Never Be Bored By Radio Again!

[Mar 2008] After having this for a while, here are my final thoughts. This continues to be a great little unit, but a few tweaks to the system would make it almost perfect. Here's what I think should be changed:
* The unit is not configurable.
- I rarely use the installed memory and it drives me crazy that there is no other way for me to use it. If I could devote some of that memory to free up more favorite artist/song slots, that would be great! Or, say, devote some presets to favorite artist/song slots, since I'm not using all of them.
- I would love to change the order of music download upon start-up. It drives me up the wall when I start my car, drive out of my development, and get well on the main road (minutes later) and hear the "beep beep" of an artist alert, only to immediately tune to it and have the song end right when I get to that channel. This is because the unit takes that long to download all of the information for the songs, and has sat there for the first few minutes downloading all the stations I never listen to. If I could tell the unit to download, say, Rock and Pop categories first, then move on to other things, that would solve this problem.

* The unit has to restart (and reload) every time the car turns off. In light of the above, this can be painful if you make stops every now and then. How could this be fixed? Some sort of standby mode where the unit keeps reading the satellite feed. All it would take is a small watch or AAA battery. That way the unit would be up and fully functional as soon as you started the car. Even better if it prompted you before shutting off if it should power down or go into standby.

* Having the option to listen to station X and record station Y (using all that memory I almost never use), would also be an excellent feature. [\Mar 2008]
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I’m going to pretty much stick to reviewing the actual device rather than SIRIUS radio service. Personally, I like the service, I’m happy with it, but if you’re looking at reviews for this device, I’m assuming you’ve already made the decision to go with sat radio.

A quick background, since some of this can be confusing (I’m still a newbie with all of this, and still learning). And one caveat—there are several menus which contain lists of things. I can’t cover them all here, so if you want to know if your team or traffic area or whatever is in a certain menu, just ask and I’ll answer as soon as I can.

There are several different models you can choose from to receive SIRIUS service. To start off, you should ask yourself whether you want the service in your car, at home, or both (there are the personal devices you can carry around with you, but I’ll stay away from those). I wanted something for my car, so I chose the Starmate. From there, differences vary as to whether you want pause/replay capability (and how many minutes--44 for the Starmate or 60 for the Sportster 5), and a few other options, like S-Seek, Game Alert, Remote, number of presets, etc. Are these features worth the extra price? That depends on what you like.

Features Review. Keep in mind that although my experience is with the Starmate 4, other models below it (InV, InV2, Stratus, Stratus 4, Starmate 3 Sportster 3) all have some derivation of these features, and the models equal to or above (Sportster 4 and 5) have them, too.

The Remote.
Standard key layout, with a 4-button circle at the top (Left, Right, Up, Down buttons) and a button in the middle (Enter). Below that in the middle of the remote are Replay buttons (Pause, Rewind, Fast Forward). Below that are function keys (Memory, Band (for preset stations), Menu, and FM Presets (can choose among 5 different FM freqs to optimize)) and a number pad, along with a Display key and a Jump button (these last two are at the very bottom of the Remote).

The Good: I installed my Starmate in a 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee. While sitting the driver’s seat, there is a pretty good distance between the end of my reach and the unit (I’ve installed it on the windshield). I’d have to lean forward a good amount in order to mess with the buttons on it. In a nutshell, the remote is needed and a lifesaver. It’s small and light and fairly easy to use. I highly recommend it. Another important feature about it: there’s nothing you can’t do with it that you can do manually.

The Bad: Like I said, it’s small and light. This is both a blessing and curse. The Display and Jump keys are very awkward and difficult to press due to their location on the remote and manner in which I hold the remote.

S (Sirius)-Seek.
Wow, this is a great feature. It may well be my favorite feature. Program your favorite artists or songs in this thing, and it’ll beep every time one comes on the air. In addition, the screen reverts (for a couple seconds) to an S-Seek menu of what’s on and which channel it’s on (you can access it after it disappears—see Browsing section). If there’s only one song from your S-Seek list playing, there’ll only be one info line which’ll be highlighted. Simply press the “enter” button on the remote or unit and you’ll switch to that song. If there are several songs playing from your list, the S-Seek menu will list them all (and their respective channels) and the newest song (for which you just received the alert) will be highlighted. Simply hit enter or scroll up or down to another song from your favorites list, or do nothing and the menu will disappear.

The Good: Well, the functionality I described above is a part of the Good list. It all makes sense, is intuitive, and very useful. There’s no guessing involved—you hear the beep, you look at the screen, and you immediately see what artist from your list is playing. If you want more info than that, you can hit the display button and see what the actual song is (this is assuming you’ve programmed an artist vice a song). The system even creates an S-Seek browsing category when there’s at least one song in that cue, so when you’re browsing, you can check which (if any) of your favorites are playing. And assigning is a snap—when you’re listening to a song/artist you want to store, you just press the memo key and select one of two options (store artist or store song). Also, the alert beeps sound a few seconds beforehand, so I often tune to the channel right before the song comes on. The Starmate 4 has 30 slots devoted to the S-Seek function, totally separate from the channel Preset function.

The Bad: The more you program in, the more beeps you get. I do not believe it’s possible to disable the beeps without disabling the S-Seek function altogether. And while storing a song is easy, you can only do it while it’s playing. Also, it seems to take a strangely long time for this function to boot on startup. I’ve started my car (and the unit), started driving, and began browsing and seen some of my artists already playing, with nary an alert beep to be heard. Finally, the function is sort of name-limited. For instance, Paul McCartney was playing. I stored him. A few days later I’m browsing and see “Paul McCartney & Wings” playing—no alert! I have to add that to my list and waste one of my 30 slots. These are all only minor annoyances, though.

Pause/Replay.
I guess this is a decent feature, but really, I haven’t used it a single time except to test it (works fine). There’s just too much to listen to, and I’m always switching channels around, chasing my favorite songs and bands.

Presets.
There are 10 Preset buttons on the unit itself. The Band button allows you to cycle between A, B, and C Preset Bands, giving you 30 Preset slots. Also, holding down the Band key allows you to enter a Preset browse function, so you can cycle through your presets.

The Good: 30 Presets—almost more than you could ever need.

The Bad: None, really. I find that I have little use for this function at this time—I enjoy browsing around. And I have the S-Seek function, which sort of achieves the same purpose. When the joy of browsing wears off, or when I start listening to Howard Stern more, it may come in more handy.

Browsing.
Another great function. Want to see what else is on? You can either flip through the channels (use the up or down key) and change the station as you go, or you can browse and keep listening to whatever’s on. Access the browse function by simply hitting a Left or Right arrow key. This throws you into whatever category you’re in (Pop, Rock, S-Seek (if active), Hip Hop, Classical, Talk/News, Sports, etc). In that category you can browse up and down throughout the category, or continue with Left and Right keys to scroll across the categories to go from, say, Rock over to Traffic & Weather. Again, hitting the Display key gives you more info on whatever you’ve highlighted (artist, song name, channel).

The Good: all of the above.

The Bad: the browsing function operates opposite of how the channel select operates. If I’m in regular channel mode (not browsing) and pushing the Up button (and making my way from, say, channel 14 to 25) and then slide Left or Right into the Category browse mode, all of the sudden I have to press the Down button in order to keep advancing to channel 30. This is one of the few non-intuitive things about this system. Also, it would be nice to be able to arrange the browsing categories. It turns out that my two favorite categories (Rock and Pop) are located next to each other. But someone else may like to typically browse through Rock and Classical. It would take him while to scroll through all the categories and would wind up being pretty inconvenient. Also, the S-Seek category (when active) is conveniently located right next to my two favorite categories. I don’t know if that’s just a smart system or luck, but again, there is no way to manually move that around.

Jump.
A Glorified Preset function geared to deliver local traffic. Once you’ve programmed your traffic area, hit the Jump button and the unit will search that station while you continue to listen to your current program. Traffic is typically broadcast every 4 minutes over Sirius, so you may have to wait that long. Once it comes on, the radio will automatically switch to it.

The Good: It’s a handy function, especially if you live in a high-traffic area, like I do. The function works as advertised.

The Bad: limited traffic areas to choose from. And once the traffic broadcast is over, you’re left on that traffic/weather station. It seems to me that it could automatically switch you back to your previous program. Also, the Jump button shares a poorly-placed position on the remote, along with the Display button. It tends to be difficult to press it without rocking the remote (When I bring this problem up, I mean pressing the button with a finger on the same hand you’re holding it with, since you certainly don’t want to be using two hands on the remote while driving!).

Game Alert:
Program your team in and it’ll alert you if they’re playing (or, if you choose, alert you of any score change).

The Good: I’m not too interested in this function, but I did program in the Redskins just for the heck of it. They have yet to play, so I can’t vouch for how well this feature works. You can choose from all NFL teams, NBA, College Football, and one or two other categories.

The Bad: you may be out of luck if you’re a NCAA lover. I counted only 31 college teams on their list.

Installation and Other Observations:
I enjoy having my unit up at eye level, so I obviously elected the windshield mount, which requires mounting the cradle onto the windshield mount (4 phillips-head screws).

The Good: That part was easy, as was suction-cupping the mount to the windscreen (simply place the suction cup on the glass and switch a small lever which pulls back the middle of cup, creating a tiny vacuum and plenty of suction. I had a hard time both trying to slide the mount around on the glass and trying to remove the mount entirely. Even after disengaging that suction lever!

The Bad: Things got a little messy after that step. Once I had the cradle on the mount and the mount on the glass, I realized I had to hook up wires. Don’t do what I did and fumble around in the dark, trying to feel the back of the cradle for these tiny little holes and blindly try to stick the cord plugs into them. What a pain! Instead, be smart and plug everything possible in before you suction the mount onto the windshield.

Placing the unit into the cradle is a bit harder than it would seem, especially with a bunch of wires coming out of it. You have to align a rod and port on the cradle just right with holes on the bottom of the unit which you cannot see. Then you have to deal with the wires. I temporarily have my antenna coming out of my front door, lying on my roof near the top edge of the windshield. So I have a big mass of antenna cable (coiled) that I have to put somewhere. I have a cassette adaptor cable to deal with. I have an FM extender cable to deal with (more on that in a bit). I have a power cord to deal with. It gets messy.

I tried to check the vent option for install, but it was a bit too difficult to do. Placing the vent mount in my vent appeared easy enough, but I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to remove (and I didn’t see any mention of removal in the Install guide), and the idea of trying to maneuver the cradle, with all the wires, onto the vent mount was a little too daunting for me. Aside from that, I really don’t like the idea of looking down that far to see the display. It’s distracting enough where I have it now on the windshield.

Overall, the Install Guide was informative and easy to follow, and addresses most of the different vehicle types out there which affect installation.

Tape adapter vs. FM Transmitter vs. FM extender antenna.
Most reviews of these devices complain how the FCC limits the transmit power so the output on the radio is horrible. In my case, I can totally, 100% without doubt, confirm this. It’s a nightmare. I spent over half an hour in my Jeep trying to figure out a decent channel to broadcast on. The FM transmitter without the extender antenna- forget it. Not even worth the effort. With the extender antenna (which is supposed to boost the transmission by bringing the Starmate transmission antenna as close to your vehicle radio antenna as possible)- It helps, but not much. Low FM freqs weren’t working at all, which is sad because most of the clear channels are down there. The 102 Mhz area seems to work best. I live in the Northern Va D.C. metro area, and there aren’t many blank channels to choose from. I tried every dead (i.e., static-ridden) channel I could find. What I wound up with is a decent transmission over 102.9 Mhz. I can faintly hear static, but the volume is subdued, and very noticeable and striking when I revert back to the cassette adapter, which pumps up the volume and clarity by almost half. A bit like trying to hear someone on a cheap cell phone, then hearing him through some quality headphones. So, I use the tape adapter.

The system does have a dedicated FM Preset button where you can cycle through 5 different FM preset freqs (and adjust those freqs), but if they’re all consistently bad, why bother?

System Start-Up.
The Good: If you let the unit die with your engine when you turn your car off, then it’ll start up automatically when you turn your car back on. This is a nice little feature.

The Bad: The system takes a few minutes (maybe more) to download everything. Browsing during this time gives you blanks next to the station numbers, and, as I mentioned above, the S-Seek function is next to useless.