old time radio shows and sports talk as well as play by play for golf tournaments. I think listening to golf is a taste not shared with many others. We listen to a lot of audio books when we travel.

Beware they have more than doubled the price of lifetime subscriptions because so many people were buying them. That really isn't a good model for them when looking for a constant revenue stream.

supercub wrote:
Been thinking of going with Sirrus Radio. How is the reception? Do you get a signal most everywhere? That's my big complaint with AM/FM reception, it's lousey. Motorhomes hae a poor ground plane. Is Sirrus better? Thanks
Brian

we have Sirius radio in both our jeep liberty and our MH. like you I was disappointed with AM/FM coverage when we travel...especially AM out west. about the only places we did not have Sirius coverage was in the mountain valleys. but that's also the case with AM/FM. I have a pay-as-you-go receiver in the MH which runs, I think, roughly $1 and change per day.

When we purchase our current RV it came with a free 6 month subscription to Sirius. A few months after that we bought a new tow vehicle that came with a free 12 month subscription to XM. By the time the 12 months was up Sirius and XM had merged. Called them about combining accounts and was told they could not do it. Threatened to cancel the XM account and they gave me the multi-receiver discount of 30%. The next year I had to go through the same process by threatening to cancel before they were willing to negotiate. Finally this year they were able to combine both accounts into one. I refuse to allow them to automatically renew which costs me an extra $3 per year for them to "invoice" me. Its a small price to pay to allow me to keep control of when and at what price they renew my service. Next year I may try the "lifetime" subscription if they are reasonable. Love the service and hardly ever listen to regular radio any more.

I have 3 vehicles with Sirius and one portable Sirius radio that we use when camping. We love Sirius. No drifting radio stations when traveling, but sometimes trees (with leaves) will block the reception only momentarily.

Like others said, you have to haggle the price on the phone. I went from $14.95 per month for the first radio to $7.50 per month. The 2nd radio I have for $4.99 per month. #3 & #4 radios are in new vehicles with 1-year free subscriptions.

I had a 5-year subscription for XM-Radio that we love, and yes when it was time to renew, they automatically signed us up for 5 more years at $750. I called to complain, saying that I wanted to downgrade my service and not spend so much. They then offered the same service for ~$450, and I still balked. They then came back with $350 for a lifetime subscription, which I took.

I have a single receiver that I move between 3 locations (home, office, and RV) with a separate antenna in each location. It's a great service, and we only occasionally loose reception in canyons or driving through tall trees.

supercub wrote:
Been looking at the packages. I'm not a sports person and don't care about listening to Howard Sterns or talk. I like music and news.......so thinking of the Ala Carte Pacage..........can choose up to 50 channels. Anyone else have this.....it's $7.99 a month.
Brian

We've used the Ala Carte package for several years. Works great. Have a portable receiver that plugs into adapters in the truck and the fiver. We use it primarily for PBS.

Use it all the time in the fiver, rarely in the truck now since I got a new radio that plays my iPod with 4,000+ selections on it.