Directed Electronics Sportster Replay Sirius Receiver
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"Sirius-ly" good radio
Pros
Game alerts, 30 preset stations, plug and play
Cons
Display hard to read in the light, gets hot, can't save the recorded audio.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This is a great unit, lots of features and is portable for use in other accessories. Biggest "con" for me is the display is difficult to read in the light.
I always said that I would REFUSE to have to actually PAY to listen to the radio! Of course back in 1977 I said I would never pay to watch television, either. When we decided to move back to Richmond Virginia, I thought there was no WAY I was going to listen to the limited choices and cruddy radio stations in that radio market.
So I subscribed to Sirius Satellite radio. Overall I've been thrilled with the service, but this review is about the radio, not the Satellite service itself.
A little over a year ago my wife bought me the Sirius Sportster Receiver. I loved it, except for the ugly amber screen display. Recently I was the unfortunate victim of a burglary and someone stole the radio from my car. I just replaced it with the Sportster SP-R2R Receiver.
What's in the box
When you buy the radio kit, it comes with a car docking kit (with the cord to hook up to the cigarette lighter for power), an antenna and a suction cup mount, as well as a remote control. This radio is also a plug-n-play radio meaning you can take it out of the docking station and use it in accessories that you can buy such as a boom box or use it in a docking station in your house.
Installing or, "How I came to spend another $50 bucks"
The radio does not have an independent power source, so when used in the car it uses the car battery. There are two basic options for setting up the radio in the car. I won't give you detailed instructions as they are included with the kit. But the radio can be run either by plugging the included cord from the radio to the cigarette lighter outlet OR have someone hard wire the radio into the ignition. I had the radio hard wired into the car by Circuit City because I was getting a serious (Sirius?) hum from most of the stations. When it got hard wired, the hum went away. I paid extra for that. I know several people with Satellite radios and no one other than myself had that problem. I'm not sure what caused it.
If you buy a boom box the radio will run off batteries. If you buy a home docking kit, you will get an AC adapter.
As far as the antenna, I also had Circuit City install this. The cord is hidden inside the car. There are instructions included on how you can do this yourself. Even my 10 year old twins are generally more handy than I am, so I'm sure you could do this yourself with minimal effort.
How it sounds
It doesn't!! The radio has no speakers. Like cable TV for which you need to usually keep the TV on channel 3, the satellite radio is much the same in the car. It uses one of the unused FM stations for transmitting. If used in the car you have to find an unused radio station on the FM band (default is 88.1) and set your car radio button. Then the radio will play through your car speakers and the radio will use the volume and bass/treble controls from your car radio. When you turn off the Sportster, you can then listen to your car radio. Turn on the Sportster and your car radio buttons are temporarily disabled.
At home you connect this to a home audio system. The boom box has it's own speakers.
What it looks like
This radio is fantastic. It's about 6 inches wide and about 3 inches tall. On the top front of the Sportster you have several buttons which will either change the band, bring up a menu to set a number of options, and a display button so you can change different aspects of the display.
This screen is blue which is much better looking than the amber. BUT, the blue screen is MUCH more difficult to read than the amber screen. Too bad they don't make color!
The display has 4 lines. When you're listening to music there are two display lines which show you the song title on one line and artist on the next. On talk stations there may be one or two lines. Radio Classics will show the radio show name on line (eg, "The Shadow") and then the episode title on the next line. The very top line shows the channel number and channel name. The bottom line shows information such as the category name (eg, Entertainment, Sports, Hip-Hop, Rock, etc.) current time, band, station, etc.
There's a rotary knob and select button, which is used to navigate through the display screens and makes selections of what you choose. If you press the knob in while listening to a station, you can jump to any station you want by keying in the station number.
This model of the Sportster is called the "Replay" and it records about 45 minutes of broadcasts. There are buttons to fast forward, rewind, and play/pause.
Some of the Features
PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT giving detailed instruction on how each of these features work. You can read the manual for details. I am also not going into detail on each menu option such as how to change the display and each display option setting.
Channel Presets
You can preset 30 channels on the radio. You can save up to 30 channels and have access via the channel buttons (same as your car radio buttons) There are 10 buttons and three bands (A, B, and C). For each band you can set 10 radio stations. For example, on Band A, the buttons I preset are mostly talk stations such as the comedy stations, Radio Classics, Court TV, Discovery TV, and a few different National Public Radio stations. On Band B, I have set 10 music stations. It's easy to set the stations: tune to a station and hold in the desired button for about 1-2 seconds until you hear a beep. This is similar to setting your regular car radio stations.
Memory and Song Seek
You can store 20 listings so that if you want to be alerted to when a certain artist/song is playing or your favorite teams are playing, bingo! You will get a series of beeps to let you know. You can then press in the rotary knob and the radio will take you to the station on which the song or game is playing. Pretty cool, huh??? I have the radio to set so I can listen to the Orlando Magic play (and lose). You can delete and change the listings stored in the memory.
Instant Replay! Instant Replay
The radio can save about 45 minutes of the audio from channel you're listening to. Recording starts as soon as you tune to a channel. You can then use the play/pause, rewind and fast forward buttons to go through the audio. Pressing the play/pause button will get the radio to continue to record while you do something else. Later you can come back and listen to the audio.
A "con" on this is that you cannot record on one station and listen to another and as soon as you switch stations you lose what's been recorded. As soon as you turn off the power source (like the car) it will lose what's been recorded.
Overall, I really like this unit and I like the Sirius service.
If you feel that I've left something out of this review to make it Very Helpful to you, please leave me a comment so I can revise!
So I subscribed to Sirius Satellite radio. Overall I've been thrilled with the service, but this review is about the radio, not the Satellite service itself.
A little over a year ago my wife bought me the Sirius Sportster Receiver. I loved it, except for the ugly amber screen display. Recently I was the unfortunate victim of a burglary and someone stole the radio from my car. I just replaced it with the Sportster SP-R2R Receiver.
What's in the box
When you buy the radio kit, it comes with a car docking kit (with the cord to hook up to the cigarette lighter for power), an antenna and a suction cup mount, as well as a remote control. This radio is also a plug-n-play radio meaning you can take it out of the docking station and use it in accessories that you can buy such as a boom box or use it in a docking station in your house.
Installing or, "How I came to spend another $50 bucks"
The radio does not have an independent power source, so when used in the car it uses the car battery. There are two basic options for setting up the radio in the car. I won't give you detailed instructions as they are included with the kit. But the radio can be run either by plugging the included cord from the radio to the cigarette lighter outlet OR have someone hard wire the radio into the ignition. I had the radio hard wired into the car by Circuit City because I was getting a serious (Sirius?) hum from most of the stations. When it got hard wired, the hum went away. I paid extra for that. I know several people with Satellite radios and no one other than myself had that problem. I'm not sure what caused it.
If you buy a boom box the radio will run off batteries. If you buy a home docking kit, you will get an AC adapter.
As far as the antenna, I also had Circuit City install this. The cord is hidden inside the car. There are instructions included on how you can do this yourself. Even my 10 year old twins are generally more handy than I am, so I'm sure you could do this yourself with minimal effort.
How it sounds
It doesn't!! The radio has no speakers. Like cable TV for which you need to usually keep the TV on channel 3, the satellite radio is much the same in the car. It uses one of the unused FM stations for transmitting. If used in the car you have to find an unused radio station on the FM band (default is 88.1) and set your car radio button. Then the radio will play through your car speakers and the radio will use the volume and bass/treble controls from your car radio. When you turn off the Sportster, you can then listen to your car radio. Turn on the Sportster and your car radio buttons are temporarily disabled.
At home you connect this to a home audio system. The boom box has it's own speakers.
What it looks like
This radio is fantastic. It's about 6 inches wide and about 3 inches tall. On the top front of the Sportster you have several buttons which will either change the band, bring up a menu to set a number of options, and a display button so you can change different aspects of the display.
This screen is blue which is much better looking than the amber. BUT, the blue screen is MUCH more difficult to read than the amber screen. Too bad they don't make color!
The display has 4 lines. When you're listening to music there are two display lines which show you the song title on one line and artist on the next. On talk stations there may be one or two lines. Radio Classics will show the radio show name on line (eg, "The Shadow") and then the episode title on the next line. The very top line shows the channel number and channel name. The bottom line shows information such as the category name (eg, Entertainment, Sports, Hip-Hop, Rock, etc.) current time, band, station, etc.
There's a rotary knob and select button, which is used to navigate through the display screens and makes selections of what you choose. If you press the knob in while listening to a station, you can jump to any station you want by keying in the station number.
This model of the Sportster is called the "Replay" and it records about 45 minutes of broadcasts. There are buttons to fast forward, rewind, and play/pause.
Some of the Features
PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT giving detailed instruction on how each of these features work. You can read the manual for details. I am also not going into detail on each menu option such as how to change the display and each display option setting.
Channel Presets
You can preset 30 channels on the radio. You can save up to 30 channels and have access via the channel buttons (same as your car radio buttons) There are 10 buttons and three bands (A, B, and C). For each band you can set 10 radio stations. For example, on Band A, the buttons I preset are mostly talk stations such as the comedy stations, Radio Classics, Court TV, Discovery TV, and a few different National Public Radio stations. On Band B, I have set 10 music stations. It's easy to set the stations: tune to a station and hold in the desired button for about 1-2 seconds until you hear a beep. This is similar to setting your regular car radio stations.
Memory and Song Seek
You can store 20 listings so that if you want to be alerted to when a certain artist/song is playing or your favorite teams are playing, bingo! You will get a series of beeps to let you know. You can then press in the rotary knob and the radio will take you to the station on which the song or game is playing. Pretty cool, huh??? I have the radio to set so I can listen to the Orlando Magic play (and lose). You can delete and change the listings stored in the memory.
Instant Replay! Instant Replay
The radio can save about 45 minutes of the audio from channel you're listening to. Recording starts as soon as you tune to a channel. You can then use the play/pause, rewind and fast forward buttons to go through the audio. Pressing the play/pause button will get the radio to continue to record while you do something else. Later you can come back and listen to the audio.
A "con" on this is that you cannot record on one station and listen to another and as soon as you switch stations you lose what's been recorded. As soon as you turn off the power source (like the car) it will lose what's been recorded.
Overall, I really like this unit and I like the Sirius service.
If you feel that I've left something out of this review to make it Very Helpful to you, please leave me a comment so I can revise!
