Sirius Canada Customer Care - Part 1

I had a question about one of the programming buttons on my Sirius Stratus radio so I contacted them through their web site:

I am a new Sirius customer and have a question about traveling in the US with my Stratus radio.

The owner's manual says that the jump button will allow quick access to local news/weather in certain cities.

I live in Vancouver, but am unable to change the jump settings. When I select that option in the menu, the radio simply says "Updating cities" and returns to the main menu.

When I am traveling in the US this summer, will I be able to use that Jump feature in major cities like Los Angeles and New York?

Thank you for your time.

I got an instant reply thanking me for my message and saying that there would be a reply withing 24 hours--which is nice. This is the answer I got this afternoon....

"Thank you for contacting SIRIUS regarding your SIRIUS receiver. We're here to help!

We regret to inform you that we do not have any traffic stations we only offer weather channels. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Have a great day!"

Hmmm. I don't recall ever mentioning anything about traffic. (Not to mention the fact that if they are offering weather, why doesn't the jump button work?) Oh, well, I guess it confirms the suspicions I had after I bought the machine: Canadian subscribers may get different satellite programming than US customers. I read elsewhere that a few major US cities had local news and weather broadcast on satellite. I thought it would be convenient this summer when we reached places like Chicago and Washington, DC and it was one of the things that made me lean towards getting satellite radio.

What I was worried about was that since my subscriber info says I live in Vancouver, the satellite radio won't recognize the fact when I am in Chicago (unlike GPS) and let me tune in to Chicago stations. I'll guess I'll find out for sure when we're on our road trip.