XM Satellite Radio: Delphi MyFi Radio Review
I was the lucky recipient of an XM Satellite Radio for Christmas this year. I did a bit of hinting to my wife that I'd like one, and luckily she picked up on the hints.
The model is the
Delphi MyFi, a portable model with kits for home and car installations.
Here are a few things I've learned about XM so far:
- A South facing window is critical. I'm a city guy, and live in a neighborhood where houses are close together. The XM antenna's cord if VERY long, so this won't be a problem for most people, but if you live in a North facing apartment, you may have problems.
- Stock Ticker Glitch?: The radio has a stock ticker feature that will stream up to 20 stock prices across the bottom of the screen. While setting it up, I noticed it was missing Google's ticker (GOOG). It has an auto-complete feature, and the only GOO_ stock that showed up was GOOD. The next day, this corrected itself. This was a problem before registering the unit, so the internal list of stocks may have been set up pre-Google IPO.
- Battery Life: Using the MyFi all day at work listening to stored music, or putting it on pause managed to kill the battery in less than two work days by not plugging it in over night.
- Non-Antenna reception: my office is in the middle of a 1-story office building, yet I somehow manage to get a satellite signal on my satellite radio at that location. It's not great and occasionally fades out, but does work. This is more tolerable for talk radio than music.
- Non-Antenna Reception in Car: the radio comes with a car kit that includes an antenna that can be installed in the car. The radio works for me while sitting on the dash as long as I never drive North.
- Recording Radio: The radio will record up to 5 hours of music, but doesn't allow you to prioritize what you'd like to delete or keep. Once five hours are recorded, it simply starts recording over the first of the five hours.
Overall, I've quickly become addicted to the service. Bouncing through the large selection of stations, including things I'd never find on local radio like 24 hours comedy channels is awesome.
Takeaway: Be prepared to spend some time setting up the antennas. Once that's set, be prepared to have a lot of fun.
Interesting. That probably explains why I can get a signal at work. However, it's disappointing that it doesn't work better at home.
We'll visit the XM booth at the CES show this week to see what we can find out from them. I may also need to upgrade my radio to the new one launched this week.
I received an offline question asking what the stock ticker is for the DJIA in XM Radios. It's not DJIA. Is it DOW? Anyone know for sure?
1. Posted by: Chuck on January 6, 2006 12:23 AM:
On the Southern view; this is true for any city that does not have a ground repeater. Major cities that I have been to will have a signal even inside a room with no windows due to the ground repeater system.
I have gotten signals on airplanes while flying with the car antenna attached.... that impressed me.