mfishertl

Just bought my TL three days ago and have not figured out how to use the radio controls on the steering wheel for XM. I would think this would be possible.

Novice

Only if you have your presets already in place.

mfishertl

That sounds very reasonable - thanks! Have set AM/FM, but not XM yet.

ndabunka

I think that someone in the accessories department screwed up with the "MODE" function. They've set it to either "by channel" or "by category". This is pretty much useless. If they had made it "by presets" (i.e. What's "pre-programmed into the buttons) or "by channel" (i.e. channel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) it would have made MUCH more sense. If you wanted to hit the Jazz stuff only periodically you could avoid putting it into the presets and simply use voice to say "channel 77" (or whatever the jazz area was). You could then use the "channel" buttons on the steering wheel to ACTUALLY CHANGE CHANNELS up and down by one lokking through the other jazz channels in the same area (say 72 through 79). Instead you use the CHANNEL buttons on the steering wheel to change "PRESETS", not channels. Maybe it was simply lost in the translation between the designer (assumed to be in Japan) and the builder (Obviously in America).... Just one "educated" man's opinion...

TLGator

ndabunka - I agree. There is no easy way to channel surf the XM. The tuning wheel is difficult to use for that purpose while you're also driving the car. The only solution I have found is that, if you have Navi, you can give the following voice commands:

XM UP
XM DOWN

and you will go up or down one station at a time. Not as elegant as your solution, but mine is actually available.

At least to those with Navi.

93SHOcar

Definitely agree that this is one area where the execution could have been a little better. I will give the "XM UP" and "XM Down" voice commands a try.

I also think that you can voice command an "XM Scan" and/or "XM Seek" as well. I need to double check the proper syntax.

Acurich

No, I just investigated that yesterday, despite the fact those commands appear on the Navi screen in XM mode, they are not available as voice commands.

As someone else said, it's either speak your channel, or go up/down one at a time, there's no 'scan' or 'seek' voice command in XM. If you do say "radio seek" it will shift to the last non-XM band you were tuned to, AM, FM1 or FM2, and then execute the seek or scan command.

93SHOcar

Yes, you are right. When I got back into the TL this afternoon, I found no way to initiate XM scan or seek using the voice commands. Sorry about the mis-direction.

I also noticed that I had to use "XM CHANNEL up" and "XM CHANNEL down" to move the channels up and down. If I just said "XM up" or "XM down" the voice response got confused.

One other thing, if you have XM in the category mode, using the channel up and down voice command moves through the channels of that particular category (e.g. jazz, decades, etc.). If it is in the "channel" mode, it will increment through all available channels.

jonro

I agree with the other posts here about the lack of steering wheel control of the XM radio. So far, I find the scan function the best way to surf XM.

KrgTL04

Instead of saying XM up or down over and over...can you just say XM20, OR XM30 or whatever station you want?

93SHOcar

Yes, the voice commands are a great way to jump around XM stations once you learn the ones you are interested in. However, I found that the voice response does much better recognizing "XM Two Zero" than it does "XM Twenty"

TLGator

I agree. As I've used this more, I find that "XM DOWN" is often interpreted as "XM Channel One" and if there is one channel I cannot stand to listen to, it's that bastard Channel One with all its smug self-promotional XM crap. What's that you say? It's just the channel they use to get people started with XM? Oh. Never mind then.

Anyway, "XM Channel DOWN" does seem to work better than just "XM DOWN". I haven't yet had a problem with "XM UP" but I have found that "XM UP YOURS" pisses the little Navi dude off and sometimes he turns off the radio completely. And puts the heat on 80 even though it's 90 degrees outside. And throws the car into Low gear, which as we all know is a highly, highly, highly unsafe maneuver.

marquis

Which mode function is the first problem...there's *three* buttons labeled mode....and they all do different things! There's the on on the steering wheel that changes the input (CD, XM, FM, etc). Then there's the mode button on the radio body that for XM changes between station, name and title display up by the clock. Finally, (on the nav at least), there's yet another mode button on the display with XM that changes between category and channel for the tuning button.

While I agree a "by presets" mode would also be handy, I find the category mode very useful. I have the 2 xm bands set up differently, one for music stations and the other for news/sports. On the music side, I have mostly rock category stations set, as these are mostly what I listen to. But I also have a couple of other favorite stations in different categories, so I have one or two set to a station in these categories. I generally keep the mode set to category and then use the presets to flip me from one category to another. I can then use the tuning dial (albeit, it is a little awkward to get to) to tune in just those stations in that category.

Just another "educated" man's opinion. I'm sure there are a hundred others out there as well. But this is what works for me. YMMV.