Okay .. after 3.5 hours of sweating in this muggy, mosquito-ridden, almost raining, and overcast miami driveway of mine, I finally managed to get my Sirius satellite tuner installed! *phew!*

Here's the summary for those who dont want to read on.
Pros:
1. no commercials !! no commercials!! well at least on most of the music stations -- this was my primary reason. EVERY station around here in miami believes in getting onto commercials in sync.
2. clearer than FM signal quality -- so far.. read more below
3. 100+ channels of crap!

Cons:
1. Antenna is really ugly
2. wish I didn't have to pay a monthly fee --or at least cheaper.



For those who care about the details:
Its 6/9/2003 and if you have a kenwood sirius ready head unit like myself and wanted the ktc-sr901 sirius tuner for it, this week is the chance to grab it at circuit city for a bargain basement price of 26.96!! :wow: at that price, its cheaper than the antenna which was at 45! When I went, they only had 2 left and I had to go to another store to pick it up so I guess they're either at the end of their stock or they're selling a lot. I also found out that there's a ktc-sr902 being sold -- which is for the newer kenwood head units so this one might not work for you. As for me, I have an excelon z828 so its all good. z828 thread

Anyway, circuit city offered to install it for $55 but I doubt the guy knew what he was gonna get into with all the stuff in my car. As I was fighting with it, I realized how much of a pain it is to do this kinda work -- especially with no garage. Streeteffectz, and all the other professional installers out there, you have my respect for doing this for a living, along with the rest of you who do your own work. I did my own work in my previous car but I guess I've forgotten how hard it is.

Anyway, I'll post pics a little later when I get my hands on a digicam. There's nothing much to see really. The tuner is hidden away in my trunk and the antenna is temporarily on my rear deck. The head unit already controls it so there's nothing to add except to plug it in. Wiring was not hard -- running the wires was the pain. I'll test out the strength and number of repeaters in the dade and broward area for the next week and I'll decide if I need to mount it on my roof. Its just so .. weird (read ugly) that it needs to be on the roof. XM seems to have gotten off their butts and made some nicer antennas but sirius seems to be lagging in that dept. I think there's a smaller and sleeker antenna with the new kenwood standalone unit that you can take around like the delphi skyfi or the sony XM tuner but I didn't bother to check if it was compatible with this tuner. I kinda doubt it.

Signing on with sirius was relatively painless -- assuming you dont mind parting with roughly 150 odd bucks. There's a one year plan with 1 month free but u still gotta pay for activation fee of $15. Monthly is 12.95. There was a SIX year plan too .. but I was like .. lets see where I am in six years .. more like lets see if Sirius is still around in six years!! The guy took my info and in a minute .. I was on and blaring their 'preview channel'. For some reason, I couldn't switch channels on my head unit for the first 5 minutes. I was about to call them back to complain but then I used my remote control and it worked and now it works on the head unit. *shrug* maybe it took a little while for the rest of the channels to sink in. All channels are enabled and there's a lot .. almost overwhelming! The head unit does a pretty good job of displaying channel info and artist/title. Tuning leaves a bit to be desired. So far, I have to increment through every channel--at over 100 channels, this can get tiring. I can't seem to select a 'class' of music and then go from there. I would imagine thats the limitation of my head unit and not with sirius -- just mentioning in case someone wanted to pick up an old z828. I guess I'll be relying on my presets a lot . Sound was a bit weird at first. There was almost a feeling of that compressed feed sound that you get off internet radio stations (Sirius S-plex not at work?). I can't say that it sounds as clear as a CD as they claim. Maybe its because I have my antenna on my rear deck and there's metal grade tint on the glass *shrug*. It definitely sounds clearer than FM and after some EQ tweaking, its at least as good as your regular MP3s. I also switched to a jazz channel and it sounded much better. We'll see over time. Also, they seem to send out their broadcasts a little bass-heavy. As for what kind of stations they have? Well, I'll do some exploring the rest of this week and I'll post an update

here's to no commercial bliss. I hope it'll be what it was cracked up to be. I was getting SOOO pissed off at all the radio stations around here. I probably wouldn't have been if they 'staggered' their commercials .. but nooo. its a friggin ploy.. ALL the stations have to advertise at the same time so you HAVE to hear a commercial -- really annoying when you want to cruise to some tunes. Sure, I make mp3 cds but you eventually get tired of them too .. just like a regular CD -- just longer. You dont get exposed to newer music. Which brings to point, I hope sirius isn't in the habit of repeating songs that much.

okay okay .. I think thats enough blabbing for now. laters all.

 

should have gone XM. I had Sirrus once but did'nt like their choice of how they cataloged their music. Plus the stuped names they gave them. So I switched to XM and I don't pay a monthly fee.
(Here's how).
XM gives sample channels which they rotate every 4hrs.
Somewhere between 10-15 channels.
The channels they give happens to be what I like.
Some jazz, blues, oldies, classical, contemp, news and funnies.
So if you have time I would return the Sirrius and go XM if you don't want to pay a fee but, if you want all 100 channels then there is no way around that.

I have the home Delfi Skyfi unit.

 

well.. and the other small problem is that kenwood works on sirius I needed to match my head unit *shrug* .. and doesn't XM have commercials?

and about the rotating channels.. what if u want to stick with a channel you like? you just let it keep rotating? I guess it works.

 

I was thinking that you just bought the system.
Some people do like Sirrus. It just was'nt for me.
As for rotating channel.. I just switch to another channel that I like.
30min ago I was listing to "The loft".(music like CountingCrows and
Bob Dylan).
Now i'm listing to "The 40's".(1940's music).
I'm easy. I dig all kinds of music.

 

miltcharlie .. ahh .. I see. Well, I guess this was maybe why my gut instinct told me to sign up for 1 year and not SIX years I'll have more strong of an opinion of sirius after a week. I did just get the system -- but its the satellite part I've had my head unit for 2 years and counting now.