Satellite radio?

Thanks for pointing this out. I was totally unaware of this new fee. That is really ridiculous. I am so glad my XM radio is free. I think that in less than five years Sat Radio will be obsolete. I envision internet radio received via WIMAX as the future of in-vehicle entertainment.

 

The Prius 3 JBL stereo with 4 CD changer can play MP3 and WMA music so that is 2.8 gigs of music, and if songs are recorded at 128kbps (CD Quality) or 96kbps (FM Quality) sound, that is a ton of music. I don't have to listen to the same song twice in a couple weeks if I don't want to.

I would take XM only for the talk radio and news, would be worth maybe $3 a month to me, they can keep their music with DJs talking over the music and commercials.

The only thing the RIAA is doing is screwing themselves out of having me hear their artist new music sooner. I may eventually hear it those few times I listen to FM when I am out and about. Way to go RIAA.

I do buy new Music CDs and own over 50 albums of stuff I like not to mention my old 33rpm collection much of which I purchased a second time on CD.This will just decrease my chances of hearing a new artist cause I'm listening to old stuff. Remember when record companies were paying radio stations and DJs to play their music so they could get heard. The Royalty Fee is just greed and I thought I was already paying to hear the music when I signed up 7 years ago with XM. I dropped XM last month and still have 2 month of Free XM left on the 2010 Prius and have no intention of signing up as long as it is so expensive.

This is just radio, I don't need XM to listen to Music. Just cause the satellite is high in orbit, the prices should not be, the service cuts out in wooded areas and mountains, going down hills driving north, driving along hills and mountains. It really should only be a $3 a month service. Just my opinion. I do like XM, just think it is a little over priced and has flaws.

 

Yeah, and don't forget that the new law and fee applies to internet radio. In the past five years, several of my favorite internet radio channels have moved to fee/subscription programs. Now, Pandora is beginning to pass-on the RIAA fee and I predict it will pass-on more.

 

Does Sirius know the date you buy the car? What if it sits on the dealer's lot for three months? My dealer said they don't activate at time of sale and it can stay in demo mode for a while until you choose to start the full 3 month trial. Anyone know if this makes sense?

 

I'd guess that Toyota reports it back to Sirius after the dealer records the sale. The day I bought mine I tried to transfer my subscription from the vehicle I traded in, and they asked me where I bought it, etc. I ended up just canceling the existing subscription, with the idea that I'll apply that credit balance to the new sub when the trial expires.

 

My father got a free trial in a buick. He cancelled it, stopped paying, they stopped billing him, and two years later, he is still getting the service for free i guess.

 

I had a couple of Skyfi's that I cancelled the sub on, and they continued to work for a long time. I think the trick was that they were never on very long at a time. When one did stop working, I'd been using it for several hours and it finally got hit with the kill signal.

 

The three month trial period starts when the service is activated. The dealer activates this when prepping the car for delivery. When I bought my Lexus in April, they forgot to activate it. I found the instructions in my glove compartment and was able to activate it online and had it working 20 minutes later.

 

What I was told, probably incorrect, is that there's a dealer demo mode which includes traffic and a lot but not all channels. If you don;t activate you stay in this quite useful demo mode for quite a while. Anyway, I guess Ill find out in time!

 

Our II came with the "XM Satellite Radio Receiver Kit" which includes 6 months XM service. We didn't particularly want it, but the car was available. It cost $449.

We got no paperwork on how to activate it and I called the dealer and left a message and no call back yet. Anyone know what I need to do to activate it?

 

Nothing to it. Go out to your car and tune the XM receiver to channel 000. The radio will display its ID number. Write it down, go to your computer and go to this web page:
https://xmro-secure.xmradio.com/listenercare/oemlogin.xm

Put the number in and a page will pop-up informing you of the length of your trial. Make sure your car has a clear view of the sky and they will send a signal to activate your radio. It has to be on to receive it. The site says 15 minutes but mine was activated within 5 minutes. Once you have put in the number the signal must be received within three hours so don't do it unless you have the time sit in your car for a few minutes. Enjoy.

 

I just went out and tried to tune to 000 using the up down arrows and couldn't tune in 000. While doing this I discovered that apparently I'm already activated. Using the tuning knob I can tune in anything. Using the up down arrows I can't go above 30. Kinda odd or I'm doing something wrong.

Using the knob I could tune to 000 and got the ID, but not sure if I should go ahead and activate. Should I? Why the tunning oddity with the up down arrows not going above 30?

I've also noticed that not every stations is what the brochure says it is. The movie sound track channel is "The Bridge." Is it dependent on the time of day?

I found one channel that doesn't seem practical to me, the book channel. You can listen to an audio book, but when you're commuting you'd have to leave the book while it's in progress. Seems like an odd choice.

 

I have enjoyed the free trial but I purchased a nicer MP3 player expandable to 16GB and will be using that in the Aux jack. I am going to try out the Billboard preloaded SlotRadio card for Rock, $50 and 1000 songs they have preloaded. Different genres are available. Figure I can do this for just more than one years service on the XM and have better choices.

 

There's a another thread around here talking about using an mp3 player with a belkin cable and one thing I haven't been able to determine is whether the mp3 player will come online automatically when turning on the car. Apparently it will shut off when the car is turned off, but I don't know what happens when the car is turned on.

This is assuming that the previous time the care was on, so was the mp3 player.