• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!

    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Satellite radio question

coldplugs

Darth Vader
Country flag
Offline
I'm looking for suggestions regarding a satellite radio. I've spent an hour researching these on the net and am still confused.
Everything I've found seems to be oriented towards use in a car or as a small portable unit, like an MP3 player.

I want a unit for use in a small office - just a radio that plugs into a wall socket and has its own speakers. So far the closest I've found are sort of docking stations like you use for an iPod. Does such a thing exist? I know we'll need to subscribe to a service but apart from that I want "just a radio".

Any suggestions?
 
Kinda like the one pictured here?

https://cgi.ebay.com/Sirius-Sportst...3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:7|39:1|240:1318


I have a small docking station similar to the one that is in my truck and it suits me fine. My friend has XM and his is more like the "boom box" pictured, and you put your XM pod into it. He can then take it out and put it in his truck. I do the same but the docking stations are smaller and I play it out of my home or Garage stereo.
 
I was trying to get to that Mark but I could not get onto their site last night. Those are neat looking especially the bottom one.
 
John - I try to stay "cheap and simple". And when I learned that satellite radio isn't always free of ads, that reinforced my decision.

Why not just use your desktop (or laptop) and hit the radio stations direct? Many stations have internet feeds; I've found 100s available, and they run in the "background" through your computer audio, or external audio, whether you're using the computer or not.

Samples:

https://www.live365.com/index.live

https://www.shoutcast.com/

And of course, there's Pandora: www.pandora.com

Hope this helps.
Tom
 
I have been using my XM car radio in a home docking station for the last 5 years at work. I was just getting ready to put a Direct TV XM connection there when I discovered Pandora. Now I listen to Pandora all the time and up until recently it has been commercial free...
 
CraigFL said:
I have been using my XM car radio in a home docking station for the last 5 years at work. I was just getting ready to put a Direct TV XM connection there when I discovered Pandora. Now I listen to Pandora all the time and up until recently it has been commercial free...

Slightly off topic but I have a 5 zone Sonos and stream from a Rhapsody subscription. I love it.
 
geez...

I'm just now gettin' used to CD's.

:devilgrin:
 
I would try listening online for a bit first as since the switch both xm and Sirius have gone seriously downhill. Both should give you a free 3 day free trial.

If your going to listen to the talk stations expect a ton of ads. The music stations have become horribly repetitive and have shifted to "popular" music unlike the days of old where you could hear the great stuff that never made it to radio. Also since the merger sound quality has gone down on a very noticeable level.
 
I would agree that as of late i have had some reception problems. I was beginning to think that my receiver unit was gettin old. I have been thinking of getting a Stilleto and then using a wireless feed here at home,and i could use it on the wireless at work. It also has a boom box style dock.

As far as music choices there are plenty, and most of them are not my style of music, but digging into some of the deeper stuff i have found a few stations that "album mine" for music. i have heard some songs i haven't listened to in years mixed in with some newer stuff that is pretty good. There are certainly lots of choices.


mark
 
Thanks everyone. Our internet connection (satellite with a beech tree in the way and old slow wireless) isn't fast enough to handle most of the broadband based music services - I've been trying that for a while now. Lately, we've just been using iTunes.

Mark - that second Sirius link looks like what we want & I think I'll pursue that.
 
Back
Top