David wrote:

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:08:57 -0800, running dogg wrote:


How much do you pay for XM and Sirius? Isn't it something like
$15-20/mo, in addition to a receiver that costs a few hundred bucks? Why
should I pay $200 or so a year just to get the BBCWS, when I can buy a
$50 Degen and listen to it without subscription costs? Even if I have to
listen to it from the Asian stream, I still save money. Not all of us
have gobs of cash. Even Ace, who has gobs of cash, prefers to spend his
money in more productive ways than giving it to XM and Sirius. XM and
Sirius are mostly music, 12 channels each of every variant of every type
of music you can imagine. I don't listen to much music, and 12 channels
of right wing talk doesn't appeal to me, so I'd be paying money to
listen to something I can get for free with a $50 radio. I suppose David
Rickets likes throwing money away. I can't afford to.

The radios start at $50 (or less, even). The initial subscription is
$13 a month (about the cost of one compact disc, which you will tire
of in a few hours).

Let's see, that's $156 a year to get one radio station.

I used to listen to the Singapore relay from around 3:30 AM until
around 7:30 AM (Pacific Time). Other than that, there's no BBC left
out here. On the satellite it's alway there, noise free, and I can
concentrate on the content.


I understand that you live in the Santa Clarita Valley. IIRC, that place
is horrible for radio reception. LA FM stations have to put up repeaters
to be heard there, and it's just a hop skip and jump away from downtown
LA. (OK, that's 2 hours in LA traffic, but I'm talking air distance.)
The mountains block virtually all radio signals. Try using your car
radio when going through Tejon Canyon sometime. It's DEAD. In your case,
satellite radio WOULD be a necessity. I can usually hear the Beeb's
Asian service for a few hours in the afternoon on the 15 Mhz band,
although I haven't tried it recently. I will have to see if the signal
lasts until The World Today comes on at 0300.