Thinking of Purchasing to Sirius Satellite Radio? Read This First

June 16, 2007 ·
Filed in Random Jabber ·
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I have been a Sirius Satellite Radio subscriber for over a year now with no problems or complaints. As some of you know, I recently purchased a new vehicle and with this new vehicle purchase I thought I would get a nice new Sirius receiver to go along with it.

That’s What I Get For Thinking

So I buy my new Sirius receiver, install it, and call Sirius to get the service switched over to the new receiver from the old one. All is well, so it seems. The Sirius customer care rep was very nice and helped switch my service over. Everything activates and I test out a few channels to verify that it is in fact working. It is working, but there is quite a bit of static. The static wasn’t as noticeable on the music stations as the background acoustics drown out the static, but on the talk stations (I listen to the comedy stations quite a bit), the static was very evident and enough to drive you insane. I call Sirius customer care back and tell them what’s going on and immediately the representative has a solution (seems like she’s had this problem before?). The solution was that I need to buy an FM Direct Adapter for $30, which will directly connect my Sirius receiver to my car stereo, rather than transmitting the Sirius signal to my car stereo wirelessly, which the out-of-the-box way of connecting the Sirius receiver to your stereo.

So, Why is This Direct Adapter Not Included Again?

Turns out that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has laid the smack down on Sirius as they were using an unlicensed wireless frequency on their original receivers and with the newer receivers, they had to lower that frequency to comply with FCC regulations. In lowering this wireless signal in the newer receivers, it’s been known to cause static interference, the same static I was receiving.

So, to make a long story short, I bought this extra FM Direct Adapter, had it installed by Best Buy for another $35 (Sirius recommends a professional install it), and now I am static free.

I find it a little disturbing that Sirius is selling a product knowing that there is a better than average chance that the product will not work without an extra $30 purchase.