I just bought sirius too, for a recent road trip, but its here to stay. Its nice getting away from clear channel. The dead channel is nice, they have the archivists on a couple of times a day playing stuff. Wavy Gravy has a show on Jam On, and I've been finding myself getting into the rave music.
I bought the sportster from Costco. It does show me the city and date of each live song on the dead channel. It allows me to set up alerts for other artists or songs I like and it's like a TIVO in that it will store the last 45 minutes of music I listened to. They had a deal on it for $129.00, and it came with both a home and car adapter. I use it in both places, so I don't have to have two subscriptions.
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A place to talk about the music of the Grateful Dead
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I got Sirius for a surprise Xmas present from my brother who has XM and loves XM. I got into and only listened to Jam On until the Grateful Dead Channel came out. Now I switch between them but find I am listening to The Grateful Dead channel more.
I really liked Jam On at first cause I got exposed to a whole bunch of new bands, at least new to me. WSP, moe., Disco Biscuits, Umphrey's, on and on. The Gone Phishing show has helped me gain some understanding of Phish.
But I am finding that the Jam On DJs get stuck in ruts just like on commercial radio. Playing the same cuts by the same bands over and over. Not sure if that is due to band promoters paying to have the songs played or what but I got sick of one jam bands new song very quickly. The Grateful Dead channel is different in that respect, i.e. they can play numerous versions of the same song and most Deadheads won't tire of the song.
I still check in w/ Jam On from time to time. I suspect they play less Dead there now w/ the advent of the Grateful Dead channel which is bad because of the relevance of the Grateful Dead to the entire jam band concept. So if any of the Jam On DJs are perusing the forum, it's only my opinion, but mix it up more. Keep it interesting. Play Dead!
Re: the merger, cars, etc. I just bought cars and they came w/ XM integrated in the car radios. I personally am hoping for the merger and I could get Jam On and The Grateful Dead channel on the built in radios.
Also, I think the information about the tune that is being played is probably imbedded in the data stream that is sent to the receiving Sirius radio. I have a Sportster and as has been noted, sometimes it displays info and sometimes not. I am guessing but imagine that the transmission from the satellite is a digital stream, likely MP3 format or very similar, and MP3 format has space in the digital data header for information about the song, author, song length, album, etc. I believe that if the particular song file playing has the info, it is displayed. For album songs, if the song is just "ripped" from the album and the data is not filled in, then nothing is there to be transmitted in the digital satellite stream. Course, I am probably off base but thought I would blat anyway.
Dave
I really liked Jam On at first cause I got exposed to a whole bunch of new bands, at least new to me. WSP, moe., Disco Biscuits, Umphrey's, on and on. The Gone Phishing show has helped me gain some understanding of Phish.
But I am finding that the Jam On DJs get stuck in ruts just like on commercial radio. Playing the same cuts by the same bands over and over. Not sure if that is due to band promoters paying to have the songs played or what but I got sick of one jam bands new song very quickly. The Grateful Dead channel is different in that respect, i.e. they can play numerous versions of the same song and most Deadheads won't tire of the song.
I still check in w/ Jam On from time to time. I suspect they play less Dead there now w/ the advent of the Grateful Dead channel which is bad because of the relevance of the Grateful Dead to the entire jam band concept. So if any of the Jam On DJs are perusing the forum, it's only my opinion, but mix it up more. Keep it interesting. Play Dead!
Re: the merger, cars, etc. I just bought cars and they came w/ XM integrated in the car radios. I personally am hoping for the merger and I could get Jam On and The Grateful Dead channel on the built in radios.
Also, I think the information about the tune that is being played is probably imbedded in the data stream that is sent to the receiving Sirius radio. I have a Sportster and as has been noted, sometimes it displays info and sometimes not. I am guessing but imagine that the transmission from the satellite is a digital stream, likely MP3 format or very similar, and MP3 format has space in the digital data header for information about the song, author, song length, album, etc. I believe that if the particular song file playing has the info, it is displayed. For album songs, if the song is just "ripped" from the album and the data is not filled in, then nothing is there to be transmitted in the digital satellite stream. Course, I am probably off base but thought I would blat anyway.
Dave
The river keeps a talkin'
i think im going to get it, just for the dead channel, and jam on.
revned_04 wrote:I'm getting sirius for christmas now, that shit sounds awesome!yea..they make a super x-mas gift. depending on what you wanna spend, I've seen them as low as 30 bux at radio shack. I got 3 nice units w/ 1 year memberships for a few people that work for me and they loved the gift. With the new year approaching on their contracts 2 have already resubscribed before i could do it for them.
On the money Fretful,
I have the S50 (I think) model. It does allow you to record to the decvice. The SW that is available for steaming Sirius to a PC does not allow one to store / record what you are hearing. As with everyting, there are ways around that. Once the data / songs are recorded on the device, there is SW out there that will transfer the propietary format allowing it to ne dumped to the PC in a format that can be read by Mp3 etc...
I asked before and I don't think anyone answered....
This will not change my mind about keeping sirius but the question has to be asked....
How much of my annual subscription gets in to the pockets of D.K.?
Happy Thanksgiving and
PEACE,
Phil
I have the S50 (I think) model. It does allow you to record to the decvice. The SW that is available for steaming Sirius to a PC does not allow one to store / record what you are hearing. As with everyting, there are ways around that. Once the data / songs are recorded on the device, there is SW out there that will transfer the propietary format allowing it to ne dumped to the PC in a format that can be read by Mp3 etc...
I asked before and I don't think anyone answered....
This will not change my mind about keeping sirius but the question has to be asked....
How much of my annual subscription gets in to the pockets of D.K.?
Happy Thanksgiving and
PEACE,
Phil
I think I pay less than $20 a month for two radios and of course internet play anywhere. Before the Dead Channel I was just amazed at the amount of non FCC regulated material I was getting for such a low price. Now that there is a 24 hour dead channel I am in heaven. Dead all the time with full concerts and interviews? Plus all the other channels? I really don't know what to say. For the people who still complain I am astounded. I just hope to God that the Government never gets involved in this super treat. I am a radio fan and this is about as good as it gets for me. You will have to pull my Sirius radio out of my cold dead hands!
