What Are The Features Of Satellite Radio?

The best thing about the satellite radio is that you get about seventy channels of music, commercial free. The consumers keep the radio on air not commercials and the range of channels varies from opera to rap, from blues to dance music and much more.

Another great feature of this radio is the absence of static. From East coast to West Coast and all over the US, you will get a clear signal where ever you are.

In addition, if you have just heard a song and you want to know the name of it, simply look at the receiver display. It will tell you the name, the artist, what channel you are listening to, and what program it is.

Satellite radio is completely free from censors. Howard Stern can put a program on air as is, without interference. You can hear music like hip hop without any interruptions.

The radio service provides local weather and traffic conditions. In big cities, there are more detailed forecasts. In addition, if there is a national crisis, unlike regular radio stations that go blank, satellite radio will be able to provide information. You may listen to the radio on your computer.

Most people mistakenly think regular radio is free, but it isn?t. You are forced to listen to sections of annoying commercials in exchange for music. With a satellite radio subscription, of about thirteen dollars, you get a clear reception, you get channels of music you can listen to no matter where you are and you can listen to exactly what you want.

This is perfect for a person who travels throughout the US. You don?t have to worry about static and you don?t have to fiddle around with the radio every time you leave a specific area. Soon XM and Sirrus will provide the same service for Video Channels. Their subscribers would be able to enjoy great quality, a clear reception and commercial and censor free viewing.

Jason Allen is a staff writer at Wireless Times and is an occasional contributor to several other websites, including Entertainment Digest.

Questions & Answers About Satellite Radios

Question: A Brief Overview of Satellite Radio Answer: Satellite radio means pay-radio or it may also be called a subscription radio. It is a little bit like the traditional one, but it has more programs than the traditional one does. It's available in Africa, Asia and Europe due to the services provided by WorldSpace and in North America by Sirius and XM Radio.

Question: What are the advantages of Satellite Radio? Answer: There is a wide variety of programs that includes: (rock, modern rock, alternative, classical, pop, hip-hop, country, jazz, electronic, Christian, Latin), weather, news, traffic, sports and entertainment channels---no commercials---. Satellite Radio has a clean, digital signal and it is close to the quality of a CD. It has no static and no interference. You can get satellite radio not only in your car, but anywhere you like: in your house, in an Rv, in your boat so that you can enjoy the programming variety that this radio is offering whether you are relaxing in your sofa, if you are in a vacation or if you are in your car on a business travel. The only thing you must do is to properly install the equipment that you need. Purchasing the equipment, you will also have information which will be displayed on the radio receiver about channels, music, songs and artists.

Question: Any Disadvantages? Answer: Unfortunately, Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. Territories can't receive the satellite radio's signals. There are no local stations, but you will have local traffic and weather channels provided by XM and Sirius.

Question: What does provide XM and Sirius radio? Answer: There a few differences between them. For example, the XM provides more that 150 channels and the other one more than 120 channels. The first has two Nascar racing channels, Major League Baseball, PGA TOUR coverage, plus ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-10 football and basketball coverage and the Sirius has Live NFL, NHL, and NBA play-by-play, plus English Premier League soccer and college sports game. But they have the same price $12.95/Month

Question: How do I install satellite radio? Answer: There are a few things that are necessary to get satellite radio. First you need a satellite radio antenna that picks up the signal from communicational satellites and then delivering it to you. Then you need a satellite radio tuner that passes the signal from the radio antenna to the receiver. There are three basic types of radio turners. There are the Plug-and-play satellite radio tuners that can be used in the car or at home or with a portable boom-box wherever you have satellite signal and they only need one subscription. There are three types of Satellite radio tuners for the car: universal tuners, "Satellite radio-ready" in-dash receivers and in-dash receivers with a built-in satellite radio tuner. The last basic type is the Home satellite radio tuners perfect for using them in-door. The third item is a satellite radio receiver which helps you to select channels and categories, to view various songs or artists information. Last but not least is a subscription to XM or Sirius radio that must be acquired in order to receive programming.

If you want to have the best quality sound in your car you can choose between these three options: 1. in-dash receiver with a built-in satellite radio tuner 2. "satellite radio-ready" receiver connected to an external satellite radio tuner 3. Plug-and-play satellite radio tuner connected to your car stereo's auxiliary input.

Satellite-Radio-Central has been providing information and resources for people online who are looking for more information on Satellite Radios. For more information on Satellite Radios visit: http://www.satellite-radio-central.com/satellite-radio

RIAA Kills Sirius Satellite Radio, Destroys Value of Consumer Product

Since the beginning of Radio's inception, no one has dared to arrest people who copy songs from the radio.

RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, now dares. They have banned Sirius from allowing more than one downloadable song per download. The only reason for this is because the Satellite radio songs are just as good quality as MP3, thereby eliminating the need to buy the MP3's.

RIAA has now pushed legislation through the house "to protect content delivered through high-definition (HD) radio receivers". What that means, is anyone using a HIGH QUALITY method to copy a song is in violation of the law. But if you use a low-quality method; say, a cassette, then it's okay.

Where is the logic in that? Aren't laws a reflection of moral values? So it's moral to copy a song onto cassette, but immoral to copy it onto a MP3 player?

Something is insanely illogical about that concept. RIAA claims musicians can't make money if their songs are all downloaded illegally.

Only a century ago, there wasn't a police force that prevented anyone but the original composer from playing their music in the streets. If Beethoven wanted to make money, he had to play in a concert for the people. He couldn't just kick back and earn money every time a fiddler in the street played a tune from his concerto.

So what holds water about the RIAA argument? Very little in terms of historical legitimacy, and even in modern times, musicians are pulling in record numbers from concerts. The Rolling Stones pulled in over $162 million in 2005 from tours. Green Day pulled in $39 million, and Dave Matthews raked $31 million, with significantly less touring than the Stones. Is that not enough?

Even Paul McGuinness the manager of U2 said, "Our recording income is not insignificant, but it's less than we make from touring. The figures used to be closer together." U2's 2005 tour pulled in $139 million.

So with concert income rising grotesquely, does the RIAA even have the right to push its legalistic agenda? Ironically, the spread of free music has encouraged music listening far beyond paid music: the increased availability of music has lead to increased concert-going fans as the record-breaking tours indicate.

With concert rates rising, and the income disparity from concerts and recording sales, perhaps RIAA should consider their nefarious designs at deciding what is Right and Wrong. Like a master teaching his dog manners, RIAA tells the consumers: Record radio on a cassette, good. Record radio onto MP3, bad dog, Sirius gets a time-out, and the critically acclaimed S50 is the first casualty in the war for consumer rights against RIAA.

In so doing, since the Sirius S50 was owned by hundreds of thousands, the RIAA has essentially destroyed the value of a product that did not belong to them. Without a moral basis for doing so, that is where the true immorality lies.

Maybe if the public starts downloading satellite radio music onto CD, then RIAA will help get CD recording of radio will be banned too.

Jonathan Baldwin, is the creator of a XM vs Sirius comparison website. You can find a copy of the article here: RIAA Kills Sirius S50

The Facts You Need To Know About Satellite Radio - Part 1

Time and technology marches on and things that were considered impossible just a few years ago, are now almost routine. That applies to a lot of things in life, but certainly to the way that we are able to listen to radio broadcasting today.

Just a few years ago it was just accepted that if you tuned in to a particular radio station, you would lose reception and clarity if you were driving long distance and you would have to hunt around and find another station instead. It was also accepted that every broadcast would be filed with lots of ads that you didn't really want to hear, just so the radio station could turn a profit.

Well, now there are more choices to be ahd and technology has made a whole new way of broadcasting radio possible. It's called satellite radio and we will try to help you understand a few facts about it, because the more you know about it, the more you will no doubt appreciate what it can do for you.

First of all, conventional radio traditionally only travel around 30-50 miles with any clarity at all, and then they degrade rapidly. Much of that is due to the roundness of the earth and so as the signal goes out it can't follow the contour of the earth and so the signal is lost to the user. Satelliter radio has solved that issue altogether. As it's name implies, the signal is sent from satellites over 20,000 miles above the earth, so there is absolutely nothing that can obstruct the broadcast signal.

There are currently two major players in the US in this new field, Sirius and XM satellite radio. XM has two satellites in orbit and Sirius employs three. They are specifically timed and placed within orbit to maintain constant coverage of the US for about 16 hours at a time. What this means to you is that no matter where you go in the US and no matter what time of day or night, you will not lose reception, and can enjoy the programming that you like uninterrupted.

This feature alone of satellite radio is an incredible advantage over conventional ground-based radio stations. It comes in handy especially for folks who may live in rural areas that get very poor reception from standard radio, and for those that are long distance travelers. There is no hunting for stations as their reception fades. No having to listen to programming that you don't particularly like just because it's the only thing available in a particular area. Just crisp, clean programming all the time.

But there is lots more about satellite radio to be covered in Part 2 of this report.

Jim Johnson writes on consumer related matters. Find out more about satellite radio and satellite radio reviews at the Satellite Radio Review.

The Facts You Need To Know About Satellite Radio - Part 3

In Part 3 we covered the monthly subsciption costs of satellite radio and a little about the programming that is available. But let's talk a little bit about sports on satellite radio.

Sports programming is just exploding in the US and there is a constant demand for even more and better coverage of sporting events. Both satellite radio providers have seen this need and moved to fill it with plenty of sports broadcasts that cover everything from the major sports themselves and actual events to just sports talk. Every single game of the NFL is broadcast besides over 1,000 NBA games and lots of hockey action too. If you are a sports fan, you will absolutely love satellite radio as there is always something interesting being broadcast on sports pretty much 24 hours a day.

So how do you get all of this satellite radio programming anyway? Well, the first thing you need to do is select which provider you wish to subscribe to. In the US your choices are either Sirius or XM. Both have great programming available so the best thing to do is just visit their website, look over the offerings that they have and decide which one fits what you like to listen to best. It's important that you decide on which service to use beforehand since you have to buy receivers that are specific for that service. You can't switch from one provider to another and use the same receiver at this point, so choose carefully.

After selecting your provider, decide where you will be listening to radio broadcasts most, in your car, boat, RV, or just at home? There is plenty of equipment available that will let you listen to satellite radio, some mobile, and some not mobile. There are also products that allow you to take your receiver and use it both at home and when you travel, so there is lots of flexibility on satellite radio receivers and equipment depending on where and how you plan to listen. Keep in mind too that some satellite TV companies include satellite radio in their offerings so you may already have it available at home.

Our viewpoint about satellite radio is that it is a great product that you just have to experince to fully appreciate, and once you enjoy the convenience and quality of satellite radio broadcasting, you probably won't want to listen to radio any other way.

Jim Johnson writes about consumer related matters. Find out more about satellite radio and satellite car radio at the Satellite Radio Review

XM vs Sirius Satellite Radio

So you want to switch to satellite radio, but you aren't sure with which service to go with? Two of the biggest names in satellite radio today, XM and Sirius, both offer a large variety of music stations that you would never hear on regular commercial radio. And most of the music channels, for both services, are commercial free. Of course, nothing is truely free. Both Sirius and XM charge you a service fee to listen to their music channels - someone has to pay for those satellites!

So you want to switch to satellite radio, but you aren't sure with which service to go with? Two of the biggest names in satellite radio today, XM and Sirius, both offer a large variety of music stations that you would never hear on regular commercial radio. And most of the music channels, for both services, are commercial free. Of course, nothing is truely free. Both Sirius and XM charge you a service fee to listen to their music channels - someone has to pay for those satellites!

So what is the difference between Sirius and XM?

First of all, Sirius and XM both offer the same commercial-free music service broadcasted via satellites. Sirius offers 120 channels, or feeds, of music, sports, and entertainment programming. For this service, Sirius charges a flat monthly subscription fee of $12.95 for residents of the continental US. XM currently charges, on the other hand, has 122 channels broadcasting similar content (68 of which are music channels), and charge a slightly smaller monthly fee: $9.95. XM currently has the largest share in the satellite marked with 2 million customers.

So why does Sirius charge more? Sirius claims to have superior sound quality thanks to their statistical multiplexing technology, which provides additional bandwidth across all SIRIUS streams. This is supposed to increase overall sound quality and resolution. There has been little feedback however, to verify whether or not this system really enhances sound quality to a noticeable degree. In addition, Sirius is offering free audio feeds through the internet to its paying customers, something XM charges a couple dollars a month extra for. So if you plan on listening to the radio via the net often, you can expect to pay about the same no matter which company you go with. Sirius also claims to have 24 hour customer service - something XM radio has yet to fully achieve. Oh, and one more thing. Sirius has 2 NPR channels, for you NPR fans out there: NPR Now and NPR Talk. Pretty cool.

So does that mean Sirius is better? Well, that depends. XM has some neat stuff too, like a bunch of cool XM Satellite Radio receivers and displays. They also have the biggest broadcasting network right now, and are probably the most likely to expand services significantly in the near future. Overall, they are just about equal, and you are better off going with either of these services than any other.

This Sirius vs XM satellite radio review was brought to you by SciNet Science and Technology Search Engine. SciNet is not affiliated with or specifically endorses Sirius or XM satellite radio. Please consult the XM and Sirius product information and configurations before you purchase either device or service. It is also a good idea to seek other product review and information as necessary.

Bradley James is a senior editor at SciNet.cc, a website containing many helpful consumer electronics review articles. For more information on XM and Sirius satellite radio technology, please visit our XM vs Sirius satellite radio webpage.