What happens after the XM trial period?

Hopefully I'm understanding you. The Sat. 1,2, and 3 are presets for your favorite XM satellite stations, analogous to the push-buttons of older car radios. When on satellite you should be able to manually tune in all the basic XM stations (in addition to your preset favorites).

The $77/year deal is just for the basic XM channels (music + talk and comedy stations).

 

Question, so if I simply let the XM trial run out (as I will, since there is simply no way I can justify the charges), will the SAT part of the audio system be completely useless? Are there no "Free" XM channels at all?

 

Yes you shouldbe able to manually tune (or use the scan feature) to find a station you like and then set the preset button to that found station by pressing and holding the preset button down for a few seconds. You will see the station channel number at the top of the screen as you manually tune.

 

Awmyhr, I do not think there are any free xm stations. However I have heard of some free preview subscriptions here that extended a minimum number of channels beyond the three month intro. If you want just music and have an iPhone you might consider using Pandora.

 

And if you want talk radio, you can download podcasts or stream them over the air via the Stitcher app. The advantage of podcasts beyond just being free is that you play them on your schedule can stop them so you don't miss anything when you get out of the car then later continue where you left off.
I looked at the XM website schedule and noticed several shows I'd like to listen to that don't play during the times I would be in the car, so I'm better off downloading podcasts.
If XM offered on demand programming, then that would really be convenient.

 

Yeah, I'm a *huge* podcast addict, and have plenty of my own music - one reason I won't be subscribing to XM. I'll be using an iPod touch (no iPhone - yet), once I find a reliable USB cable. Was merely curious about the XM stuff. I find it cuts out as soon as I pull into the garage, or sometimes when I go under a bridge - super lame IMHO.

 

Well, it is satellite dependent so that makes sense. You just can't listen to it while parked in your garage.

 

That doesn't bother much since I only drive under 1 bridge daily and it's only a off for a few seconds.
I wanted to like it, but looking at the XM schedule during my morning and evening commute hours, I didn't see anything that looked that interesting on the news and talk stations.
For music, besides my existing music collection, I could buy many new tracks every month for less than the XM subscription and I would have them to keep.
Even a Zune Pass subscription seems to make more sense than XM for music since you get higher fidelity and get to permanently keep 10 tracks per month as part of the fee. Zune Pass | Zune.net

 

Listen, DirecTV and the Dish Network don't work when you bring your satellite dish inside. When your car is in the garage or in a tunnel, you don't get reception. When you're driving your car outside, it works.

 

That is generally true, but Sirius seems to have a repeater within a block of my garage at my office and even when I go underground it works just fine. I have no idea whether it works on the XM on my Prius because, frankly, I don't listen to it very much. I have a Lifetime on my Sirius on my Thunderbird, which I am keeping for weekends and nightimes. I am not sure what I will do with this one. My wife had an extended trial period (someone at Lexus must have screwed up), but she insisted that when it lapsed she didn't want it reactivated as it was a waste of money as far as she was concerned.

 

Has anyone renewed at the $77 (+ taxes, etc.) rate in the past few days? My trial subscription ends Jan. 31.

 

Yes, I renewed this morning. They first started talking about some ridiculous figure and I kept asking for the $77 rate I had heard about and she finally came around. Then I asked about the $99 offer including the best of Sirius and after denying its existence for a few minutes she left the phone and came back in about 45 seconds and offered that to me. Tried a hard sell on the XM traffic but I don't much care for that so it was easy to turn down.

I don't know if they are really clueless or if they just try to scarf as much as they can each time. It does work, though. I have a friend who payed more than twice that amount for his XM service and had no idea there were any specials available.

 

Thanks, Joe. I called XM this afternoon and was promptly connected to someone who was actually very pleasant. She pushed the full-freight rate, but I told her that I knew the $77 rate was available (thanks to you). She quickly said that it was, so I signed up for year at $77 + 11.78 royalty fee. She said no taxes on XM service in Virginia. (Surprising, since the General Assembly taxes everything else.) We'll have to caucus again a year from now to determine what specials are available so we don't wind up like your friend!

 

I've briefly read this thread but what channels are included in the $77/yr special offer. I'm assuing NavTraffic is an additional cost.

 

I think the $77 includes what we have as part of the trial period except for NavTraffic. It also doesn't include the "Best of Sirius," which is Howard Stern and some others that aren't in the trial package. According to Joe's post, above, there is a $99/year special that includes those additional channels.

 

You can go to the XM website and see what channels are included for the $77.00. The traffic service is either $3.95 or $4.95 a month but I find it more annoying than helpful so I wasn't paying attention. I thought someone posted recently that the $99 included that, but that is not what the lady said.

The Best of Sirius adds 2 Howard Stern outlets (which I have never listened to), and nascar, some more sports stations and a total of about 15 or 20 stations. For $22 per year, I am going to try it out, but it doesn't seem worth it to me.

I have had Sirius for years and still have two lifetime radios so I wanted to have those stations available in case they were something I wanted to tune to. BUT since I can't stand Stern, and the Playboy station is really dumb, I think it will be a shortlived experiment. I just didn't want to find some sports I wanted while on the road to be not available. $22 per year is not much for that.

 

In case anyone is wondering what will happen:

My XM trial period ended on Jan 25, and on Jan 27, so did my XM reception. How do they do that!? I can only tune channels 0 (radio info), 1 (XM previews), and 247 (weather alerts); all other stations display "unauth".

 

I'm in Canada and mine is still chugging away. It should have expired a month ago. I wonder if all Canadians are getting it for "free" after the trial ends.

I wonder what kind of deals we can get here in Canada.