Sirius 85

Denzel Washington has written a book called "A Hand Guide To Me." Geez, and people think bloggers are self-obsessed.

But I'm not going to obsess about myself tonight. Instead, I'm going to talk about something new. Well, new to me anyways. Last week I got an invitation from the Metropolitan Opera to try their new radio channel on my computer, free of charge, for 3 days. "Free" always works for me so I gave it a try, fell in love, and the next day I was shopping for a new Sirius receiver to put in my car.

Here's what I found:

The Installation

If you want to listen to Sirius then the first thing you need is a Sirius radio. You can shop for them online, and if you're handy with tools and don't mind tearing your car apart then you can order it and install it yourself. That didn't seem like the option for me so I went down to my local big-box electronics megastore and asked a few questions.

I found out that there are 4 ways to get Sirius in your car. The first is to buy a head unit (that's fancy car audio guy talk for the part with the radio and all the knobs) that has Sirius built-in. Unfortunately, they don't make any head units that will fit my car so that option wouldn't work. The second way to hook up to Sirius is through a direct, line-in connection to your car stereo. No dice on that one either, so option number 3 was to connect an FM modulator to the Sirius radio and broadcast the signal to your car stereo. I've tried FM modulators in the past and they work ok, given pristine conditions and a lack of interference from other radio stations in the area. If push came to shove I could always try that, but luckily there was one more option.

Sirius calls it a FM Direct Connector, and it's simply a little switch that goes between your the car's radio and its antenna. You plug the antenna into the box, you plug your car radio into the box, and you plug your Sirius radio into the box and now, instead of broadcasting the FM signal, your Sirius radio sends the signal to the little box, where it is routed directly to your car radio. While the Sirius Radio is sending it's signal it also cuts off the outside antenna. This eliminates the hiss and noise you typically get with all the FM modulators.

So, twenty bucks for the FM Direct Connector and I was all set. I signed the papers and told them to install away.

The Radio

Sirius offers several radios. I went with the Sportster 4 unit, which happened to be the most expensive, but it wasn't that much more then the next most expensive units. Anyways, it's a pretty fancy-dancy little unit with 30 station presets, a nice big LED display (important for us older folks), a remote control, pause, rewind and fast-forward controls, and thousands and thousands of confusing little features that I haven't figured out yet.

By the way the installation that the car audio guys did was beautiful - much better than anything I could do myself. They put the radio inside the CD/storage compartment in the cars dash, and left the little door on it so that I could close up the compartment and keep the unit out of sight and hidden from prying eyes. They left no hanging wires and cables and no odd looking things sticking out anywhere, and just did a really nice job with it.

But back to the radio. When you fire up your Sirius radio for the first time the only station you get is the weather channel. You then have to either call Sirius or visit them online to set up your account. The basic subscription is $12.95 month, but they offer quarterly, semi-annual, annual, and 2 year plans that bring that price down. Once you've signed up and payed your money then they activate your radio, and that's it. You're now all set to go.

Like many new hi-tech gadgets the Sportster 4 was pretty confusing at first. However, once you learn to navigate your way around it's really a simple unit to operate, with a lot of extra features that you'll only occaisionally use.

Just like any other radio it comes with presets. There are 30 on the Sportster 4 with one special preset they call the "Jump" button. The idea behind the "Jump" button is that you preset it to a station, and then whenever you want to go to that station you press the "Jump" button, and when you want to return to what you were listening to before you press the "Jump" button again. One press "Jumps" you to the station, and another press "Jumps" you back.

So what's it good for? Well, Sirius offers traffic and weather information for about 15 metropolitan areas around the country. The idea behind the "Jump" button is that you set it to your local traffic station, and then when you just want a quick traffic update you "Jump" to it, and then you quickly "Jump" back when you're through. I set mine up and it works great.

The other major controls on the radio are the pause, rewind, and fast-forward buttons. The Sportster 4 has enough memory in the unit for about 44 minutes of audio, so that makes it possible to pause and rewind live radio. This is also very cool. When one of your favorite songs comes on, you just hit the rewind button and you can listen to it all over again. Hit it twice and you'll go back 2 songs, 3 times and...well, you get the point. The pause function is a little strange because I'm not sure what you would use it for. It would be great if you could pause the radio while you went into the store or something like that, but unless you're in the habit of leaving your keys in the car and the radio running while you do your shopping, then that's not really of much use. I suppose it would be handy if you take a lot of phone calls in your car, but I don't have much use for the pause.

There are also lots of nifty features in the Sportster 4 which are just too numerous to explain. Let me briefly mention the abilty to save favorites, like musical groups or songs or sports teams. If you tell the radio to remember, say, the San Diego Chargers, then the radio will automatically alert you whenever the San Diego Chargers are playing a game and give you the option to switch to that station. The same with a musical group. If that group is being played somewhere on the satellite then the radio will alert you and let you switch to that station. Also pretty cool.

The Service

You get music, talk, news, sports, Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, and all kinds of stuff. Just go to Sirius.com and look at the channel listings to see what's available. So far I've been listening to some of the Comedy Stations and the Old Time Radio station (isn't it ironic that I'm using all this 21st Century technology just so I can listen to the Burn and Allen Show), but my favorite channel and the whole reason I got this thing in the first place is Sirius 85, Metropolitan Opera Radio.

I can't stop listening to it. Finally, FINALLY I've found a radio station that plays the stuff I want to hear. Of course the station is built around the 75 year archive of Metropolitan Opera broadcasts that the Met has accumulated over the years. Each day they broadcast around 5 complete operas, some live but most from the archives. In between performances they broadcast miscellaneous choral works and vocal music featuring some of the great Met Opera singers both past and present. If you love Opera, then you want this station.

When I first got my radio activated I tuned in Met Radio and started thinking that maybe I should just live in my car from now on. In fact, I had to go to the store for milk and ended up taking about a 20 mile detour just so I could listen to Act II of Madama Butterfly. I don't think that's good for the environment.

Since then I've calmed down a little, but it's still so awesome to be able to listen to Bellini on the morning commute and Verdi on the trip home. I'm telling you, if you love Opera then you want this station.

You're Sirius subscription also includes the access to Sirius' online streaming, so you can listen to Met Radio over your computer when your at home. That works ok, but I think you can get burned out listening to the same station 24/7. Then again, it's available if you want it.

Lots more I could say but I've already gone on too long. If the Met gets the word out on this channel and opera lovers start hearing about it, then Sirius is going to sell a lot of radios. The problem is getting the word out, and also getting over that initial hurdle of finding a radio and getting it installed in your car. All I can say is that it's not a big hurdle and I'm glad I took the plunge. Subscription, you say. Pay money? Yep, and worth every penny.