www.iFourWinns.com

When I brought the boat home I was suprised to find that I was getting free Sirius radio. While I am not a fan of Sirius (having been an XM'r in the past) it was nice to "preview" it for a while. I sort of figured it might be six months or so before the receiver got the termination signal.. No such luck.. Last weekend I turned on the head unit and it said to call Sirius!

I won't be making that call... And since XM and Sirius merged and I am not real big on paying for radio in the first place, I might just be inclined to ditch the Clarion head unit now in leui for something that supports MP3 disks. Since neither the head unit, nor the cd changer play MP3 disks.. Or I may just add an aux connection to plug an external MP3 player into.

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Brett DiMichele

I believe they give you 90 days to get hooked before they pull the plug. I don't think they have merged quite yet. Talks have stalled. I like Sirius over XM also for the NFL games and Howard Stern but my radio is only XM capable. I just learned how to work the CD changer so I am pretty proud of myself for that.

I am on 1.5 years of free service so far. They have never set me a bill. I called to activate it last year and was going to pay monthly, well I havent been charged yet.

Wow! NO wonder why they are losing money. Give you credit for your honesty in attempting to pay..

All I can do is sign up and give them my info. If they forget to bill me, Crap happens. And I doubt thats why they are losing money.

I am not a Howard Stern or NFL fan for me it was about the music and the clarity. And for the playlists and the actual audio quality XM is the better of the two. But when XM started raising rates that was it for me.. I got sick and tired of cable rates going up and told them to take a hike after more than two decades of service. And I did the same with XM, in fact I have a Delphi SkyFi mint in the box sitting here I need to sell.

I am not paying for radio, I will just do MP3's instead.

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Brett DiMichele

I've got Sirius (music and weather) and an iPod hookup. Frankly, I prefer the randomness/variety of satellite radio. If I want to hear more of my own music I can fiddle with the iPod. But most of the time I don't.

BTW, the merger continues to be a work in progress. It may or may not actually happen. Various websites have had some combined service channel offerings. I didn't read them in detail but it looked like existing services would more or less remain the same. Combined services and new a la carte options appeared to be more. I'm not unhappy with the basic services (and could care less about Stern, et al) so it's unlikely to affect me.

Also, don't forget the rule "if you don't ask, you don't get". Call customer service and make it clear you're unhappy and are going to terminate the service. Lo and behold you'll find them willing to offer some sort of freebies. I managed to wrangle 2 years free for the car audio (factory sirius in a Jeep). Granted, I'm still paying the regular rate for the boat audio and weather services. But those I can discontinue for up to 5 months at a time (November, December, January, February, March). So I'm only paying for them when I'm actually going to be using them.

Clarity of the signal is debatable. But on a boat, given the amount of other noise and overall poor acoustics, it's not like it matters all that much. You can setup all sorts of fancy speakers and amps but the quality of sound in an open cockpit is never going to be all that great. You do want to make sure to use speakers and an amp that provides good coverage without having to extend to maximum volume levels, mainly to avoid added distortion. But otherwise there isn't much needed.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

Damn Brett! No more BIG 80's?? I started off with a free year of sirius in the mega cab then bought a stilletto for my DD. I put a docking station on the boat and a Terk marine antenna. The stilletto is similar to an ipod, but for satellite. You can add your own tunes to it. And the second subscription is only 6.99/mo. Brett it's time for me to get that EU, I'm sending you a pm.

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V475
Chris Craft Catalina 23 w/ 300 G2
Previously-V338, 248 Vista, H210

Brenden,

How did you know that 80's on 8 was my favorite channel? The 80's like totally rocked, Ohhh Wahhh Ohhhh....

I am not answering ANY generator questions untill you post them damn photos of the Windlass install and the Dinghy

I will just add an aux adaptor and hook up my Chocolate cell phone, I have a 1 Gig card in it now and can go to 4 gig

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Brett DiMichele

I just installed that flatscreen lcd so I'm thinking I can have a few girls model all the mods this weekend - that will motivate my sandbaggin' arse to actually pick up a camera!!


haha I saw the BIG 80's in one of your pics and was laughing, my one supra buddy cruises around to 80s blasting in his supra it reminded me of him.

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V475
Chris Craft Catalina 23 w/ 300 G2
Previously-V338, 248 Vista, H210