[Rob Hood]

OK, I'm up for renewal on my XM subscription, and I've got free Sirius in my VW Jetta for a few more days. Since sampling the Sirius for the last couple of months, I do like their music selection (classic rock and country stations primarily) better than XM. Both carry the same newstalk stations I listen to as well. I do like XM's traffic coverage better than Sirius' for the Phoenix area, however, although IMO neither does a better job of traffic coverage than the local AM/FM stations. Sirius has NASCAR, but since I'm no longer making 7-hour road trips, that's not necessarily a high priority for me. My XM is portable between my truck and Z, but the Jetta is integral to the OE radio and I would rather be portable (which I know I can get with Sirius as well).

So, who has which one and likes/dislikes? Is it a tomay-to/tomah-to issue? Less filling? Tastes great?

[slowTA]

The only times my Sirius drops the signal is under an overpass that takes 6 seconds to clear at 70. It usually drops for about a second or so just as I'm clearing the overpass. The other time is random during the summer with the home antenna facing south when it should be facing north instead, this is when the sun's rays drown out the satellites. Around 3 pm, my TV has done the same thing. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I'm not a music critic, so I can't comment on the rest of the content. But I also enjoy Octane, Raw Dog, and Buzzsaw. I'll have to see how the nascar channel does, if I'm interested at the time. One thing I noticed about my mom's trial is that it took forever to scroll through all the baseball channels, must have been a good 20 channels. This was in February and they all had the same broadcast. I don't listen to the traffic since I don't have many options to get home and it is usually clear. I get my weather online the day before at the latest.

As for XM and Sirius combining... the only downside is the monoply and how the sevice can drop while cost will rise.

If I get a new GM in a year or two I'll keep the XM trial to compare them back to back.