Blogging Lite and Satellite Radio
I’m in the middle of a trip now and so I haven’t been blogging much.
I’m currently in the Washington, DC area after spending a few days on the Outer Banks of North Carolina where they were having an unseasonably warm, sunny spell. That was very beautiful there and a lot of fun.
Some of the articles that are posting while I’m away were pre-written and pre-posted before I left. It was good thing, too, because in Hatteras I didn’t even have access to a phone line, much less a high-speed connection.
I’ve got a phone line available to me in the DC area and right now I’m using the high-speed wireless connection at the local public library. It’s really great!
I’ve spend some good time with friend and family and gotten most of the Christmas shopping done. I’ve even decided what I want for Christmas–a satellite radio receiver.
I recently purchased some stock in Sirius Satellite (SIRI) and it’s up about 40% since I bought it. From the technical charts it looks like it’s going to fly.
My friends who drove with me to Hatteras had an XM Satellite (XMSR) receiver and that’s when I learned more about some of the advantages of satellite radio.
So I’ve been doing some research into both companies and it looks like the prospects for both of them are very good in the near future.
Here’s a brief article about satellite radio (and another). For a comparison of SIRI and XM features, look here and here.
Between the two companies they having less than 2.5 million subscribers so I see a lot of room for growth in this market.
The really great thing is portability.
For about $100, I can get the receiver which is about the size of a PDA. Then with some additional accessories and the payment of the monthly fee, I can use that receiver in my cars, or in my house. If I put it near an FM radio receiver (in the car, the house intercom, or stereo) I can tune the FM band to a particular station and the satellite signal will feed into that system and flow through its speakers.
With one recever I can get commercial-free radio anywhere. Since neither of my vehicles gets good radio reception where I live, I could use the satellite receiver for both cars.
I also love that the radio spectrum used by satellite radio is currently unregulated. That’s why Howard Stern recently signed with Sirius. I can’t stand Howard Stern so I certainly wouldn’t buy a Sirius receiver just to listen to him, but a lot of other people will.
I’ll provide more details about the trip and satellite radio later. Pictures, too.
If anybody has any first-hand experience with Sirius or XM satellite radio, please feel free to leave a comment.
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