The satellite comes and goes

Despite being a big fan of gadgets and new technology, I'm usually pretty slow to spend money on new toys. Partly because I'm getting old, but mostly because I'm cheap. I've never owned an iPod or Blackberry. I've never texted anyone, although I think my phone can do that.

I've been a Sirius subscriber since Howard Stern left regular radio in January 2006. My first satellite radio was a Sportster 2, which worked fine, but had some drawbacks. It would let me pause/rewind up to 45 minutes of content and would beep to let me know when a Raiders/Lakers game was coming on, but that's about it as far as advanced features go. It had a very powerful FM transmitter, which was nice for getting a radio signal that I could listen to on any radio in the whole house. The biggest problem with that model, however, was that it ran very hot and in the summer the display would turn black and be unreadable. Sometimes, it would get so hot that it would shut down.

The impetus to replace my radio was that I just bought a new used Mazda 3 to replace my old Saturn, which had died recently. Rather than installing my old radio in my new car and going through another summer of frustration, I opted to upgrade to the latest portable unit that Sirius offers: the Sirius Stiletto 2.

You can listen to the Stiletto in 3 different modes: satellite radio, internet radio or library.

The satellite mode is just like any other satellite radio receiver. You need a clear line of sight to the sky and then you get to listen to one of Sirius' 130+ channels. The device itself has an antenna on it, but that's not very convenient because you'll lose your signal if you stuff it in your pocket. However, in addition to the standard iPod-style earbuds that come with the device, you also get a set of antenna headphones which look more like your standard 1980's walkman headphones. These have an antenna built into the band that goes along the top of your head, so you're virtually guaranteed to have an obstructed signal as you walk around outside as long as you're not too close to tall buildings or super-leafy trees.

When I'm home, I plug my radio in to my Home Docking Kit, which is plugged directly into my stereo receiver. The antenna is snaked outside and on to the roof. In my car, I plug the unit into my Vehicle Docking Kit, which uses a magnetic antenna on the roof of the car. The audio output from the unit transmits to my car stereo via FM signal. Ideally, I'd be able to plug the unit into my car stereo via an audio input jack, but my car doesn't have one of those. In busy metropolitan areas, I would think that this would be a big problem because even in sleepy Maine, I'll occasionally get interference from other cars that are also using the FM method.

When you're in satellite mode, you can push the "heart button" and record any song to the library. This Stiletto 2 will hold up to 10 hours of songs recorded in this manner. Better still, I can easily set up recordings of certain channels at certain times and the radio can hold up to 100 hours of these blocks of content.

The internet radio mode is new to me, and is a decent fall-back option for when you can't get a satellite signal. What this mode does is searches for wi-fi networks and let's you stream Sirius content without having any sort of line of sight to the outside. It's perfect for listening to the radio while at work if you have access to a nearby wireless network. The only downside to internet radio is that you can't record anything in this mode. I'm not sure why that is, but if there's one thing I could change about this device, that would be it. I can't even pause the feed, but still, it's better than nothing. Any song that you tag with your "heart button" is added to your wish list, which is just a list that is meant to remind you of songs that you might want to buy at some point.

The library mode is basically the "iPod mode". The Stiletto comes with a USB cable and software that lets you sync up your radio's library with the one on your computer. You can also listen to whatever recordings you've previously made from satellite mode.

Overall, I'm thrilled with this radio. The only thing I'd like to see changed is being able to record off of internet radio so that I could listen to Howard Stern live at work and pause it if the phone rings or I have to leave my desk. Instead, I've been leaving the radio docked at home all day and having it set to record from 6am til noon Monday thru Thursday. Then, I catch up on my listening in the evenings and on weekends.

I'm optimistic that finally having the ability to listen to Sirius outside will inspire me to get outside and exercise this summer. Stranger things have happened! I'm sure of it.

Comments

[March]

I have the sportster2 as well..and figure once it goes I'll go the same direction you have.