Window_Seat

I raised this question on another board related to Airline Pilot careers, and thought I'd bring it here in similar format.

With all the hoopla on XM Satellite Radio and the ability for travelers (especially truckers) to tune to any station from anywhere in the country on the road, I thought it would be neat to have the same thing on commercial airplanes. I know that there are some flights that allow the PAX to listen to a variety of channels, but that variety is only limited to extremely few types of music with commercials and lots of talk (from my experience). I know that this normally costs $$ for normal service in a car or truck. So could this be technically possible for the airline industry to implement, or would such a thing be impossible and cost prohibitive? Personally, I would like to be able to tune to more of a variety of stations while on a long and boring flight. Comments?

Erik.

se94583

I'd be interested in hearing any reports from anyone who has this service, good, bad or ugly. I'm thinking of getting it.

Eastbay1K

The current issue of Consumer Reports (May, 2002) has an article about it on page 56.

businesstraveler

TechTV did a review in Jan 2002:

http://www.techtv.com/products/consu...360750,00.html

They seemed to like it.

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Michael Steinberg
Editor
BizTrip
http://www.biztrip.com

skofarrell

Should be easy enough. JetBlue does it with DirectTV on its planes...

http://www.jetblue.com/Travelinfo/howToDetail.asp?topicId='13'

Gaucho100K

Great thread. Ive heard that some of the latest high-end 7.1 receivers have XM capability. I didnt know that you have to pay a monthly service, how much does it cost?

Eastbay1K

$10/mo

opus17

My wife has had it in her VW Golf for 3 months. She really likes it. She like "70's", "Frank's Place", "Star Tracks" and "U-Pop". "Special X" is more my speed, they were playing a Mrs. Miller song yesterday.

Window_Seat

Thanks Gaucho100K, and great replies!! It would still be interesting to see if the airlines (or which ones) install XM on their flights. But does JetBlue prove that it can technically be done by installing DIRECTV? Again, I think it would be cool to be able to listen to just about any kind of music, even MTV/VH1, or Rush on a long boring flight. I already know that if I went back to Long Haul Trucking (which I seriously doubt), the XM Radio would get priority over the CB RADIO, and the CDs would go. OK, the CDs won't go.

Edited to add: "HEADS UP", GUYS/GALS (pun intended )

Go to AIN ONLINE: Avionics Update and Scroll down to "Satellite Radio Flight Trials Set To Begin". I just found it.

Erik.

[This message has been edited by Window_Seat (edited 03-31-2002).]

Mollins&LuLu

I recently took Amtrak Acela, and they had the XM radio installed. I enjoyed it. Clear reception and good selection.
Otherwise, I haven't heard of it being installed on any airlines.

mymiles2go

Anybody who has it: What happens when you go under overpasses, such as bridges etc...? The reason I ask, is that on the highway into work, I probably go under 20+ overpasses.

Plato90s

As a BTW, if you use wireless networks at home that uses 802.11b [aka Wi-Fi], then you might get some interference on the XM Radio band.

Same goes for 2.4Ghz wireless phones.

j379pa

A couple of the car magazines (car & driver, motortrend?) had articles about xm & sirius this month. They indicate that the radios have a several second delay/cache to deal with this issue. This is the same way car cd players deal with big bumps in the road--it reads ahead on the disk, and has time to read it again if there is a problem.

sounds like there are also differences in the number of satellites and the angle of satellite signal between the two companies.

Finally, it sounds like Sirius has a lot more commercial free airplay.

tempting, tempting...

JP