Hearing Oprah’s calm soothing voice float over the lake, as she describes her relationship with Gayle King, I feel somewhat reassured. Here on my dock, with no electricity, Internet, or newspapers I am still able to stay “connected” with civilization. Earlier in the day, Bill had been enjoying the CBC.

Despite wanting to escape from it all, I still want to take some of it with me, and that means music. Oprah is just an added bonus.

Our first attempt to bring music to the cabin consisted of a Grundig Crank Radio. We would wind it up for about a minute and get an hour of music, AM or FM. It worked OK, but often we would forget to wind it and we still had to endure poor reception and the never-ending commercials.

We started off this year with my iPod and Logitech portable speakers. Great sound, no commercials, but after a while, I found myself wishing I had downloaded more iTunes before heading off to the lake.

Our latest musical attempt and by far the best, is XM Satellite radio. It took Bill about five minutes to tape the thin black wire to the skylight, run it down the wall, and plug it into our converter. At last, we were connected, and not just to music but news, sports and of course, Oprah!

The great thing about this service is, you can take it with you - anywhere in North America, according to Chris, a service representative with XM Canada. The package we purchased (similar to the Delphi Sky Fi3) comes with a home and car kit. I’ve also loaded it on my laptop – free with my subscription; I just need to have Internet access to play it. You do need to make sure your receiver, a tiny little device the size of a toonie, is facing south and has direct line of sight.

The hardware starts at around $50 and goes up to $99 depending on what you need. It can be purchased from any electronics store, Future Shop, Best Buys, London Drugs or Circuit City.

The activation fee is $14.99, but only if you go online and activate-it-yourself, talking to a customer service will cost you more. The monthly fee is $14.99, and if you are willing to prepay, you can get up to five months of free service.

“The service is very popular with people who grew up listening to the radio, that would be the 24 years and older crowd,” explains Chris, “The decade channels are popular too.” My personal favourite is Flight 26, but I also enjoy listening to Oprah’s sound words of wisdom on channel 156. Who says you can’t take it with you?

Hears to music!

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Entertaining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.