[SliPkNoT]

I say that FM and AM is gone in 20 years.

 

[Mike Walker]

Actually the frequency modulation and amplitude modulation systems will be gone sooner than 20 years. Probably within ten, just as the analog portion of over-the-air television will be turned off in a few years. This doesn't mean that the local stations will be gone, just that they will be using a different transmission method!

As much as I love XM, it IS NOT a replacement for what local radio does best, present LOCAL PROGRAMMING (in fhe few stations where this still actually happens!) Local news, coverage of local sporting events, local weather, and all kinds of tidbits about things happing IN YOUR COMMUNITY will NEVER come "from the bird" (satellite). Failure of local stations to actually serve their communities is what allowed XM to take off as swiftly as it did. But there will still be a few good local stations which actually "get it", and realize that it's in everyone's best interest (including their own) to be the voice of their community. And even the stations which continue to program as jukeboxes will mostly be able to do so profitably because, simply, it won't cost anything to listen to them! Remember, after years of successful growth, the vast majority of Americans still don't have satellite tv! And I'm not aware of any local tv stations who have ceased operation because of cable and/or satellite! It just doesn't happen that way, guys!

 

[grinch]

it seems like a very hip idea. about time we have commercial/censorship-free radio. however, i am still not opting for it.

i agree with mike when saying that the rf modulators suck it. they're just for convenience and not for quality (like everything else audio these days..). if i really want to get into car audio, i'd get xm with a nice head unit that has some sort of direct (rca) input. however, i am not.

i listen to cds in my car. howard stern in the morning on the way to work, and then cds. the radio just isn't all that great to me. i guess i'm not that into listening to classical and jazz in my car, i'd rather just pop in one of my "sleepy mix" compilations or a nice smooth and quiet album like sigur ros's ().

this is just my personal practice though and most people i know don't agree. i just like listening to cds in my car. no compromises, plus i just use burned copies so that i can trash them in my car and not care. i'm too lazy to pay $9/month or whatever for something i already get for free and don't use at all. just my opinion though.

a friend of mine has it and she digs it. seems kinda neat to me, but i wasn't really that interested to play around with it. plus, it was using an rf modulator.

 

[Mike Walker]

When I first found out about the "cd quality music channels" on DirecTV, I was excited. Then I got DirecTV. And after a brief flirtation with the music channels, I stopped listening entirely. These channels lack "humanity". Never a human voice, or emotion. Just wall to wall music, segued rather poorly and with little regard to musical values (songs in different keys/styles/tempos banged against one another in ways that no living, breathing disc jockey worth his/her paycheck would ever do). It was the "radio" equivalent of a laboratory...cold, sterile, impersonal. Certainly not my idea of radio.

When I first heard that the FCC had licensed two satellite "radio" services, I was afraid it would be more of what DirecTV (and Dish Network) already offered. Certainly not for me! But then I read that they (XM and Sirius) were hiring REAL radio programmers and personalities with track records of success in major markets. REAL HUMAN BEINGS WHO KNOW AND LOVE RADIO, AND CAN RELATE TO LISTENERS! Make no mistake about it, XM IS NOT a "jukebox" background music service (like the "Music Choice" channels mentioned on DirecTV). It is real, living, breathing, RADIO, programmed by people who love and appreciate music, and voiced by REAL PEOPLE! Certainly worth my ten bucks a month!

Yes, I can play cds in my car, and always hear just the songs I want to hear. The problem with that is I will NEVER hear any surprises! If I pick out all the music, then I only hear music I'm familiar with, right? REAL radio offers something I'll never get with my own compilations...SURPRISES! And it offers something that I ALWAYS miss during long sessions in which I pick all the tunes, the voice/opinions/idiosyncricies of another person. A "disc jockey", if you will. As maligned as people in this profession have been (myself included), without a human being on the other end, it ain't "radio". XM IS radio!

 

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tuberoller I don't know how you heard XM radio.even the worst skeptics acknowledge the superior audio quality of XM broadcasts.I'll make this statement from the position of a guy who owns a few very good tuners and antennas and lives in an area with three very good FM stations:XM radio is superior in sound quality to ANY FM broadcast I have personally ever heard,It is not perfect but is still superior in nearly every way to FM.

Well, I just bought the Delphi SkyFi, and I agree 100% with Tuberoller's comments. XM radio is awesome, and I would pay 30 bucks a month for it. It is that good!

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

I too have been thinking of going xm. the delphi seems like the way to go but for different reasons for me, I love old time radio shows and there is a station dedicated to it exclusively. I also live in an area where at night it is almost impossible to get good reception on a regular radio (ccradio plus) which is "supposedly" the best radio for the price out there (thanks alot art bell) and it absolutely sucks!!!! So I hope I find an xm receiver under the tree this year!!

 

[Mike Walker]

First of all, if you're talking about the CC Radio Plus as an fm receiver, nothing special is claimed for it! What C Crane claims, and this is FACT is that the CC Radio Plus has the most sensitive AM SECTION of any radio made. But anyone who understands radio theory, particularly as it relates to am, knows that high sensitivity in and of itself DOES NOT guarantee long-range reception! If you have noise-producing items in your home (computer, flourescent lighting, light dimmers, television sets, etc) in close proximity to your radio, or in the same general direction as the station you're trying to receive, the the noise produced by these items will be far more noticable on a high-sensitivity radio! This is because a radio with greater sensitivity pulls in EVERYTHING with greater efficiency, including noise.

If you will study C-Crane's website (or the website of any dedicated radio hobbyist dealer...such as Universal Radio), you will see that there are solutions to noise problems. 1-move the radio near a window, and away from the noise source. 2-rotate the radio to minimize noise (remember the ferrite rod antenna in all am radios, but especially the high-efficiency one in the CC-Radio Plus is EXTREMELY directional). 3-USE AN OUTDOOR ANTENNA such as a random-length long-wire, AT LEAST 50 feet in length attached to the am antenna connection on your CC-Radio Plus (the "plus" terminal, NOT the ground). 4-Try a dedicated outdoor am antenna such as those sold by C-Crane. 5-TURN OFF THE NOISE PRODUCING SOURCES IN YOUR HOME/APARTMENT WHILE LISTENING!

Properly set-up and installed, a CC-Radio Plus can pull in tiny am stations HUNDREDS OF MILES AWAY. And I'm not talking about nighttime skip! I'm talking about IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY!

You mention Art Bell, is the station you're trying to listen to a clear-channel am several states away that you're trying to listen to at night? If so, NO radio can eliminate night-time fading, and the distortion it causes. This is a characteristic of am radio itself, and how frequencies in the "medium wave" band (am broadcast band) interact with the ionosphere at night. But while no radio can eliminate nighttime fading, if you'll compare your CC-Radio Plus with a garden-variety am radio, you'll find that during deep fades, when the signal disappears completely on lesser am radios, you can still hear it and "copy" what's being said on the CC-Radio...a result of it's SPECTACULAR (by today's standards...40 years ago most am radios were this sensitive) sensitivity!

Don't trash the CC-Radio Plus because you don't understand how am works, haven't read the documentation in the owners manual and at C Crane's website, and haven't attempted to erect a proper antenna! None of these are the radio's fault! Used PROPERLY, away from noise sources, the CC Radio IS everything it's claimed to be, and much more! If you expect ANY am radio to ignore noise, and pull in distant stations while positioned near your computer, tv, or whatever noise-sources are inside your home or apartment, then you need to learn a little bit about radio theory!

 

[Steve999]

Well, I just bought the Delphi SkyFi, and I agree 100% with Crescendopower's comments. XM radio is awesome, and I would pay 30 bucks a month for it. It is that good!

Quote:

Originally posted by CRESCENDOPOWER Well, I just bought the Delphi SkyFi, and I agree 100% with Tuberoller's comments. XM radio is awsome, and I would pay 30 bucks a month for it. It is that good!

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

mike, I suggest that in the future before telling people they don't understand the way am radio works or that they should do this or that to try and fix the problem, maybe you should ask the person if they have tried any of the things you suggest first, other than erecting a radio tower in my backyard all of your suggestions have been tried. and as far as the station - the station is located in milwaukee wisconsin and I live in Richfield wisconsin which is about 15 - 20 miles away. And I stand by my conclusion - the ccradio plus is over hyped crap! However if it is such a great radio, you no doubt would be more than willing to buy it from me, or at least know of someone who would???

 

[Mike Walker]

Well I'd gladly buy your CC-Radio, if I didn't already own one, with which I will NEVER part! I may eventually buy another one, from C-Crane (new, WITH warranty) as a backup.

And if you don't realize that superior sensitivity alone doesn't guarantee long range reception, then you truly don't understand am radio.

An example: When I moved to my VERY rural home in Northwest North Carolina, I was convinced that, with an outdoor longwire antenna, I should be able to receive am stations from hundreds of miles away (the theory is sound...rural areas SHOULD be electrically quiet). But electrically quiet my neighborhood was not! My neighbors were using an electric fence 24 hours a day on one of their pastures, even at times when there were no cows in the pasture! This was discovered after an entire afternoon of walking around my neighborhood with an am radio tuned between stations, listening to the noise, until I found the source.

The CC Radio DOES NOT GENERATE NOISE! But as a phenomenally sensitive radio, it will amplify ANY NOISE in the vicinity. As for "short of putting a radio tower outside your home", I never suggested that! In fact a TOWER isn't what's required for am reception. But a random-length long-wire of at least 50-75 feet IS required for best long-distance reception. You can even bury a wire antenna (not more than an inch or so!) without too much adverse impact on performance. But if you're not making a serious attempt to get your antenna away from the noise source (and I'm assuming the noise source is primarily inside your home, as is usually the case), then you're not making a serious attempt at am dx reception.

Another thing that someone who understands am propogation would know...just because you're within 15-20 miles of a station, doesn't mean that it's always realistic to expect to receive it. A huge percentage of America's am stations use directional antenna arrays. These allow signal to be maximized in certain directions, while being minimized, or even eliminated in others. The reason for this is to protect the signal contour of other am stations on the same, or adjacent frequencies. Engineer friends of mine tell lots of stories about am antenna arrays so directional that it's possible to stand on a hillside overlooking a station's tower site, and not be able to receive the station!

So I would guess that you're bothering two am problems, neither of which are the fault of your CC-Radio. A noise source near, or (more likely) in your home, AND a station with a directional array, with your house located in the "null" of that antenna. Under these circumstances, NO radio will be able to outperform your CC-Radio! It's the nature of am radio. That doesn't make the radio a bad product, for the CC-Radio certainly isn't. Anyone who truly understands the nature of AM radio understands this!

Take your CC-Radio to an electrically quiet (outdoor) location, and note that it CAN receive stations from MANY miles away, even hundreds of miles away in the middle of the day. Even if it can't receive your target station (and from your description, my guess is that no radio can), compare it's performance to other radios (in this electrically quiet location), and you'll see that the performance IS spectacular!

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

Mike, I don't know where you are getting this "noise" thing you keep talking about, I did not say the radio is crap because I get noise, it's because the reception is horrible, not just local stations but also distant ones. The reason I have such a problem with it is that I let myself be taken in by an ad, and that ad stated that this radio is the "best am radio in the world" I guess I never figured on having to bury antenna wire in my yard or run wire up the outside of my house, the reason I say that is because I get better reception with almost every other radio in my house, with the exception of the ccradio. The comment about the radio tower was an attempt at humor, not a statement of fact. My bose wave radio has never seen more working time, and the sad thing is, that's after buying the ccradio!

 

[XzeroR3]

I'm a fan of XM radio. My step dad installed it over christmas and it sounds great. Of the stations I heard, none were compressed mumbo jumbo. FM radio is pretty bad up where he lives also. There is about 5 country stations, a classic rock station, and a "modern alternative station."

I would get it for my car if I wasn't going to part with it within the year. Next car, it's mine.

 

[Mike Walker]

Like I said, fyrfytrhoges, it's important to know a little bit about radio theory. If you never planned on erecting a proper antenna in order to pull in the best dx reception on am, OR fm, then you clearly don't understand the fact that the most important component of any radio receiver is the ANTENNA!

However, if reception is worse on am on the CC-Radio than the Bose Wave Radio, then I am convinced that YOUR CC-Radio is defective. Return it for warranty repair! A TYPICAL sample of the CC-Radio or CC-Radio Plus truly IS the most sensitive am radio made today. Sadly, highly sensitive am tuners used to be very common. What is a typical CC-Radio like? MINE can pull in am stations in the middle of the day from more than 100miles away with just it's build-in antenna. Of course, so can my Drake SW-8 communications receiver (which once cost 800 dollars), but in order to do so, the Drake requires a 100 foot outdoor longwire antenna. At my rural North Carolina home, the am band is literally alive with stations on the CC-Radio. If I am patient enough in aligning the antenna (by rotating the radio for best reception), I can get something readable on nearly every frequency!!! And this in a rural area with VERY few stations. THIS IS TYPICAL PERFORMANCE! I listen to Raleigh (NC) and Asheville (NC) am stations as if they were next door, even though both Raleigh and Asheville are more than 100 miles away. I receive the Grand Ole Opry on WSM in Nashville at night with almost no fading, even when it fades completely out on more typical am radios. And I can get Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura on too many stations to count. Too bad I'm a Democrat!!!!

I didn't mean to pick on you fyrfytrhoges, but if your experience with the CC-Radio is that it's am reception is much worse than more ordinary units you own, then your experience certainly isn't typical. Clearly YOUR radio is defective. But you'll find that C-Crane has WONDERFUL, helpful service after the sale. Talk with them, and tell them your experience with the radio. My guess is that they will make it right! They gladly fixed my Select-A-Tenna three years after I bought it!