Sirius / XM -- how do you like it?

[C&G in FL]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

I have over 500 songs on my phone because I refuse to pay for satellite in 3 cars while driving one at a time.

I have over 4,000 on my phone.......

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by C&G in FL

I have over 4,000 on my phone.......

I have pared mine down to about 6,500. Lisa has about 2,500 different ones on hers. Love having the variety. I love many different genres of music.

[NW Cat Owner]

I got a 3 month free trial with the new truck. While it was okay, I quickly got bored with their choices of music (and I detest talk shows). I also got extremely annoyed at it dropping out just when I'd drive by trees. Yeah, I know, satellites, angles and all that. Whatever, it was annoying.

I'm in the process of putting my music onto some 16gb memory sticks. Got a device that will hook up 4 at a time to one plug and that's how I'm gonna listen to music while traveling outside of my home area and away from the stations I know. Some time ago Dirk digitized all of our CDs.

I now have one for Rock, one of New Age and another will be for Classical (that one is 32gb). Dirk will need one bigger than 16gb just for his Tangerine Dream music! Don't have a smart phone, so this will work just fine for us.

[Abeltaine]

Originally Posted by rvomaha

We've had Sirius XM for 3 1/2 years in our tow car, but recently cancelled it. Reason #1 - only two stations were remotely interesting to us, one a news channel that is unfortunately about 50% commercials, and the other a channel with old-time radio shows. Reason #2 - every year at renewal time they try to double the rate and charge you automatically, so you have to call them to avoid the price hike. As others wrote here, if you call they suddenly come up with a major discount to keep you subscribing. We don't like dealing with a company with such a shady pricing policy.

We still have it, since my trusty driver tends to drive a night while I sleep in the passenger seat and the comedy channels are a safety measure! Napping while driving is frowned upon! But, everything above is true. I HATE feeling the fear that they will charge us, somehow (though I did NOT give them a credit card!) and that I will have to be obnoxious in order to get a fair deal for the next year.

If there is any other option, I'm all ears!

Amy

[float5]

Had them a couple of years and paid by cashier's checks due to complaints on how they charged. Didn't really think they were worth the cost and didn't find much of interest.

[dfandrews]

Mt wife loaded all our music media (and some tapes and classic vinyl recordings) onto our old Win XP laptop with a dead battery. We can use a small inverter to run it in the car, trailer, or anywhere we have 12V DC, or 120VAC. I'll have listened to it all when I get to 100 yrs. old!

[thoer]

Originally Posted by Jim Bennett

I have pared mine down to about 6,500. Lisa has about 2,500 different ones on hers. Love having the variety. I love many different genres of music.

Is that all? 11,695 on our new phone. My name is Eric and I have a music library problem...

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by thoer

Is that all? 11,695 on our new phone. My name is Eric and I have a music library problem...

I had near that at one time, but many were songs I did not want to hear when I hit random play, and took a few hours one time to delete a couple genres, as well as artists and songs. I would still like to get rid of some more, but then, there are lots of other stuff I would like to add.

[thoer]

We have playlists so we skip the classical when we're on the road. With the big volume variations many of those go thru we find it hard to listen while driving. And of course there are the good old hard rock ones I use to get to get this rural boy into the aggressive mood needed in big city traffic so we don't get run over!

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by thoer

We have playlists so we skip the classical when we're on the road. With the big volume variations many of those go thru we find it hard to listen while driving. And of course there are the good old hard rock ones I use to get in the aggressive mood needed to drive in big city traffic so we don't get run over!

I need to do that, I just see it as daunting work, putting them all together. Is there a trick to make easy work of it?

One of my issues with music, is that I can sing along with thousands of songs, but can't for the life of me recall the artist or title most of the time. There are some favourites I know well, but so many I don't.

[thoer]

Originally Posted by Jim Bennett

I need to do that, I just see it as daunting work, putting them all together. Is there a trick to make easy work of it?

One of my issues with music, is that I can sing along with thousands of songs, but can't for the life of me recall the artist or title most of the time. There are some favourites I know well, but so many I don't.

Not sure on Android, Jim. On the iPhones our whole library is on the cloud and I can make smart playlists that share among devices. I just go in on the computer, make a new smart list all the artists that I want in that playlist, it brings them all in and then I play it on random. Then if I get any new stuff by those artists they automatically get added.

[gbaglo]

Eric gets two minutes for taunting.

[Jim Bennett]

I could do that too. I was wanting to be choosy amongst artists too though. I know I can go by genre, but sometimes the categorising the songs and artists get is a little misleading.

It is not too bad to just hit random on the whole library. I just skip songs I don't care to hear at the time. If Lisa is with me, we have a rule it gets skipped if either one wants to.

I used to use iTunes, but it found it way too controlling. Hard to delete stuff on devices, only on the computer. I now just have a folder of songs, and can use various players. There are so many good ones now.

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by gbaglo

eric gets two minutes for taunting.

Ban him!

[thoer]

Originally Posted by Jim Bennett

Ban him!

Where's that Baglo fishing picture when I need it.....

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by thoer

Where's that Baglo fishing picture when I need it.....

Ouch! That's just plain nasty.

[sunrisetrucker]

Originally Posted by Vermilye

One point to note - if you like to camp in the mountains, you will discover that you need a fairly clear view of the south sky to pick up anything. Even tree cover can block the signal. The further north you go the worst the problem. When I was in Alaska, I rarely was able to pick up any XM stations unless camped in an open field with no mountains to the south...

I find reception is where you get it. I'll be driving along with good reception then pass a grove of trees and lose it. But when I get home and park in my garage I get the best reception, especially with the door closed. What's with that?

Originally Posted by NCBill

We like Sirrus radio. To get a good deal, it's like dealing with the cable TV folks. We sign up for the six month intro rate, something like $30 for the six months. Then after six months, you have to call them up again, otherwise the rate jumps a lot. We've been doing this every six months for several years.

That's exactly what I do, works every time.
I find that what my wife and I mostly listen to is the old time radio programs. Problem is you'll get part way though a program and then we have to get out of the car because we've reached our destination or stopped for gas or what ever. And then we're left wondering how Johnny Dollar solved that case.
So what I've started doing is downloading all sorts of different programs and listening to them that way. If we have to stop, we just continue listening when we get back in. Works great!
Here's a link to one of many sites
https://archive.org/details/radioprograms
You can just search through the many programs or type in the name of the one you want in the search box. You down load the zip file, extract it, and then you have hours of listening pleasure.
We like this method so much I doubt we'll be renewing our subscription next time.

[Iowa Dave]

Originally Posted by Jim Bennett

ban him! ;d

He taunted me too when he revealed he had loaded thousands of Slides on his phone after he learned I had a few thousand to do but no skills.
One thing about Sirius FM, the artist and title are shown. If I hear something I like I spend Time learning about the artist, author and sidemen. I am fascinated with the way the early days of jazz, ragtime, stomp, boogie woogie and swing are tied together. I have a considerable collection of vinyl and put a side on each morning as I get ready for
the day. Currently Joan Beaz.
Dave

[thoer]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

He taunted me too when he revealed he had loaded thousands of Slides on his phone after he learned I had a few thousand to do but no skills.

Blame it on growing up in Peoria - tough crowd and one had to get survival skills early on.

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

I have a considerable collection of vinyl and put a side on each morning as I get ready for
the day.

You enjoy those pops, cracks and hisses, eh? I've got a hell of a big vinyl collection in my attic I'll sell yah!

[Jim Bennett]

I got rid of the vast majority of my record collection 15 or so years ago, and kept my favourites, some classics, and ones with really cool album art. That art is what I miss most about the demise of albums.