Stargazer's Garage

One of the best things I did to prepare for our road trip across the United States this summer was to subscribe to satellite radio. It was really nice to be able to listen to clear, high-quality sound no matter where we were. Also, the variety of stations available to us meant that we never were short of something to listen to. So imagine my concern when our Stratus radio stopped working altogether half-way through our trip.... I started noticing problems when we reached Thunder Bay, Ontario. After we had made the border crossing, the radio reset itself: presets erased, no subscription registration. After a few minutes, it re-registered itself and I was able to listen to music again. While we were in Thunder Bay, I was also observing strange behavior with our GPS so I just brushed off the radio problems to some sort of "satellite Bermuda Triangle phenomenon." As we got farther from the time zone border, the satellite radio continued to reset itself periodically. The annoying...

Update: Sep 27, 2007 - Our Stratus radio died when we got to DC. After talking to customer service, I bought a new radio from Circuit City. I went with the Starmate 4 because of some additional features I wanted. I also bought a new dash pad to mount it--which I love. It's working great now. We've been in Thunder Bay, Ontario for almost two weeks now and I've been noticing some really strange things happening with our Honda GPS navigation system and our Sirius satellite radio. Thunder Bay is near the boundary of the Eastern Daylight Time Zone in Canada, even though it's hundreds of kilometers west of the EDT boundary in the USA. So when you go across the border from Minnesota to Ontario, you change immediately from Central Daylight Time to Eastern Daylight Time. You can see what I mean on this time zone map of North America . I feel like because we are so close to the boundary between two time zones, our satellite dependent devices like the GPS and radio are going bonke...

Last Sunday was the 3rd annual Alki Beach meet in Seattle and I had chance to go down for the second year in a row. This time I had my Sirius radio with me to keep me occupied. My wife bought me an extra car kit and I was really looking forward to using it. All went well for most of the trip. I don't have an direct wire connection in the STI so I was using the Sirius radio's built-in FM transmitter. Reception was quite good. Quite good that is, until we reached the Seattle area.... With an FM transmitter, you have to find a spot on the dial where there are no FM stations broadcasting. In a large metropolitan area, that can be hard to do. In Vancouver there's almost a station on every spot. Luckily, when you do find a spot, the sound comes in pretty clear. It means, however, that when you travel long distances, you may need to change the FM frequency to avoid getting strong signals from other stations in other towns. On the way down to Seattle, I only had to change the frequ...

See previous post: Sirius Customer Care - Part 1 . I'm a total convert now to satellite radio which is most surprising to me because I was so against it only a short time ago. I love the service and am so happy to be able to swap it in and out of each vehicle. Regular radio now seems so boring. I had a few more questions about my Sirius service and I think a couple of them got lost in the email shuffle. On the Sirius website they say that they will respond within 24 hours, and since I didn't hear for a few days, I sent my question in again.... I'm glad to say that this time the responses were quick and very much to my satisfaction. I love being able to get a quick response. My main question was whether there would be additional charges if I decided to exchange my Stratus radio for another one and the answer was no. Despite that, I've decided to keep the Stratus for now and perhaps upgrade in the future. You just can't beat it's $25 cost (with rebates and incent...

For Father's Day my wife bought me a universal car kit for the Sirius Stratus satellite radio we got a couple of weeks ago. (Check here for my earlier impressions about the Sirius Stratus .) I had been sitting on the fence about it, and it was nice to have the decision made for me :0) I spent Sunday afternoon setting it up in the STI and I also tidied the installation in the Odyssey. The universal car kit comes with a suction cup mount--something that the Stratus radio kit lacks. This was not a problem in the Honda Odyssey because the windshield is too far out of reach to put the radio. In the Subaru, however, the suction cup mount gives the radio a stable and secure place to be. Besides, the COBB Accessport is already mounted on one of vents so I really wouldn't want to put something else there. The docking station is slightly different in the new kit. Instead of having the plugs for power, satellite antenna, FM antenna, and AUX coming out of both sides, they have been moved ...

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 ...

I've been driving the van around the last few days so I could play around with my new Sirius Stratus satellite radio . I'm really impressed--a lot more than I was hoping for. Also, Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs was on tonight so I was able to sample the NHL sports coverage. But I have discovered why the radio I bought was so cheap.... I'm not an audiophile, but I think the sound quality on the music channels is quite good. When I read reviews and descriptions that said "near-CD quality" I was preparing for something bad--you know, kinda like "Close, but no cigar." But it's not like that at all. It's actually quite good. So I'm happy. The talk stations vary in quality ranging from sounding like a good strong FM station to a little tinny sounding like AM. All of this of course with no static, so despite all the comparisons satellite radio definitely sounds better than regular radio. On our way home from Costco tonight, I switched over to t...

UPDATE: 2007-06-20 - Added more pictures. Sirius Satellite Radio is having a promotion on their radios so I got one at a really good deal. I was a little concerned about installing it, but it ended up quite easy.... I didn't want any kind of permanent setup because I plan on using it in the STI, too. I thought the Stratus radio came with a suction cup mount, but I when I opened up the box I didn't find one. Actually, the first time I opened it up I found that the tip of the cigarette lighter power plug was broken. I had to drive back and they swapped out the parts for me. When I checked the Sirius on-line store again, I realized that the cheapest radio that I bought only comes with a dash mount--which means you either stick it or drill it to the dash--and a vent mount. The vent mount is what I used. I know that for best reception, the satellite antenna should be mounted on the roof. The antenna has a magnetic base and it uses the metal in the roof to help get a signal. But we...

Wow, hell must have frozen over because when subscription-based satellite radio first became available a few years ago, I vowed never to pay for something that I could get for free. I had witnessed the commercialization of the Internet (am I dating myself?) and public radio was one of the pleasures I enjoyed that was absolutely free. That changed today.... Today I am an official subscriber to the Sirius Satellite Radio network with over 130 channels of commercial-free music and talk radio. Does that sound too much like an advertisement? The primary reason for this change was our upcoming Road Tripalooza '07 . Having already traveled long distances throughout this vast continent, the idea of having to spend hours either listening to the same 6 CDs over and over again or searching for something tolerable to listen to on the radio was just not appealing. Plus, when you do find an acceptable station, it's usually gone before long--especially when you're going 70 mph on the Int...