Dr Chuck Pearson

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First truth about satellite radio: Not all receivers are created equal. Most of the cheap receivers you get at Circuit City are simple receivers, and really won't do a whole lot but give you lots'o channels in your car. If you have a big commute every day, that's worth it. If you don't spend at least 30 minutes in your car a day, not so much. Personally, I'm right on the edge of worth-it.

The opposite side of the spectrum is this Stilleto receiver (note: I've linked the scaled down version!) that is actually a receive-signal-as-you-walk-around satellite radio. They're expensive and a bit unwieldy, though.

So I went to the middle ground and got the S50. (And I was able to get a sweet rebate deal, so when all is said and done I didn't pay close to the listed price.) Its receiver is actually the docks that it's planted into at home or in the car; when it's disconnected from the dock, it's really a glorified mp3 player. But what a player!

Here are your Sirius S50 Things O' Niftiness:

• Yes, it records programs, in four-hour clips. (You might want to record more, but the battery life kind of limits you there.) If I can't listen to Mike & Mike when they're supposed to be listened to, I can absolutely listen to Mike & Mike later in the day.


• Yes, it has the absolutely ridiculous variety of radio programming. ESPN Radio, NFL Radio, the audio feeds from CNBC and CNN and Headline News and Fox News and smatterings of every kind of talk radio under the sun. (I'm kind of pretending Howard doesn't exist. Honestly, that's not so hard to do.)


• And the music! These are the channels I've given serious listen to: Sirius Hits 1, The Big 80's (8), The Pulse (9), Super Shuffle (12 - that one deserves a Thing O' Niftiness of its own), The Spectrum (18), Octane (20), Alt Nation (21), First Wave (22 - and my personal favorite), Hair Nation (23 - so sue me), Left of Center (26), BackSpin (43), Prime Country (61), Revolution (67), Universo Latino (90), and Iceberg (95 - that's CANADIAN POP, kids. There is a single channel dedicated to CANADIAN POP. I win SO HARD.)


• Super Shuffle is exactly what it says it is. It's a mix of EVERYTHING in popular music. And we mean EVERYTHING. Songs from ALL of the above stations, and pretty much every other station in the Sirius spectrum, show up there. There are so many songs played on that station that I've not heard in FOREVER. It might be my new favorite station ever, and I can even tolerate the odd Beatles song that turns up there in the hope of hearing something fresh later.


• The "heart" button is your friend. You hear one of those great songs that you haven't heard in years and years, you hit the "heart" button, and the S50 saves the song into memory. Even that little innovation takes all those great memories of sitting by the boom box as a kid, with the finger on the "record" button, waiting for the awesome song to come on the radio, and brings them all rushing back. What's more, the S50 is smart enough to record the WHOLE song REGARDLESS of when you hit that "heart" button. But THAT'S NOT ALL...


• SOMEHOW (and I haven't figured this out completely yet - I know it works when you just leave the radio on a station, but it does it in other circumstances too) the S50 AUTOMATICALLY records songs from your favorite three stations and essentially has "shows" of songs recorded in memory for when you AREN'T connected to a dock. So you can listen to your favorite music stations even when you can't get satellite signal. And you can STILL save individual songs from these recorded "shows" too! (When I discovered this, I moved from happiness into a absolutely ridiculous state of bliss.)


• Oh, did I mention that you can save your own mp3 files onto the player and mix up a playlist of songs you've recorded from the radio and songs you already own and have saved?

So, yes. It's a toy. It's a toy of astounding flexibility and joy. It's every music junkie's dream.

The battery life leaves just a bit to be desired - it's not made to be listened to for long periods of time away from a dock. If you get six hours of listening time from the battery, you've done well. But the battery seems to charge rapidly enough when you do have it plugged in, and most of the goodness comes from the radio anyway.

Theoretically, if you're going to get best performance, you need to have the satellite antenna outside. This doesn't sit well with the lazy man who doesn't like making holes in his house (and who likes being able to move the setup around the house, if I'm going to be in the kitchen for a while for example). Fortunately, you can get a good signal with the antenna inside if you put it up high enough. It will be a bit limited, and if weather comes through you're pretty much going to playlists instead of live radio. But again: compared to the AM signal I have to deal with, the flakiness in reception is actually quite minor, even with the radio inside the house.

So, yeah, I kind of like this thing. Any questions?

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(Oh, by the way, this whole post was for you, Sheppard - I expect you'll have geekdom there to last you for MANY a season...)