"Ian" wrote in message
...

Thing is, I'm thinking seriously about going in for a digital radio, since
hearing a Business World programme about it on the BBC World Service
recently.
(This would be used in the home, not as a car radio.)

Now, is there a Best Buy?
As I'm no longer able to see a damn thing, I'd ideally be looking
for a receiver that doesn't require you to look at a display panel
to get information on what mode or channel or whatever you're
currently in or on, as most good radios now seem to.

Almost all the XM and SIrius tuners are not well suited to the
vision-impaired.

There is an exception. For just $70 including antenna, you can get an XM
tuner - complete - that plugs intio the serial port on your PC. The audio
comes out a 1/8-th inch stereo jack as on most XM / Serius tuners. I don't
know if anyone has written the PC side for the vision-impaired. Send an
e-mail to XM and see what they say.

I call them tuners since no XM or Sirius box includes audio amplifier and
speakers. There is a docking station with amplifier and speakers for the
Delphi XM tuner, but that tuner isn't well suited to the visually impaired
IMO.

2. Are the channels offered really as great as the speakers on the
BBC WS program claimed? They were, after all, working for digital
broadcasters, and perhaps less than objective!

I have stopped listening to AM/FM radio since I got XM about 18 months ago.
The exception is the local news and weather station.

3. In your opinion, will the promised advertisements-free policy
last only until a large enough audience has been built up?

No one can predict.

While XM has ads on some channels, they limit the number. There are no ads
on the niche musical channels I like. That includes the older "decades"
channels, the classical channels, and some country channels and many others.
Of course the BBC World Service channel has no ads. Most of the rest of the
talk channels have ads on both XM and Sirius.

At the present time, I don't consider the ads vs no-ads to be a significant
difference between Sirius and XM. There aren't many ads on XM and they are
only on the channels that might attract advertisers - not the niche channels
that are the real strength of sat radio.

You can listen to 3-hour loops of most of the musical channels on XM from
their site www.xmradio.com. Recognize that you are listening to Internet
streaming audio, not the same quality they give off-the-air. You can listen
to Sirius (1) if you have a highspeed internet connection and (2) if you
fill out an info form and register.

Any other questions?

Bob C.

R J Carpenter wrote:
Please pardon the dual messages. The first one escaped without a trace and
I thought it was lost.

To make a slight addition. I find XM coverage in my car to be very
satisfactory. It has worked in every shopping mall multistory garage I've
tried - and Sirius's limited number of repeaters makes it unlikely that they
would do as well. OTOH, it is at least theoretically likely that Sirius
would cover better in some rare rural areas shielded from the south by very
steep hills, etc.


RJ,

I can second your assessment of the XM coverage. I travel in rural VA
quite frequently and have found very few locations where reception was a
problem.

My 2001 F150 makes frequent trips to North Carolina, West Virginia and
even Kentucky. And, other than a second or two under an overpass, I've
had continuous coverage.

Just my two cents,

Jeremy Powell

Try the XMPCR section of this forum:

http://www.xmfan.com/index.php

people are developing new things every day for the XMPCT

(which is fabulous btw)


On 25 Aug 2003 16:17:58 GMT, TritonVA
wrote:



R J Carpenter wrote:
Please pardon the dual messages. The first one escaped without a trace and
I thought it was lost.

To make a slight addition. I find XM coverage in my car to be very
satisfactory. It has worked in every shopping mall multistory garage I've
tried - and Sirius's limited number of repeaters makes it unlikely that they
would do as well. OTOH, it is at least theoretically likely that Sirius
would cover better in some rare rural areas shielded from the south by very
steep hills, etc.


RJ,

I can second your assessment of the XM coverage. I travel in rural VA
quite frequently and have found very few locations where reception was a
problem.

My 2001 F150 makes frequent trips to North Carolina, West Virginia and
even Kentucky. And, other than a second or two under an overpass, I've
had continuous coverage.

Just my two cents,

Jeremy Powell

The follow was also emailed directly to Ian:

Do you have a high speed Internet connection? If so, just listen to the BBC
directly over the Internet. The BBC website isn't blind friendly, but I
think all of the channels stream. I particularly like BBC 7. You can get
transmitters that will broadcast the streaming audio onto FM frequencies so
they can be listened to on any radio in the house.

On 24 Aug 2003 18:29:09 GMT, (Ian) wrote:

If this is the wrong n/group for this query, then sorry! and point
me off to the right one, if you will.

Thing is, I'm thinking seriously about going in for a digital radio, since
hearing a Business World programme about it on the BBC World Service recently.
(This would be used in the home, not as a car radio.)

Now, is there a Best Buy?
As I'm no longer able to see a damn thing, I'd ideally be looking
for a receiver that doesn't require you to look at a display panel
to get information on what mode or channel or whatever you're
currently in or on, as most good radios now seem to.

Wow! Just for fun, I turned on the Visual accesibility and changed
the screen to 640x480. If you can read this, you can read the XMPC
guide.

XMPC is $70 plus shipping and tax from PC Connections and the $9.95
per month fee for the first radio. It is really nice in that you can
set your favorite channels and it will monitor what's on. You can
even set it to pop up you favorite shows.

I have mine connected to a set of Logitec external speakers (the kind
with the sub-woofer, but I have used the cable to feed my souncard and
Total Recorder PE to capture the history of music.

I like to listen to the NASCAR, Decades and Country, Online Tonight,
and Old-Time Radio/Sonic Theater channels the most. Online Tonight
has tons of self-promoting commercials and I've never heard it live,
so I don't know if the musical breaks fill in for commercials. Pretty
much the rest of the channels have mostly promos in place of
commercials.

HTH

Carl Navarro

"Carl Navarro" wrote in message
...

I like to listen to the NASCAR, Decades and Country, Online Tonight,
and Old-Time Radio/Sonic Theater channels the most. Online Tonight
has tons of self-promoting commercials and I've never heard it live,
so I don't know if the musical breaks fill in for commercials. Pretty
much the rest of the channels have mostly promos in place of
commercials.

XM-4 has perhaps one promo per hour and no commercials. XM-73 seems to have
neither promos nor commericals.

wrote:

The follow was also emailed directly to Ian:

Do you have a high speed Internet connection? If so, just listen to the BBC
directly over the Internet. The BBC website isn't blind friendly, but I
think all of the channels stream. I particularly like BBC 7. You can get
transmitters that will broadcast the streaming audio onto FM frequencies so
they can be listened to on any radio in the house.

I thought someone would ask this!
Yes, getting stations like BBC Radio 4 would be a solution ....
only snag is, well, ahem, I am still obstinately using an ancient
486 dX PC and operating on DOS, i.e. no Windoze!
I do also have a perfectly good pentium with a demo screen reader
set up on it, but never did get to like using it.
One day, maybe, one day ..
--
Ian Ft Worth, TX, USA
change m to r to Reply by email

wrote:

On 24 Aug 2003 18:29:09 GMT, (Ian) wrote:

If this is the wrong n/group for this query, then sorry! and point
me off to the right one, if you will.

Thing is, I'm thinking seriously about going in for a digital radio, since
hearing a Business World programme about it on the BBC World Service recently.
(This would be used in the home, not as a car radio.)

Now, is there a Best Buy?
As I'm no longer able to see a damn thing, I'd ideally be looking
for a receiver that doesn't require you to look at a display panel
to get information on what mode or channel or whatever you're
currently in or on, as most good radios now seem to.

Wow! Just for fun, I turned on the Visual accesibility and changed
the screen to 640x480. If you can read this, you can read the XMPC
guide.

XMPC is $70 plus shipping and tax from PC Connections and the $9.95
per month fee for the first radio. It is really nice in that you can
set your favorite channels and it will monitor what's on. You can
even set it to pop up you favorite shows.

I have mine connected to a set of Logitec external speakers (the kind
with the sub-woofer, but I have used the cable to feed my souncard and
Total Recorder PE to capture the history of music.

I like to listen to the NASCAR, Decades and Country, Online Tonight,
and Old-Time Radio/Sonic Theater channels the most. Online Tonight
has tons of self-promoting commercials and I've never heard it live,
so I don't know if the musical breaks fill in for commercials. Pretty
much the rest of the channels have mostly promos in place of
commercials.

HTH

I'm fairly confident that, with the help of a local dealer, I'll get
something set up here, most probably the xm as I like the look of its
choice.
Fifties Rock'n'Roll....
Drama and fiction...
et al.
Which the blasted standard FM and AM stations are certainly not
giving me!

--
Ian Ft Worth, TX, USA
change m to r to Reply by email

"Ian" wrote in message
...
wrote:

[Write to]
- you will get a reply.

I've e-mailed some questions and am awaiting an answer.

Panero is president of XM, so your message will be forwarded to a lesser
person for reply. I thought he ought to hear about interest from
sight-impaired people.

Post to the newsgroup again if you haven't had a reply within a week.

Bob C.

wrote:

Try the XMPCR section of this forum:

http://www.xmfan.com/index.php

OK, ta, I've archived that for investigation.

people are developing new things every day for the XMPCT

(which is fabulous btw)

--
Ian Ft Worth, TX, USA
change m to r to Reply by email