Taking satellite radio for a spin

If you're a long-haul trucker, stop reading, polish up your big belt buckle and just go buy one.

If you're a troll living under a bridge where reception's bad, save your dough.

For the rest of us, deciding whether to shell out for satellite radio — and if so, which one to pick — is a little more complicated. So I did some legwork and test-drove a couple of satellite setups to find out more about the pros, the cons and the differences between the two options, Sirius and XM.

The chosen equipment was supremely nifty:

The popular Sirius Sportster ($99), the little "plug and play" receiver about the size of a thick wallet, which you can plug into a dock in your car, remove and pop into the Sportster Boombox ($99) to listen anywhere. The Sportster's features such as a "game alert" and onscreen team logos enhance Sirius' reputedly superior sports content. The only sports I spectate involve Jell-O, but it's still a handy and good-looking combo whose preset buttons can be programmed to nonsports stations. JVC makes a slightly prettier receiver and boombox for about $30 more, but the lighter-weight Sportster's menu dial and bigger display will probably keep me out of more auto wrecks than the JVC's click-button model.

XM's new MyFi (Delphi, $299.99), the only "personal" satellite radio on the market. The futuristic-looking silver gizmo is roughly the size of — and is XM's answer to — an iPod. Like the Sportster, you can dock it in your car and bring it into the house to connect with a sound system. But the main attraction is that you can carry it around by itself like a transistor radio. To do this, you do have to clip an antenna onto yourself that frankly looks a bit too much like a tampon applicator, but it's not cumbersome. The MyFi also stores up to five whopping hours of programming — which could cause trolls to reconsider. I wish the rechargeable battery lasted longer than five hours. Still, it's a beauty.

The attractiveness of these whiz-bang adult toys can be distracting from the real issue of whether or not you should buy into satellite. So to bring us back down to earth, let's look at the overall downsides as I see 'em, first:

Cons

The cost. Sure, we've come to the sad point where we expect to shell out a premium for almost everything now, from cable TV to bottled water. But even if you've grown inured to the ever-increasing taps on your money-vein, the cash layout for satellite will sting: $200-$300 for the hardware, $12.95 a month subscription fee, and don't forget the $60 or more if you want the docking and antenna gear professionally installed in your car so that you don't have wires hanging all over the place. Despite its many annoyances, regular ("terrestrial") radio is still free as the air you breathe.

(More new car stereos are being sold "satellite-ready," which is cheaper — about $100 plus installation for a tuner. But you can't use it outside of the car like the kind at-hand.)

Commercials. Only the music channels are commercial-free: 65 of them on Sirius, 67 on XM. (See "commercial-free," below.) I get homicidal when I pay $9 to see a movie and still have to sit through ads before the coming attractions. (Note to panicky studios: And you're still wondering why your revenue is plummeting?) Ads are the cost we endure for free broadcast radio and TV. Call me a diva, but for this kind of cash, I want it all commercial-free.

No local personalities. On the one hand, it's a relief to be spared the strenuously unfunny prattle of some "morning zoo" jock between songs. That's not to say satellite jocks all go down smoothly. The obnoxious motormouth on XM's '60s channel drove me away faster than Paula Abdul at an accident scene.

But hang on for the flip side: One of the main reasons many people find Clear Channel Communications insidious is the terrestrial media conglomerate's practice of eliminating local talent at radio stations and replacing it with generic satellite jocks. Granted, when you specifically buy satellite radio, you know what you're getting. But the total absence of local character, community ties and references is truly unfortunate.

(Note, however, that XM and Sirius do offer local weather and traffic channels for major cities, including Seattle.)

Obsolescence. If iPod-style portability is your main criterion, then XM's MyFi is the way to go, case closed, right? Well, Sirius reports it'll be coming out with "something similar" at the end of the year. The company's mum on further details. Likewise, the newer JVC receiver and boombox for Sirius is a bit slicker than the Sportster, damn it. There's always the nagging fear that the next generation will be cooler and do more than what you've just bought.

But thinking long-term, Radio & Records editor Adam Jacobson calls satellite radio technology "the eight-track of the 21st century." He predicts it will be outmoded in 10 years as cars are decked out with wireless broadband technology. The two companies may survive if they generate enough brand identification and branch out with the new technology, he says. And as far as how the rivalry between them will pan out, Jacobson can only say it'll be interesting to see which one survives, if one buys out the other, or some other option.

Now the pros

Free expression. Whether or not you think XM's Opie & Anthony (the church-sex dudes) are jackasses, this is a biggie. At a time when the FCC and certain legislators seem to consider the First Amendment rather quaint, satellite radio is a refuge for free speech of every stripe. Whether it's naughty stuff, fulminations from the extreme right or left or unexpurgated hip-hop, the talent can say whatever they want without the fear of being fined, otherwise punished or even pre-emptively self-censoring. Yet.

Variety. Yeah, the iPod is changing — probably saving — the greed-crippled music industry. But I'd buy a MyFi before an iPod, because I like surprises and eventually get bored listening to all my own stuff. There are 150 different channels on XM and 120 on Sirius. Jazz, rock, oldies (broken down by decade), techno, Christian, country — and several different channels each of most of it. News, talk, tons of sports. Even comedy and old-time radio dramas. If you can't find plenty to groove on among all the niche programming, you are truly the Life Cereal Mikey of radio.

The power of knowledge. The title and artist of every bleedin' song appears on the screen as it plays! It's Ami Stewart who did "Knock on Wood." Ha!

Commercial-free. Maybe you can relate to my bummer: I settle in for a bracing 10 or 15 minutes of wake-up filth with Howard Stern on my morning commute — just as the local station goes to a commercial break that lasts for most of the trip. Even if it's just the music stations on satellite that are sans ads, that's still a lot of little sanctuaries.

Bottom line

Would I buy satellite radio? Not yet.

But if I spent more time driving — whether I was a trucker or just had a significantly longer commute — I'd whip out the credit card. As it is, getting a huge kick out of both test-drive units has moved me from Jack Benny stinginess to teetering on the fence. What would push me over: missing Stern when he moves to Sirius in 2006. But if I were more of a highbrow Bob Edwards fan ...

So if you're going to get one, which one should you get? XM and Sirius are comparably priced and offer comparable service. Would it matter if you just closed your eyes and picked one?

If compactness and portability (that is, "wearability") are your thing — and you can't wait until the end of the year for Sirius to catch up, then XM has a temporary leg up with MyFi.

Apart from that, the only real difference is a matter of preference. XM has more channels, but I prefer Sirius' programming, which, in addition to Stern in the near future, includes an all-Elvis channel and such oddball shows as "One More Saturday Night with Bill Walton." Seriously: the basketball star, playing Deadhead music and chatting.

Sirius famously paid Stern a Brobdignagian sum to jump from broadcast radio and has been investing heavily in a roster of celebrity talent that includes Eminem, Martha Stewart and Jimmy Buffett's "Radio Margaritaville." I'll never listen to the latter two, but the effort shows Sirius means business. And while XM is no slouch in sports, an expert in The Times' sports department a few yards away from me claims that Sirius edges out the competition.

XM's lineup is still impressive, and the company is much better established as the first out of the gate, with 4-million-plus customers compared with Sirius' 1.5 million plus. XM's got ex-NPR talker Edwards, Snoop Dogg, Tom Petty and even "Twilight Zone" shows. Hard to go wrong there, either.

In fact, I might just keep both test-drive units. Your decision still might be sort of complicated.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com