[PLUG-TALK] Satellite Radio for Use in Two Vehicles

[Rich Shepard]

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, Aaron Burt wrote:

> <envy>Ooh! You can get CBC Radio 3!</envy>

   I don't know that this is one of my selections.

> But the Starmate 5 has an FM transmitter built-in, so you can just set a
> preset on each radio to a dead frequency.

   As I interpreted the docs that came with the unit, I'd need to permanently
mount their one supplemental FM antenna to the window edge on the passenger
side (where the exterior radio antenna is located.

> I also got some cheap Pioneer speakers (TS-G1643R), and the whole system
> in my li'l tin-can Nissan sounds better than any other that I've owned.
> So consider an upgrade, even if you don't strictly need it.

   My '92 Pathfinder (with 192K miles) and my '85 F-250 diesel (only 105K
miles) are noisy at highway speeds. The big truck will be sound insulated as
soon as the technician can get it in, but it will still be noisy. I don't
expect high quality radio in vehicles since the primary purpose is to fight
boredom along the long stretches of south-centeral Oregon, southeastern
Oregon, northern Nevada, and northeastern Washington. The scenary is nice,
but a few hundred miles of it does get boring.

   I just ordered a C. Crane Co. FM transmitter. It runs on 2 AA batteries
(120-hour life), plugs into the Starmate's audio output, and will feed the
installed radios and speakers. While we're looking at bluetooth distances,
this transmitter has 4 watts output so anything in range can also listen. Of
course, there's nothing in range but plants and dirt. However, we did see
one proghorn antelope by the side of the road just south of Denio, NV last
week.

Thanks for the thoughts,

Rich