Sirius XM Radio SL2PK1 Satellite

OK.. start with a positive... Four months later.. the unit works and is slowly getting into my good graces..... But what a go-ahead to get there.

Purchased on a family vacation... the box contains all the required parts to get going.... Everything appears good quality. USB, Antenna Headphones, ear buds, Car dock, DC Adapter, AC Adapter, Car antenna, brackets, screws, guides.

 I was totally mis-informed by the pimply faced boy at the big box store of what subscription offers were available.. Sadly the lifetime subscription had been taken away by Sirius two months earlier. The on-line set up ONLY allows set up for long term subscriptions so I called into the call centre for a month to month. This is where my  tolerance dipped to below zero and stayed for months regarding this product... No one knows a bleeping thing about it.

To activate... they want you on the phone and have the unit hooked up to an antenna.. (I was using the portable (headphone) as the car antenna was still in the box.... ) My 77 year old parents thought I had lost my mind to see me on their deck waiting for a signal while on their telephone. There was two hours of my life I will never get back... and the unit never authenticated.

Ok I forged on.. I set the unit up remotely  & temporarily in my dad's car to meet up with my family an hour down the road.... It didn't work. On my cell phone the whole time... with the unit DOA in my hands.. The Call Centre begging me to push the unit into the car dock MUCH harder.. to get it to seat... again tech support... a ghost with Sirius.


A trip to a competitor Box Store in the next town revealed the problem... My DC Adapter was DOA.. and even with a fully charged battery.... the unit needs the DC to run the FM transmitter etc. The store did not have one separately.. but did have one from the same type box I had just purchased.... No Joy from Sirius.. they would not authorize pirating the part. My only options: drive an hour in the opposite direction & exchange, or ship the offending part to their warranty dept for evaluation and replacement (4 week wait). The unit wasn't 24 hours old!

A call to the Store I purchased from ended up in an agreement for them to courier the correct part... to where we were staying .. (long story short it never showed up.... that store has given me a sizable store credit.. to their credit) and got me up & running with a replacement part on our return trip.

This unit has WiFi. a joy as you can use it wirelessly around the house - no outside antenna needed. I purchased the docking station and everything was looking up.. except that now trips in the car using satellite... and returning home to use as WiFi would crash the unit and it needed to be re-authenticated with a call to support.. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Another four hours of me in my yard doing the Sirius dance with the portable antenna & talking to support on my cordless phone ... looking and feeling like an idiot ...finally revealed.. my unit had a memory problem.... grrrrrrrrrr

This was not before they had me do  two or three activations which curiously they can only issue every ten minutes.....

Also during this period of losing activation I discovered that each time I had to reload my WEP address into the unit.. typing 26 characters using the wheel etc.. not fun... not fun at all.

New unit.. one spasm where it totally crapped out in my car.... One re-authentiction.. and now things are looking up....

It was surprising that their service centre thinks it's a big deal to give me a $5 credit for my trouble.. I did end up getting a years subscription and they may have absorbed $20 towards that after talking to a supervisor's supervisor.. but I spent well over 12 hours on the phone with these dudes..... They don't hand out subscription credits easily.

Do not believe the hype.. the FM transmitter does not work (well)... I have three vehicles they all sounded like crap and were unreliable at best.. the solution.. another fifty bucks to Sirius for the in-line antenna adapter (thanks to Honda needing two antenna adapters... why would they make antenna jacks proprietary????) This works.. perfectly... sound is awesome, other radio stations are clear with the unit terned off.. this for my purposes was the way to go... The in-line antenna transmitter.... a great solution.
 
The home docking station looks and sounds great... The remotes (both car & dock) are identical and a little cheap looking.. but they work. Curiously the WiFi, like the PC broadcasts, stop after about 45 minutes and you must manually push a button to continue. I suspect this is to stop people from rebroadcasting 24/7 but it's annoying.

 Self install in my Odyssey Van was a snap... The Dash comes apart easily and there's tons of YouTube guides on how to install the in-line transmitter. The main antenna sits on the lower right corner of the dash... and gets a great signal... Only full grown shade trees & overpasses seem to bother it. Odysseys that have XM factory installed have the antennas mounted inside in the upper right corner of the the windshield, its longer & flatter than most giving it a good field of view of the sky & thus good reception.

The portable feature is amazing.. Sitting at a NASCAR race listenening to either MRN radio.. or AC DC Hells Bells as the cars were doing their qualifying nothing short of awesome.... My wife & I could both listen to it using the earbuds & Headphone antenna... (which looks clumsy at first)

It takes micro SD.. It allows you to record lots of airtime and use it like an MP3 player (with recorded songs or your own)... so once the growing pains are gone... it really starts to impress.

I waited before I wrote this to give a balanced review... If you're comfortable with tech and don't mind some experimentation... go ahead and buy it.. but don't buy it on vacation and make sure you understand the return policy of the store & Sirius.