"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

It really didn’t take that long to get over New Year celebrations and my birthday.  I can’t believe the first week of the new year is almost gone. The start of this year was good. Champagne & fireworks on the beach, with warm temperatures, followed by some gifts which included a satellite radio for Big Blue. If you don’t know what Big Blue is, its the whip, ride, wheels, … that get us from good old Nova Scotia to the white sand land.

Sirius Satellite Radio

Following New Year’s day it was time to hook up and discover the world of satellite radio, something that was new to me, but so many others said there is nothing like it. The do it yourself installation went pretty smooth, taking less than an hour. The longest endeavour was installing the antenna on the rear of the SUV and getting the wire to the front, which wasn’t nearly as bad as I had figured it would be.

Then it was time to activate it. I decided since I was in Florida, but live in Nova Scotia I should call by phone, just in case there were any quirks because of that. So I go to the Canadian Sirius.ca web site and get the Canadian number shown (1-888-539-7474).

After several dropped calls, and a push this for that routine the conversation goes like this:

“Hello, welcome to Sirius satellite radio, what can I do for you today?”

“I got a Sirius satellite radio for my birthday,” Interruption – “Happy Birthday.” I continue: “Thanks, I would like to activate the radio. I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, but I am currently in Florida for several months.”

“You’re Canadian? You should register with the Canadian division,” he says.

“This isn’t the Canadian division? I got the number off the Sirius Canadian site,” I reply.

“Sorry sir, no this is the American Sirius, if you are a Canadian resident you should register with them,” he continues, “ Give me a second I will get you the number.” <pause> “ It’s 1-866-875-7474, give them a call, they will fix you up. Sorry for the inconvenience, thanks for choosing Sirius.”

Canadian Calling Canada

So I dial the above given number. Nothing happens. So I dial it again, and hear, “If you want service in English, press 1, if you want service in French …” well you know the routine.

So I press 1 : “We are unable to take your call today. Our hours of operation are Monday thru Saturday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.” Whuuuup! (loud electronic disconnect.)

Internet Rules

Thinking I have to wait until the next day, Monday to activate the radio, I go inside and check the Sirius Canadian web site to see if I made a mistake with the phone number. I didn’t. I do everything else by internet, why not activate the radio that way – Let’s see if it works. It did. Three minutes later I was listening to satellite radio, hooked up with a discount plan and I am a Canadian snow birding in the United States.

What the heck do we need phones for? You can hardly ever get anything done on them anymore. And you only get to talk to computers anyway, may as well let the computers do it.

Post-mortem

I never thought I would ever pay to listen to radio. I heard so many others saying how much they liked it. After having it for only five days, I too think it is great. Over 120 channels of music, news, talk radio, comedy, NASCAR, and much more that will never fade out no matter where you go. Every type of music you can think of runs none  stop. Traveling the interstates, normal FM station fade out rather quickly. No more of that happening, and I don’t have to change CDs … insert smile ….

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License