Coolness from beyond the ether
I've got it. XM Satellite Radio. I can tell already I'm going to like this. On Friday night I went to Best Buy and purchased the hardware. I got a Delphi Skyfi2. (The box included the vehicle kit.) I also got a boombox for home, as I can then just pop the Skyfi2 out of the truck, bring it in the house, and pop it in the boombox and listen there.
On Saturday afternoon, I took it over to Best Buy and they installed it. They appear to have done a fine job. They ran the antenna (which is surprisingly small) out the brake light at the top of the back of the truck. Not sure how they ran the wire then to back behind the radio. That must have been some work. They mounted it just to the right of the radio, below the vent on that side. There was a little plastic piece that pops off, and there was an area there they used. That area I think is used for the airbag switch off in some Tacomas, but I didn't have that option.
(One niggling thing. The indicator light for the engine immobilizer system doesn't go out now. It's supposed to blink a few times after you shut the engine off, and go out. Except now it doesn't go out, so something must have been set wrong when they were working behind the dash. The manual says to call the dealer when that happens, so I gotta do that. Oh well. At least BestBuy did the installation for free, which was not a bad deal. There was some work involved.)
On Sunday I finally got the radio activated. Their systems have been having a little trouble lately. I think they've been quite busy with people locking in the lower prices before they go up on April 2. (It's too bad they raised the price so much. The $9.99/month was one of the features that first attracted me to it. Now, at $12.95, it's getting close to somewhat pricey. I prepaid for two years, meaning my montly cost will be $8.96/month.)
XM has such a nice variety of things to listen. Just about any kind of music. Rock, several kinds of jazz, dance, Euro, several kinds of classical including one devoted to voice. They have channels for decades, like 40s music, 50s music, all the way up to the 90s. There are a few Christian music stations, including a gospel one.
In news, they carry feeds from Fox News, CNN, ABC News, CNBC, MSNBC, C-Span, BBC, and the Weather Channel. (I looked yesterday, the XM feed of Fox News is about 30-45 seconds behind what you see on the cable tv station.)
Some sports channels. ESPN Radio, Fox Sports, Sporting News, NASCAR radio, and all the Major League Baseball games, including a channel devoted to MLB news and talk. Some college sports channels.
A couple of kids channels. Then, a number of talk stations. Comedy, both liberal and conservative politics channels, Christian talk, and some neat ones like Discovery Channel radio, Books and Drama and something I'm looking forward to, Old Time Radio, where they play classic old radio shows, like Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Abbott and Costello, the Shadow, Dragnet, Fibber McGee and Molly, and some others.
They have traffic and weather stations for a number of larger metro areas, like Boston, NY, Chicago, LA, etc... Minneapolis/StPaul is included. So, if you were driving through those areas, you could get information on what traffic and weather is like there.
I'm thinking about maybe getting a mount installed in the van. Then, we could take the same Skyfi2 and take it with in the van when we go on trips. (Except the kids would probably rather have the dvd player on.)
This morning on the way to work after dropping the kids off at Jessica's house, I listend to some 40s music (Tommy Dorsey) some 50s (Cupid) and others. Neat. One of the DJs said "Good morning, America!" Yup, I'm going to like this.
On Saturday afternoon, I took it over to Best Buy and they installed it. They appear to have done a fine job. They ran the antenna (which is surprisingly small) out the brake light at the top of the back of the truck. Not sure how they ran the wire then to back behind the radio. That must have been some work. They mounted it just to the right of the radio, below the vent on that side. There was a little plastic piece that pops off, and there was an area there they used. That area I think is used for the airbag switch off in some Tacomas, but I didn't have that option.
(One niggling thing. The indicator light for the engine immobilizer system doesn't go out now. It's supposed to blink a few times after you shut the engine off, and go out. Except now it doesn't go out, so something must have been set wrong when they were working behind the dash. The manual says to call the dealer when that happens, so I gotta do that. Oh well. At least BestBuy did the installation for free, which was not a bad deal. There was some work involved.)
On Sunday I finally got the radio activated. Their systems have been having a little trouble lately. I think they've been quite busy with people locking in the lower prices before they go up on April 2. (It's too bad they raised the price so much. The $9.99/month was one of the features that first attracted me to it. Now, at $12.95, it's getting close to somewhat pricey. I prepaid for two years, meaning my montly cost will be $8.96/month.)
XM has such a nice variety of things to listen. Just about any kind of music. Rock, several kinds of jazz, dance, Euro, several kinds of classical including one devoted to voice. They have channels for decades, like 40s music, 50s music, all the way up to the 90s. There are a few Christian music stations, including a gospel one.
In news, they carry feeds from Fox News, CNN, ABC News, CNBC, MSNBC, C-Span, BBC, and the Weather Channel. (I looked yesterday, the XM feed of Fox News is about 30-45 seconds behind what you see on the cable tv station.)
Some sports channels. ESPN Radio, Fox Sports, Sporting News, NASCAR radio, and all the Major League Baseball games, including a channel devoted to MLB news and talk. Some college sports channels.
A couple of kids channels. Then, a number of talk stations. Comedy, both liberal and conservative politics channels, Christian talk, and some neat ones like Discovery Channel radio, Books and Drama and something I'm looking forward to, Old Time Radio, where they play classic old radio shows, like Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Abbott and Costello, the Shadow, Dragnet, Fibber McGee and Molly, and some others.
They have traffic and weather stations for a number of larger metro areas, like Boston, NY, Chicago, LA, etc... Minneapolis/StPaul is included. So, if you were driving through those areas, you could get information on what traffic and weather is like there.
I'm thinking about maybe getting a mount installed in the van. Then, we could take the same Skyfi2 and take it with in the van when we go on trips. (Except the kids would probably rather have the dvd player on.)
This morning on the way to work after dropping the kids off at Jessica's house, I listend to some 40s music (Tommy Dorsey) some 50s (Cupid) and others. Neat. One of the DJs said "Good morning, America!" Yup, I'm going to like this.
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