Satellite Radio?

[KrystalS]

Anyone have satellite radio installed in their car? I really wanted to get it when we bought our car but it would have been a very costly upgrade and I figured we could get to cheaper than the factory satellite radio. I really know zero about it. Are there different brands? I've heard of the Sirius radio but thats it. Where did you get it installed? I was thinking Best Buy but I thought I would ask and see if anyone knows of somewhere cheaper. How much is the monthly subscription?

[Coral]

If you're looking for a cheaper way to do it, you can buy the radio where it would mount on your dash like a GPS system. I had one for years, but finally got ride of it when I stopped traveling so much. I had the option of plugging it directly into a audio jack (like my Ipod) or using a FM tuner.

There are two major companies, Sirius and XM Radio. Which you go with depends mostly on programing so look at the line ups and see which you like best. Sirius worked for me at the time, cause as a hockey fan I could listen to the game broadcasts on the road. Howard Stern has been a big draw, I think he recently moved from XM to Sirius (check that to be certain if it matters cause it's been forever for me). There are a ton of differences to checking the line up is the best way to go. I think the subscriptions run about the same. Mine was about $20/month. And I think I paid about $100 for the radio. You can find them on sale all the time though so it pays to shop around. HTH.

[fortato]

Last year I got a new car radio that will play my IPod, CD's, and It as an auxiliary port- so I can plug in my Sirius.

It's spoiled me completely for regular radio, which I have no tolerance for commercials anymore.

Since Sirius and XM are one company now, there really aren't too many differences in programming- except during the holidays... there were 4 (or more) channels that played Christmas music on XM, but only 2 on Sirius.

If you travel in your car a lot, I think it's worth the investment. $13 a month, and I can bring it inside and listen to it too. You just need to have a plug and play home kit... (Antenna, power source and a radio to play it through).

I have a Sportster radio- we got it at Best Buy, and it wasn't that expensive.

[motherofone]

Satellite radio is especially great if you drive in areas that have poor radio reception. I love driving in the middle of nowhere and listening to great music (I like the Coffeehouse) instead of crazy preachers or Spanish music. We got ours aftermarket and also listen to it in the house.

[mom2one]

Our latest car did not come with in it, but you could add it at any time (like prewired, but the hardware was still needed). So we did get it at a later date, I did not think it was more that a few hundred to have it put in the car.

XM and Sirus are now one. We just renewed our yearly. I read on a different message board to call up about a special you saw and get a year for $77. This is half price, and if you sign up for automatic cc renewal, you get another $12.95 off of that. (you just have to remember to call them again in a year to save money.) I did get the $77 rate by calling. So look for a great deal on the internet or try mine, no promo code was needed.

Good luck.

[brigeet]

Our XM in our car cost $77 a year also. Our car salesman told us what he did and we're following his footsteps: Each year we get the letter that says it's going to increase a lot and they'll automatically begin billing us montly b/c our year long subscription is about to expire. We call them to cancel saying it's too expensive and we want to cancel. then the customer service rep transfers us to someone else (prob a customer retention specialist) and they offer us the $77 deal again, so we take it. It is really nice on road trips b/c you aren't constantly looking for new stations every few hours when you enter/exit different radio station areas. I listen to the 40s and the old radio show channel the most. They also had great Christmas stations. This year they even had an all Bing Crosby station. That was fun!

[niccig]

DH has a radio in his car like a GPS. My car does have XM, but I didn't renew one the trial period was up. I only listen to 2 radio stations or CDs with DS, and I didn't feel it was necessary. For the $77 deal, I might do it though. For a long road trip, we can bring DH's radio into my car.