I have been spending a lot of time trying to connect one of the best Christmas gifts ever, my Sirius radio. I have the Plug and Play Boombox and a subscription that includes the Best of XM, assuring me all the Major League Baseball games I can stand, along with great music and talk stations. And don’t forget the comedy!
So far, the boombox plays on my porch, in a certain spot. It’s lovely – sounds like what I think a Bose radio would sound like. I’m even mastering the remote.
My problem is I can’t get the radio to play inside the house. I would love to have it work inside and I have done all the things I’ve been asked to do to get it to work: put it by a north facing window (due to my zone location), put the antenna outside, put a full-length mirror on the porch to “bounce” the signal inside to the radio. Nothing works.
I live in a doublewide trailer, what the residents and the office workers prefer to call manufactured housing, on my own lot on a golf course. And I gotta say, being surrounded by metal, aluminum or whatever, seems to be OK for other electronics, just not my Sirius boombox.
It works great about a foot outside the overhang. There is no overhang on the back but the radio still doesn’t work in the back bedrooms, despite sitting on the sill of a bay window with no outside overhang. I don’t know why.
The curious thing, to me, is how my other electronics work inside. How does my cell phone work so well? (By the way, when I am driving and get to a “dead” spot, where I cannot place or receive phone calls, how come I can send and receive text messages?)
How does my WiFi work so well inside and out? I can sit outside and be connected to the Internet with no problem. Doesn’t seem to be any metal interference.
And certain things on the boombox work, such as the part of the Sirius radio that shows me the exact time. How does that show up, including whatever station number I happen to be tuned to, but the actual station signal doesn’t get through?
If it were up to me to know how these things work, these wondrous things would never have been invented. My good friend and neighbor and I are still marveling over how transistor radios work. And black and white TV versus color. We are still astounded by our “outmoded” electronics.
I have now purchased a 50-foot extension antenna to connect to the boombox and run outside. I’m trying to figure out how to actually do it but so far haven’t been able to figure out how and where. I do know why: I’d like it to work indoors! But that’s about all I know. Did I tell you the radio works fine in the car? Thanks to my daughter’s namesake, we got the parts properly installed in the car and I have been enjoying it there ever since.
One more puzzle: Picture the radio, sitting in view on the porch, with me sitting inside in my recliner, holding the Sirius remote. I am able to adjust the volume of the radio on the porch with no problem. But when the beep-beep comes, letting me know a favorite artist or song is playing on another station, the button I push to switch over to that song doesn’t work at all. I don’t get it.
OK, one more: I can be in the back room, use the remote key to my car and lock the doors and set the alarm. The car is out front. I'm not complaining. I just want to understand why it works.
