THEY KNOW THEIR STATIONS

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Have you ever scratched an itch you didn't know you had? I don't think I ever have, but I've felt that sensation since I hooked up XM Satellite Radio in my car a few weeks ago.

The itch was comedy. Three of XM's 100 channels are devoted to it, and I've returned to them repeatedly, almost as defaults, as I've shuttled to work and back. It's quite surprising, considering that I own one comedy album, more than 40 years old, and I hardly ever listen to it.

To me, it demonstrates XM's foremost attribute: You can spin the dial and be surprised, again and again.

When I hooked XM up, I hit upon some music stations first, and the second song I heard was by my Braille blues daddy, Bryan Lee, an old, blind guy I "discovered" years ago at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Him I haven't been missing; I've got a few of his albums, and they're in rotation with about 560 others on my Mac. But because commercial broadcasters revile anything outside their mindless, repetitive, narrow little formats, I never expected to hear him playing over the air. Just like that, XM had my attention.

For years, the only music in my car had come from my iPod, which, on shuffle play especially, is like listening to Mike Prager Radio: I don't know what's coming, but I know I'll like whatever it is. The drawback was that it couldn't surprise me, and XM can. If I don't like what I hear, it's likely I'll find something I want elsewhere on the dial. About two thirds of the channels are music, and since XM makes its money via its $10 per month subscription fee, they're commercial-free.

About the only times I turned XM off was to get local news, sports talk (until the idiocy became overwhelming), and traffic on the 3s. Beginning April 1, XM will fill one of those holes when it devotes a channel to Boston traffic and weather. News and sports are covered, too, on 11 and 5 channels, respectively, although it's unlikely that a national subscription service will ever match Eddie the Bloviator or Ted Sarandis's righteous but repetitive ranting against the mayor.

Reception was rarely an issue; I installed one type of XM receiver, the Roady, while in my garage, and the signal was perfect even though I was inside. The only time I lost the satellite signal was in the bowels of the Big Dig, but coast-to-coast access, minus tunnels, is still pretty impressive.

All the wires for my temporary setup - for the antenna (magnetized to stick on the roof), power (via the cigarette lighter), and cassette-player adapter (to get the sound into my system) - were a nuisance, but had I purchased instead of borrowed the system, I could have minimized them with professional installation or just more careful routing.

I could have set up a different receiver, the SkyFi, which allows for listening both in a car and at home, but I chose to sample it only via a boombox built for the purpose. The SkyFi's interface is better - as you channel-check, you can see what's playing several stations ahead or behind, for instance - but it costs more. You can get XM equipment for as little as $100 plus the monthly fee, though for both home and car access, you can easily double or triple that, not including installation.

The money is not insignificant, and even after the one-time costs, I don't know if I'm willing to pay it. With my 20-minute commute, and considering that I found myself listening at home only out of duty to this testing period, $120 a year is a lot to pay, especially on top of the monthly cable/cell/DSL/other such charges I pay.

But I am entirely convinced that XM beats broadcast exponentially, and anyone who listens to radio often should consider it seriously.