XM Hardware, Service and Investment
I was one of the 1st 120 people to subscribe to XM when it was first offered to the public the weekend of September 9th. My first unit, a Pioneer 903 with an antenna specialist 5013F (48”) antenna was installed in a semi tractor. I’ve been in over 30 states and the reception is great.
In December I purchased a second 903 and a pioneer AN-90 (magnetic mount) antenna and assembled them along with a small 12V battery in a 16” plastic toolbox. So now I have a completely portable unit that I use in the house, the pick up and the shop. The 12V battery is mainly to hold the 18 presets when I disconnect from the cigarette lighter plug or unplug the 110 to 12v adapter in the house.
The Sony Plug and Play is already a portable unit, but I like the idea of 18 presets on the Pioneer Vs 5 on the Sony and I found the display on the Sony hard to read because of the colors they used on the display. Besides I usually always do things the hard way.
XM says that the magnetic antenna will not work on big trucks, but I have made two rounds from the Midwest to Southern California and back using the magnetic antenna and the reception had been fine about 98% of the time.
First I think XM has done a fantastic job for a new technology.
Now the “BUT”. They advertise 30 commercial free channels. However they do play about 5 – 6 minutes an hour of long winded “promotions” for other XM channels on each of the 30 “commercial free” channels. I keep telling them that those are commercials.
On the commercial channels such as the news channels where I spend a lot of my time, when the channel goes to commercial, XM fills in with XM promotions and not the nationals stations commercials. When I spend 10 –12 hours a day as I do many days listening to XM those same few promotional messages gets very old.
I’m sure that as time goes on we will see many changes.
Even with the aggravation of the promotional messages there is no way I would be with out my XM.
It’s great to be able to switch from news, to music, to entertainment; any time any place coast to coast. The options before XM were to push the search button and hope A station that I could stand to listen to would come in for 30 minutes to an hour before I ran out of its range and had to search again.
I still listen to several “local stations” when I am in Houston, Atlanta, and a few others where I want the “local” road reports and weather. Then its back to XM.
Oops, this is an investment board and I’m ranting about the hardware and the programming.
I agree that an investment in either XMSR or SIRI is high risk. I own both stocks but only in small amounts in my “high risk” portfolio. I intend to be out of SIRI at any rise above my cost.
XM has said all along that they would need to raise another roughly $250,000,000 in equity before profitably. So the next stock offerings will come as no surprise.
I will not be surprised if the Subscription numbers for the 1st quarter of 2002 do not meet expectations because the two largest mail order houses for XM hardware www.crutchfield.com and cccrane have been back ordered on Sony Plug and Play units since Christmas and are only projecting to be instock in Mid April. People cannot subscribe with out hardware.
I agree that the $300.00 to $500.00 start up is a bit spendy, but I’m amazed at the number of people who are willing to make that investment for the variety of programs and the virtually uninterrupted service coast to coast.
The truckers are coming on strong, as are people in rural areas who may only be able to get one or local stations.
I’m very sure that Satellite radio is here to stay the question is who will reap the rewards?
I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have about XM service and hardware.
Jim
AI
