An all-around great unit

I spend a lot of time in the car. A day where I'm not in the car for over an hour each way is a rarity. So, for Father's Day, my wife got me the XTR8CK Satellite Radio Receiver with car kit.

The XTR8CK is a widely sold unit -- my wife got mine at Target. The entire setup is designed for portability -- the antenna is magnetic, the unit comes with a cigarette-lighter power adapter, and it's possible to slap the whole thing on in about five minutes. I opted for a permanent installation since I had a friend who knew how to do it.

The people who put this together knew what they were doing. If you want the simple, instant-in instant-out hookup, you can do that. If you want a more permanent installation, that's not difficult at all. The mounting bracket can be permanently attached wherever appropriate in your car, or you can stick it to the windshield. Both suction cups and screws are provided, along with a mounting pad and cleaning pad. That gives it points in my book -- I like to see products that actually offer the customer options, instead of giving whatever the suppliers found cheapest.

The XTR8CK stacks up well in everyday use. It includes a remote control, so that you don't need to fumble for the buttons while driving and can place the unit somewhere in your car that might not be in easy reach. Another epinion states that the remote responded slowly. That wasn't my experience -- sounds like his remote needed a new battery. (The remote takes a large watch battery, available anywhere.)

The controls are intuitive enough that you can grasp basic channel flipping without too much trouble. However, the XTRC8CK has a LOT of controls, and some time with the manual is going to be necessary to learn how to do everything.

The screen is generously sized and it's easy to read the artist and song title in bright light or at night (it's backlit.) The amount of real estate on the screen allowed for channel number or name is a little skimpier. If there's one thing negative about this radio, that's it -- they could've made the song title a little smaller and allowed more room for other information. There's a clock crammed in there, but it's very small and hard to read. You can read the channel number and name with a little practice, though.

The XTR8CK also offers several stations for FM modulation. It will play right through your existing FM stereo -- no extra wires or gadgets required. This technology is not new, but it is convenient. Even better, the XTR8CK will play on just about ANY FM station -- older uses of this technology (like the adapter I use to play my Rio in the car) limit you to the lower bands in FM. The XTR8CK in my car will play quite happily at 107.7, which is unused no matter where I go, so far.

While this epinion is about the receiver, it's worthwhile to say a few words about Sirius Satellite Radio. This is the service that goes along with the receiver -- the only thing this is good for is getting Sirius radio, so if you don't like Sirius, then buying this receiver is pointless. Sirius offers a lot of commercial-free radio -- several rock channels, several country channels, sports channels, traffic, news and of course, as of 2006, Howard Stern. Activating service with them is a snap over the Internet or through a phone. Unfortunately, their website would not accept the gift card my wife got me with it, so I had to call them. Even so, they gave me the $5 off activation for activating through the Internet without a problem. Signal quality is no problem, although there are sometimes momentary lapses after passing under a bridge or along a country road with heavy tree growth overhead.

The XTR8CK also offers the opportunity to pause or rewind the broadcast. This is nice, but you can't save things for very long -- once you turn off the unit, it seems the memory is cleared. So when you turn off the car, there goes the memory. (Either that, or it's something I haven't figured out yet.) Still, it's nice to be able to rewind or pause a song. This feature is still in its infancy -- even 256 MB of flash memory would have offered a lot of storage for music. I hope Xact works on this a little further in the next model.

Preset stations are a fact of life with automobile audio, and the Sirius offers 30 total. There are three groups of 10, and you have to press BAND on the remote or on the unit to switch between them. I could figure out how to store the first group of 10 without help, but storing more required a trip to the owner's manual. This is not intuitive, and even something as simple as changing the word (BAND, on a radio, is going to make the user think of AM/FM or something along those lines) would have suffices.

All in all, the XTR8CK stacks up nicely against its competition. If you're looking for a satellite radio that's easy to install and easy to grasp basic use, this is one to look at. Just be ready to sit down with the manual from time to time.