I'm continuing to enjoy my "XM experience." Station preferences have wobbled a bit and the presets changed accordingly. My RoadyXT unit has 30 presets: three directories, A, B, and C and then buttons 1 through 0.

A1 is reserved for the Atlanta traffic/weather. I think their traffic is more accurate than Sirius and between that and the Georgia Navigator map online, I usually manage well. You can tell the traffic announcers aren't local, though: they mispronounce the funniest things, like "Doraville" and "Chamblee" and frequently stick the "L" into "DeKalb."

A2 is for old-time radio, which (surprisingly) I don't listen to all that much during commutes because by the time I get into the car I'm joining a story in progress, and with things like mysteries and Suspense and The Shadow, you miss the setup. However, I do turn to it when traffic comes to a standstill, to occupy my mind which is already home doing things. :-) I enjoy Gunsmoke, Frontier Gentleman, Dragnet, and Casey, Crime Photographer (and of course, The Shadow!), but am not crazy about The Great Gildersleeve and will change the channel if Abbott and Costello come on (although I liked them in the movies). Will always stop for Fibber McGee and Molly and Jack Benny!

(Gunsmoke on the radio is a whole different animal than the television series, which did tackle ethics and issues like mob violence, but the radio series is grittier and many of the shows don't have happy endings.)

A3 is set for their standards channel. They play too much Frank Sinatra for my taste (yeah, I know, it is called "Frank's Place," but really...). I think when Sirius had a separate Standards channel it had a better selection, but this isn't bad. I'd still like more Bing Crosby and Perry Como (and how about some Jerry Vale and Al Martino and Connie Francis?). A4 is "Watercolors," basically what Sirius calls "Jazz Cafe," smooth jazz. I usually put this on to chill out.

A5 is "Escape," the beautiful music channel. When I first got XM, "Sunny" was the beautiful music channel and "Escape" played contemporary easy listening artists, like Sarah McLachlan and Enya, plus people and bands like the Eagles, Peabo Bryson, etc. Then "Sunny," which is Clear Channel programmed, got commercials and basically the two switched formats. "Escape" now plays pieces reminiscent of the old WLKW station up in Providence, mostly instrumentals, good stuff like Percy Faith and Henry Mancini and Mantovani and someone named Frank Chaksfield, plus vocals from Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, John Denver, Barry Manilow, and Neil Diamond. It's a good chill-out channel. The announcer even has a low soothing voice like the one on WLKW used to. (The only "clinker" I've found on "Escape" is Vincent somebody's arrangement of the Airport love theme with what sounds like big popping bubbles in it. He should have his fingers whacked with a hot ruler for cruelty to listeners.) "Sunny" has now dropped down to B2.

If XM does the same thing as Sirius does and has Christmas music take over one of their regular channels in December, I hope it's "Escape" and they play the same sorts of things WLKW used to: mmm...Johnny Mathis, Nana Mouskuri, the Golddiggers, Percy Faith...

A6 is the 40s channel (a.k.a. "The Savoy Express"). I think it has a much wider variety of Forties music than the old standalone Sirius channel did. Sirius used to play all the 40s hit standards—"Chattanooga Choo-Choo," "String of Pearls," "Take the A Train," "Sentimental Journey," etc.—and not much else. XM playes those and more and even some novelty songs, including Phil Harris singing about a "thing" he brought home that nobody else likes. Several times a day, the 40s channel also has news broadcasts from that day from a year in 1940; always cool to listen to. On June 6, they interrupted the music for bulletins about D-Day at the same time listeners would have heard it back in 1944 (and the previous evening they played FDR's speech about the landing, again at the same time it would have happened).

A7 is "Audio Visions," the New Age channel. Although I occasionally find them playing what sounds like heavy breathing filtered through a didgeridoo, they also feature George Winston and other Windham Hill artists.

A8, 9, and 10 are all the comedy channels. I love listening to "Laugh Attack," which is a Canadian channel; have heard some very funny Canadian and British artists on it.

B1 is "Cinemagic," the movie soundtrack channel (Sirius has a Broadway tracks channel, but not a movie music channel). They do something I think is cool: they usually play several different cuts from each film and between the cuts will have bits of dialog.

B3 and 4 are for the other two jazz channels, traditional and modern. B5 is music from Broadway and B6 marks "Fine Tuning." XM's description for this channel is "eclectic/free form." Almost anything that isn't categorized elsewhere is here. Main attraction: they play Celtic music, including the Chieftains.

B7 and 8 are two of the three classical stations, one philharmonic selections and the other more devoted to "pops." B9 is the 60s channel, which includes some guy named Terry who tries to emulate the old 60s DJs, and B10 the 50s channel.

C1: Weather Channel
C2: XM Public Radio, which seems to be mostly Bob Edwards. They do run "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" on Saturdays.
C3: Fox News
C4: CNN
C5: BBC World Service

I had C6 reserved for a Southeastern news/talk channel that never materialized and C7 is "Take Five," the women's talk and lifestyle channel, which is occasionally fun to listen to. C8 is the special concert channel, C9 "Sonic Theatre" which is books on tape along with dramatizations and "new-time" radio series like Harry Nile, Twilight Zone stories, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

C10 is the emergency channel, appropriately numbered "247." I put it where I could find it in a hurry.

Since the Southeastern channel never made it and it's really silly to keep the special concert channel bookmarked (since it is only "on" at specific times and the channel number is 200, easy to remember), I'm probably going to re-arrange the last tier and mark a couple of channels for James instead so he can have something to play when we take my car and he drives.: the "Deep Tracks" classic rock channel and "Top Tracks" for early classic rock. (Yeah, our music tastes diverge wildly at many points. <g>)

I can honestly say the only two things I miss about Sirius are the Discovery Channel station (wish there was a similar XM channel) and Cousin Brucie on Saturday night on the 60s channel. I sure don't miss their lousy traffic reports!

Wish list: Dedicated Celtic and Irish/Scots music channel and Discovery-type channel (National Geographic maybe?). And I know it's silly, but I wish they had a year-round Christmas music channel like Live365 does online. Sometimes when you're depressed or when it's rainy, dark and/or 40 degrees you just need Christmas music, even if it's June...

Labels: radio

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:40:00 AM

Comments:

Ah, Linda -- anyone who enjoys the sublime pleasures of the radio Gunsmoke, Dragnet and Jack Benny is aces in my book.

# posted by  Ivan G Shreve Jr : 9:45:00 AM

 

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