I know nothing about XM Satellite radio,I was thinking about getting it. What brand is good and what brand shouldI stay away from, if any.Where is the cheapest place to buy the setup?Iwant to get a combo kit for the truck and home.Can someone tell me if it is any good and how hard it is to set up in the truck?As much info you can offer would be great. Any pics of your install would be nice also... mounting ideas... ect

 

Honestly,

I think you might want to run a poll here and find out which service people like and why they like it. XM or Serious (spelling???).

I really enjoy my XM but I am also 50 yrs old and generally lean more towards music and less sports (hard to broadcast hunting and fishings shows on the radio). Yea go ahead and say it I'm an OLD FART.

Next you need to decide whether or not you plan on keeping the stock radio until the truck is gone, or if you plan to replace it with an aftermarket unit. Most of the replacement radios these days will have an option to add either of the services to their head unit (radio).
The way you add it to your stock radio is through an FM modulator that plugs inline with your antenna, and connects that way, then you have to figure out where to mount the little add-on radio device to select the channels on either of the services. Personally, I went with the after market setup because I feel the factory radio and speakers are truly junk. Not that I have a really expensive system, but it sounds tons better than stock.

A couple of simple decisions first so you spend your money right the first time, getting what fits your needs.

 

I have XM, my wife has Sirius...Honestly I like XM the music choices in my opinion is alot better than Sirius....
But if i am not mistaken, i think they will be merging soon, so it might not matter which one you get, because it will be the same company......My .02 worth.

 

Personally I'm a Sirius fan. I have had Sirius since the beginning (I was their 19,023rd subscriber), which is another reason that brought me to the Chrysler lot.

The giant used to be XM, however with the help of Howard Stern, and some good advertising, Sirius is gaining a lot of ground (Under a million users before Howard, now they have 5.2 million). Yes, they're in the process of getting congress to allow them to merge, the problem with this is, if they do merge there will be a monopoly on the satellite radio. This could be bad for the consumer b/c with no competition technically they could gaulge the customer (However in my personal opinion if they did something stupid like that I would have to go back to regular commercial radio). Also I'm not a fan of the merger b/c if they do, your current radio would become obsolete and possibly not work at all. After reading a couple of experts opinions, I'm a little concerned. They aren't telling you the fact that if they merge the units that are currently out are only compatible with 1 service not both, also if they decide to keep the ALL of the programming from both XM and Siriusyour current unit will not be able to accept ALL of the channels. Currently XM receivers have about 20 open channels that they can use, after that it's full. Sirius receivers have about 40 open spots for audio, however with the launch of their new satellite TV service I believe they are planning on using that"bandwidth" for Video.

Hmmmm.. how'd I get into all that...lol, go with Sirius. Basicallyafter the merger it's going to be Sirius CEO's and will still be primarily sirius anyway.

 

I've had both services. I liked XM for thier music choices better; they had the sports I wanted to listen to also. Sirus came w/ the truck so I dumped my XM. If I was going to go back to either of them I'd go back to XM.

As for the actual units; Pioneer makes units for XM. I had two different ones and they both worked great. As for Sirus it was just the stock head unit. I found I got much better sound quality out of my add on Pioneer systems.

 

Yeah,that reminds me; Mine came with the factory Sirius, does anyone know if you can hook the existing factory satellite antenna to an aftermarket head unit??

 

i've had XM for just about 3 years now, couldnt be happier with it. For great deals check out www.myradiostore.com they have great rebates for first time sub's, as well as refurbished units. I'd recomend the Pioneer Inno, it's a sweet little (size of the motorola razor) fully portable device with 50 hours of recording time, nice color screen, etc.

if you choose to go with sirus they have them there too... the short of it is that EITHER is better than FM or fumbling with CDs! enjoy satellite!

 

both are good systems dependant on if you like sport (xm) or music (sirius) not to mention they are merging soon so it will be the same thing in months anyway.

 

Had both, personally prefer sirius. more music, and it had the talk shows i want. XM has a lot of sports though.

Sirius has more muzic imo, and i listen to maxim, playboy, they also have howard although i am not a fan.