Alex: GM of Canada isn't so excited about servicing the existing owners of its products, but their dealers will probably step up to that, and the stereo stores certainly will.

Sue: The XM people had some installers at the start of the media program, and it took a very clever and competent guy about 30 minutes to install it in my Pontiac Montana minivan. He had to take off exterior body parts and bits of the dashboard, feed wires through an electrical maze, and crawl on his back along the floor.

Alex: So not for amateurs. Is it intrusive?

Sue: There's an aerial on the roof next to the OnStar/GPS aerial, and a bracket for the radio control panel in front of the vents in the dashboard. Not too bad.

Alex: What didn't you like about it?

Sue: There's no traffic or local news and weather on XM, but it was very simple to flip back to the regular radio stations for that. But I quickly returned to the satellite radio for the clarity of sound and the commercial-free feature.

Alex: That commercial-free thing may change in the future, but they haven't fully explained how that's going to work yet. Were there deejays on all the channels?

Sue: Not really. Not like on regular radio. I was aware of someone announcing the songs every now and then, I guess, but it wasn't much. Not like regular radio.

Alex: You only mentioned music, but there are more channels that have other things, aren't there?

Sue: There are lots of sports channels, though getting scores and listening to NHL games is not part of my interest. There's also talk radio, a truckers' channel, a women's talk and lifestyle channel, and news broadcasts from Fox, CNN, the BBC and some others. Plus kids programming and three comedy channels, two of which are uncensored. I just have to read the manual and the XM website to find out all of the cool additional things it can do, and they send out a weekly e-mail highlighting live shows and stuff.

Alex: Sounds like you liked XM as much as I did when I tried the U.S. service.

Sue: I can see this as a must-have in future vehicles, but I am not sure about buying this Satellite service for inside my home. I have just cottoned on to web radio, which has a wide variety of music types.

Alex: Good point about web radio. I hadn't thought of that. What about the portable units that are available?

Sue: It costs about $400 and comes with an antenna for your collar for the walkabout portion, and you can download music into it. This will appeal to many people. XM radio in general will appeal to many people.

Alex: I agree, and I know they'll be adding other services to broaden its appeal even more, and that down the road they're hoping to use their satellites to broadcast TV signals and who knows what into cars across the country. Thanks to XM satellite radio, your Montana is now an entertainment portal.