Delphi SKYFi3 XM Radio Receiver with Car Kit
- Usage: Car
- Design: Compact
- FM Transmitter: Included
- Service: XM
- Compatible Brand: Delphi
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XM Skyfi - Thought I would never pay for radio untill i tried it.
Pros
Portability from car to home to work. A blessing compared to regular radio.
Cons
Car kit is primitive. XM is for mass market. Don't expect to like every station.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Cutting edge technology. The comparison is similar from regular reception TV to satellite TV. It opens up a whole new range of programming.
Living in Southern California, I'm faced with a pretty long commute - a minimum of 2 hours a day on the road going to and from work.
I've been extremely dissatisfied with FM, and there's only so much I can take of AM after the news, traffic reports and a little talk radio here and there. Then I heard of XM satellite radio.
I admit I was skeptical. I didn't know much about it, but I knew it costs 10 dollars a month to subscribe. Paying for radio? No way..not me...that is, until I was tempted by a special offer where I could get the Delphi Skyfi receiver and kit (car or home) for about 100 dollars.
I started to browse through the XM website www.xmradio.com and a few of the forums for xm, and my interest grew. I thought, oh what the heck, I'll give it a shot.
When I received the Skyfi unit, I was anxious to get it to work. The main receiver is about the size of a PDA, but a little thicker. The car kit came with a cradle that the receiver sits in, a remote antenna that you're supposed to put on the roof of your car, a car lighter type power plug, and a cassette adapter to feed the audio signal to your car stereo.
With these car installation items, you're somewhat limited depending on what your car came with or what you consider an acceptable installation. For instance, my car did not have a cassette player, so I could not use the cassette adapter. My choices were either to buy an FM modulator or an auxiliary input adapter. I opted for an auxiliary input adapter from PIE electronics (www.pie.net) which makes my OEM car stereo think the XM unit is a factory CD changer. I thought it would better preserve the audio signal than the FM modulator. I also hid the power plug so it's not visible (note that power plug converts from 12V to 6V, so do not wire 12v directly to the cradle).
Also, I didn't want the satellite antenna on the roof of my car, so I decided to put it on the rear speaker shelf, and have experienced no problems except minor dropouts under overpasses and such. It may be that I would still get these dropouts with the antenna on the roof, but I haven't tried. BTW, I also have 20 percent, non-metallic window tint.
Sound quality is pretty good for the music stations. The true audiophiles would probably hear the compression, but for me, there is too much road and engine noise for it to matter, though compression is much more evident in talk radio stations where quality is not as important.
So, how do I like it? Well, it has definitely brought much relief to my commute with a wide genre of music stations plus comedy, news, sports, and entertainment. It's something I will not give up. I love listening to live concerts on XM live, and cracking up to the comedy stations. I hear songs that I forgot about ages ago, and spend way too much time channel surfing when I should be keeping my eyes on the road.
In fact, I like it so much that I bought a home kit so I can use it at work. I have it plugged into my computer and can enjoy CNN or Fox News when others struggle to get any kind of FM or AM reception.
I won't list the approximately 100 stations available, but check out the xmradio.com website, which has the complete channel lineup.
I've been extremely dissatisfied with FM, and there's only so much I can take of AM after the news, traffic reports and a little talk radio here and there. Then I heard of XM satellite radio.
I admit I was skeptical. I didn't know much about it, but I knew it costs 10 dollars a month to subscribe. Paying for radio? No way..not me...that is, until I was tempted by a special offer where I could get the Delphi Skyfi receiver and kit (car or home) for about 100 dollars.
I started to browse through the XM website www.xmradio.com and a few of the forums for xm, and my interest grew. I thought, oh what the heck, I'll give it a shot.
When I received the Skyfi unit, I was anxious to get it to work. The main receiver is about the size of a PDA, but a little thicker. The car kit came with a cradle that the receiver sits in, a remote antenna that you're supposed to put on the roof of your car, a car lighter type power plug, and a cassette adapter to feed the audio signal to your car stereo.
With these car installation items, you're somewhat limited depending on what your car came with or what you consider an acceptable installation. For instance, my car did not have a cassette player, so I could not use the cassette adapter. My choices were either to buy an FM modulator or an auxiliary input adapter. I opted for an auxiliary input adapter from PIE electronics (www.pie.net) which makes my OEM car stereo think the XM unit is a factory CD changer. I thought it would better preserve the audio signal than the FM modulator. I also hid the power plug so it's not visible (note that power plug converts from 12V to 6V, so do not wire 12v directly to the cradle).
Also, I didn't want the satellite antenna on the roof of my car, so I decided to put it on the rear speaker shelf, and have experienced no problems except minor dropouts under overpasses and such. It may be that I would still get these dropouts with the antenna on the roof, but I haven't tried. BTW, I also have 20 percent, non-metallic window tint.
Sound quality is pretty good for the music stations. The true audiophiles would probably hear the compression, but for me, there is too much road and engine noise for it to matter, though compression is much more evident in talk radio stations where quality is not as important.
So, how do I like it? Well, it has definitely brought much relief to my commute with a wide genre of music stations plus comedy, news, sports, and entertainment. It's something I will not give up. I love listening to live concerts on XM live, and cracking up to the comedy stations. I hear songs that I forgot about ages ago, and spend way too much time channel surfing when I should be keeping my eyes on the road.
In fact, I like it so much that I bought a home kit so I can use it at work. I have it plugged into my computer and can enjoy CNN or Fox News when others struggle to get any kind of FM or AM reception.
I won't list the approximately 100 stations available, but check out the xmradio.com website, which has the complete channel lineup.
