What XM Radio Like?

By Owen Jones

XM Radio is one of the two largest American satellite radio broadcasters. They broadcast over 150 programmes of all types like sports, traffic, weather, music of all decades and comedy.

The principal area of their broadcasting activities though is music. After all, that is what most people like to listen to whilst they are driving or working at home or in the yard.

The music of XM Radio is wide-ranging, catering for the requirements of every music ever recorded. For example, of the sixty-eight music channels, there are channels that play music from only one decade: from the Forties to the Noughties!

Then, transversing those barriers of time, there are music channels that only play Rock and Roll or only play Bee Bop or only play the Blues. There are also channels that only play new records.

There are others that only play film soundtracks. In fact, XM music radio has most bases covered. There are even channels that play the music that is being played live in nightclubs such as the 'B.B. King Club' in New York City! The 'Blue Note Club' is there too! In fact, the world of music is your oyster.

Then, on a different level, there are the leisure shows fronted by people like Snoop Dog and comedy shows with characters such as Opie and Anthony. There is family comedy as well and Playboy Radio for the older members of the family, although Playboy Radio pictures do not have to be rated.

Sports fans will get pleasure from the devoted sports channels. XM Radio's sports channels cover such sports as American football, basketball and baseball on a daily basis, although there are international sports featured for the more out-going as well: worldwide, International sports such as soccer, the most popular participation sport in the world.

In fact, there are currently thirty-eight sports channels in XM's stable, although by the time you read this, there will probably be three or four times that amount. Many service providers are flocking to Xm's service in order to achieve nationwide coverage in the United States.

News channels are there as well. Channels like the world-respected BBC World Service, CNBC, Fox, the controversial C-Span, CNN, the Discovery Channel, NASCAR Racing, E-Entertainment and many more.

If you need apparatus to receive this interesting new service, you can easily find it on the Internet or in your neighbourhood shopping centre. The cost of the apparatus will not break the bank, but it is best if you price it up and then sit back a week or two because new 'special offers' are coming out all the time.

The best technique to get XM Satellite Radio for today's best price is to wait and look which way the wind is blowing, in a short while you will get this great satellite broadcaster for a bargain price.

About the Author:

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with Bose Radioss. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Bose Digital Radio.

DJing For The Beginner

By Madison Alexander

Your DJ mixer is used to control the sound volume that hits the speakers and is placed in the center of your turntables pro CD players.

A mixer also allows for queuing up of tracks into headphones or monitors, and can incorporate digital effects that can be added to the output.

If you're using a laptop to mix beats with a number of different software, your laptop would still be connected to your mixer.

When people like Dr.Dre started his future career as a DJ when he was a young teenager, the term "Digital DJ" did not exist for him.

The only bad things are that DJ turntables can be rather expensive and hard to carry around. Plus, you'll need a record collection.

There is a lot of people out there who prefer a turntable that uses CDs. instead of starting a vinyl collection, they can simply use the hundreds of CDs they have.

A lot of DJs DJing today likes this kind of turntable because it lets them to their CD collection and not vinyl.

Every DJ will be in need of professional headphones. These will allow you to listen to what you've created on a separate channel to make sure it sounds perfect before it's played over the PA speakers.

While your current mix is being played, you are secretly setting up the next thing for people to hear. You can always be one step ahead of yourself before anyone hears what you play.

If you want to be successful DJ, you're going to need to learn all types of music. This way you just don't hit one type of audience.

You also need a personality that people can flow with. And you need to be confident. That does not seem to hard hard, does it?

Be sure to know before hand what type of crowd you're playing for. If a bunch rockers are in your presence, you really don't want to start mixing hip hop.

Before you take a gig prepare yourself to play a certain type of music. You always want to know who you are playing for prior to showing up.

About the Author:

Be sure to get cheap DJ equipment for less. Spending too much for DJ equipment is what you want to avoid

Satellite Radio: Why Is It So Popular?

By Owen Jones

The modern entertainment world is awash with ways of and goods for using up our spare time and at the same time filling our brains with mindless trivia and advertising junk messages. In between the programmes and the music, the message is 'buy,buy, buy; from me, me, me'. This is one of the reasons why satellite radio has become so popular, but I will come back to that later.

One of the major reasons why people like satellite radio is because if you drive fairly long distances, you do not keep getting out of range of the station it took you ten minutes to find and look for another one.

Satellite radio stations tend to possess a large to very large footprint. In other words, you ought to be able to keep listening to the same station if you want without continuously retuning.

Not only that, but satellite radio is always digital in nature which means that the signal will be better and the ensuing sound quality will be far better too. This means that the background noise that we have been conventionally used to has virtually disappeared.

The sound from a good piece of digital stereo equipment is second to none. In reality an AF /FM radio cannot hold a candle to a satellite radio station.

The cost of satellite radio gear has dropped dramatically, which has increased its public awareness and uptake, which in turn has increased sales and allowed the price to fall further. Nowadays, a satellite radio receiver is as cheap as chips.

Not only that, but in the early days, in the Seventies and Eighties, parabolic dishes had to be extremely focused. They needed to be trained on the satellite as a satellite TV dish still has to be now, but a radio system does not need to be so accurate anymore, which allows them to be used in cars and boats.

If you get fed up of the adverts that constantly drone out of terrestrial radio at you, it can be a good idea to find a satellite radio channel that suits you and subscribe to it. For $10-12 a month, you will get the type of programming that you prefer without all the ads!. Isn't that wonderful?

As with all forms of entertainment, at the end of the day it is up to the end user to choose whether the cost of satellite radio is acceptable, but one thing is for sure, satellite radio increases one's choices.

If you are fed up with the present range of radio stations in your area then the thousands of extra, frequently world-wide stations available to you on satellite radio may be just the thing that you are looking for, particularly if you are searching for a station in a foreign language that is not covered in your neighborhood.

About the Author:

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with Bose alarm clocks. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Bose Digital Radio.

Discussing The History Of Walkie Talkies

By Calvin Johnson

Walkie talkies are very commonly used for communication between two points. The half duplex channels allow only one radio to transmit at one point of time and the other would have to just listen. It is only one way communication that is possible.

They have built in speakers in them and hence do not need to have a separate earphone like that of a telephone to be held to the ear.

The walkie talkie is a hand held rectangular box like telephone handset but bigger in size and with a antenna that is on top of the unit. The receivers at both ends are connected to the fixed radio stations and transmit and receive one way messages.

Motorola became the first famous company to have assembled the first radio handheld transmitter and responder set using frequency modulation. The word 'walkie talkie' was first coined by Motorola which then went on to become world famous. The first model manufactured was SCR -300 which was a backpack mounted version.

Before introducing the 'walkie talkie', Motorola had introduced during World War II, the first self contained and handheld device named 'Handie talkie'. But the performance was not as good as the 'walkie talkie' which was an improvised version introduce later.

Today 'walkie talkie' is being used in various sectors including defense, security, public crowd management as well as various consumer, entertainment and recreational businesses too. You get kideei 'walkie talkie' too for children to play with. The models, features as well as the prices vary depending upon the usage, range and other factors.

With improved technology the 'walkie talkie' have also become sophisticated, more compact and user friendly. The commercial 'walkie talkie' tend to be a lot of studier, bigger sets with protective casing and operate on limited frequencies but with clarity. On the other hand the personal and individual sets tend to be sleeker, compact and light weight and can operate on many channels that are available within the band, but tend to lack in clarity.

'walkie talkie' for kids are available in the market . These are built relatively using low technology as compared to the others and operate within a range of few meters. They are pretty cheap and do not require a license to use.

About the Author:

Besides communication, this author additionally regularly writes regarding waste disposal and asbestos removal cost.

Digital TV Aerial Installers - Don't Choose the Wrong Company

By James Sollis

Many people who are attempting to find digital TV aerial installers have been plagued by the same questions that you may be asking yourself during your hunt to find the high-quality digital TV aerial installers that you want working on your home or business TV set. What should the installation service cost? How long will the installation take? Does my aerial system just need an upgrade or does anew aerial need to be installed altogether? By doing your research ahead of time you'll be able to locate digital TV aerial installers who can answer your questions and provide you with the aerial installation of your dreams.

I'm sure that there are many digital TV aerial installers in your area. The only problem is how do you weed out the typical contractor whose only looking to line his own pockets versus the digital TV aerial installers who do a good job, at a fair price, and look out for your best interest? Well there are several steps that you can take to help protect yourself. The first and most important simply entails asking questions of the digital TV aerial installers that you are choosing from.

And even though there are many digital TV aerial installers in your area it can sometimes be difficult trying to weed out the good installers from the bad. Many factors play into this including quality of installation, warranty and pricing. A good technique for getting at whether or not this installer is capable of doing a good job or just trying to "take you for a ride" is simply asking questions. Not only should the digital TV aerial installers be willing and able to answer the questions that you have put in the end you should also be content with the answers given. If for some reason the answer seemed odd or if you feel like you're consistently being up-sold or pushed to buy now then this should prompt you to start looking with another company.

Another great indicator of quality digital TV aerial installer is their willingness to stand by their work. Whether it is for a home installation or business installation many good digital TV aerial installers will offer some sort of warranty behind the hardware and service that they have provided. It is always reassuring to know that with a simple phone call you will have the installer back at your home and doing the needed repairs without cost to you.

At the end of the day the choice of digital TV aerial installers is one that you must make on your own but by using the hints and tips provided above not only will you be more likely to pick a high quality digital TV aerial installer but you also rest easier with the knowledge that you've done your research and homework prior to picking an quality installer.

About the Author:

Learn more about aerial installers. Stop by Henry Taylor's site where you can find out all about TV aerial installation and what it can do for you.

What Is Satellite Radio Technology?

By Owen Jones

Satellite radio technology is the equivalent of cable or satellite TV and it is definitely here to stay. There are several reasons for this: the quality of the broadcasts is higher, the quality of the apparatus's reception is higher and the general coverage of the channel, that is to say the so-called satellite's footprint is much greater as well.

This means that if you drive long distances, you will be able to stick with the same station without having to look for a new one every forty or fifty miles as you need to do with AM or FM radio channels.

In order to reach this quality, the recording and playback speed needs to be around the 384 kbps level. The music tracks are catalogued in a similar way to the MP3 system, which uses names called ID3 tags.

Each station on satellite radio endevours to create its own identity. A music station might try this by playing music only of one sort or from only one era or decade. This means that you may get a satellite radio station called 1970's Punk music or Twentieth Century Classical Music.

On some stations, the music controller or disc jockey will choose, say, fifty minutes worth of music, will listen to it in order to ascertain that the quality and the order are correct and then let the computer play it over the airwaves. This allows ten minutes every hour for the news and then the programme can be repeated automatically.

Satellite transmission uses digital recordings and each channel is encoded on a different frequency. Similarly, each decoder, say, in your car or your home has to recognize and decode each channel separately as well. This coding and decoding is done very quickly, in fact in what is called 'real time'.

The resulting binary or digital code is then turned into into analogue signals so that your speakers can reproduce it. This process produces sound which is just about of CD quality.

The broadcasting satellites are in a geo-static orbit at 23,000 miles above the Earth and have a large footprint which is the name given to the region of ground that is capable of receiving their broadcasts.

In America, for example, the two fields concentrated on at first were the densely populated east and west coasts in order to maximize possible income. One satellite would be incapable of covering the whole of the United States in that orbit.

In order to receive satellite broadcasts, you will have to use a special antenna on your decoder. This antenna must be capable of picking up L-band transmissions for it to be of use.

These new antennas are a big improvement on the satellite dishes (similar to those used for satellite TV) that one used to have to have in order to take advantage of satellite radio technology

About the Author:

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a range of topics, but is now concerned with Bose radio alarm clocks. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Bose Digital Radio.

Just What Is Satellite Radio?

By Owen Jones

Satellite radio has in fact been around for quite some time, but it was inaccessible to many people because the stations that were broadcasting were fairly unknown, the equipment was costly and the antennas, normally in the form of dishes were highly directional, which meant you needed to use expensive, experienced installers.

For proof of this you should look no further than bookmakers and betting shops who had specialized satellite broadcasts beamed to their establishments with the results of the races live.

The difference now is in cost and the power of the satellite radio transmission units as well as the receivers. In other words, satellite radio technology has advanced a long way since the Eighties. Satellite radio can also be received more easily these days, although the reception of satellite TV broadcasts still necessitates a directional receiving dish. This is why satellite TV cannot be received well on a boat or in a car, but you can still get satellite radio and you can still use your mobile phone.

Satellite radio broadcasts are digital so most of the benefits of using it are associated with digital technology. Some of these are: the ability to pick up signals from all around the wold through the satellite network and the lack off interference - that annoying hiss that you frequently could hear at night while listening to a distant broadcast. Reception is now consistently crystal clear due to the uncomplicated means that is digital - on and off or high and low.

Digital only makes use of two signals so they are not possible to mix up, whereas analogue needed millions of them allowing for mistakes due to bad weather or / and bad equipment. That has been largely eradicated.

The state of affairs in the US is that there is still competition between two contrasting systems: XM and Sirius and it is to be hoped that this situation will soon be resolved as it was thirty years ago between VHS and Betamax, because otherwise it will only be the public who lose out in the end - the clients of the firm that goes bankrupt.

There were initially problems with satellite radio in some areas because natural or man-made structures would block the line of sight from the antenna or dish to the satellite causing a break in transmission. Typical causes for this would be tunnels, mountains and sky scrapers.

However, the satellite radio service providers soon came up with a solution to the problem by bouncing the signal from the airborne satellite off terrestrial dishes, in other words, reflecting them at closer to ground level, thereby providing satellite radio to millions of inner city dwellers.

About the Author:

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a range of subjects, but is currently involved with Bose alarm clocks. If you would like to kcurrently more, please go to our website at Bose Digital Radio.