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Customers most agreed on the following attributes:
I love the Sirius never had an issue except it was stolen
I went through 4 Sportsters in 3 years. Got the first 3 replaced because they broke down within a year of purchase, and I really had to make some noise about replacements. 4th one I had to re-purchase. Terrible reception; crackly. Very poorly made product. See all the other similar reviews.
Heres what I have found with all the bad reviews people are not connecting the radio properly look at sirius website and see that there are different ways to connect to your head unit. The best way is connect to a aux port on a radio which I have done for an extra six bucks it works great. No static no problem recieving stations nothing the other thing that I found out is that you cannot cut the factory plug and hard wire the unit you have to either use the big bulky plug or go buy an adapter because the radio runs off of 5 volts and vehicles are 12-14 volts and I'm speculating but thats why they are burning up. I enjoy my radio and would not pay the extra money for the sportster 5 the 4 works just as good but don't have the extra colors otherwise the same radio. I hope this helps enjoy your radio.
from North Vernon, IN on 3/25/2008
Had reciever for a couple of months, shut it off one day and it never worked again. The dog screen comes up and that's it....it is junk
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
This Radio lasted one year, poor Reception , especially right before it burned up and i mean it got really hot, then went to the sirius logo and that was it. contacted tech, all they had to say was buy a new one....WOW, it was like they heard it a million times. Sounds to me like a planned expiration!!!! not sure what i'm gonna do at this point. I have the boom box and everything.....oh well i guess.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
I had this radio for about 1 year till recently it broke. It will not get off the Sirius Satellite main display (logo and dog). I called tech support and they told me sorry we cant help you. The radio is broken. 90 factory warranty and 1 yr retail warranty. If these radios are only going to last 1 yr they should make disposable radios at an affordable price....
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
The radio itself is awesome. But the FM antenna is horrible. I had the old sportster and it worked like a charm and thought that the new one should work the same or better. To my dissapointment it is very hard to pick up a good CLEAR signal and over the past few days I have had to change my station 4 to 5 times while driving across town. Some days it works good others I'd rather throw it out the window. I sell sirius and the radio is good but I dont like the new fm antenna they added to the new models.
[2 of 2 customers found this review helpful]
The radio had great reception for me, when using a cassette adapter. Did not like the FM Modulator that's built in. The Antenna just stopped picking up signal after about 6 months. Eleven months after purchase it stalls at the startup screen and lost it's id. [...]
[2 of 2 customers found this review helpful]
from Washington DC on 12/5/2007
Wife has a Starmate 3... works great for over 2 years.
I have this awful Sportster 4. First one developed an ear piercing audio tone after 3 months. Sirius replaced with a new model. The transmitter was too weak to be heard on any frequency. Sirius paid to have it professionally directly wired to my radio. Now can hear only on two frequencies. Most annoying is that everyone else's satellite radio overpowers mine even when on the other side of the interstate. There are also volume problems, even when the Sirius is a max volume, I still have to turn the car radio up to hear well, but the local radio stations are much louder.
Bought a Starmate 4 for my folks and tried it out in my car and it works fine on all frequencies.
Lesson for everyone: Buy the Starmate, not the Sportster.
[0 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
I use this product in my car and in my house! It is mobile and easy to use everywhere! A MUST GET PRODUCT!
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
FCC limited the transmission distance of the FM transmitters in the satellite radio receivers. Had to hardwire through car radio antenna. Works perfectly now. Only loses satellite signal when line of site is interrupted. Quality is just as good as the stock one in a new Mercury Mariner.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
I have had sirius for almost three years now. The boombox for the Sportster gets reception NO WHERE!! I moved from Northwest of Chicago where I had ONE spot in the middle of living room where I might get reception for maybe an hour. I even purchased another boombox to try; NO LUCK.Recently moved to St. Pete, FL...where I have to sit outside...in ONE spot and fuddle with it to get it to come in for an hour or so. We bought two different Sirius antenae from [...]; one for outside; drilled hole in the concrete and still NO reception. It is very frustrating. Initially we had a hard time getting it to work with the antennae in the car, but finally got that. Wanted to get the stilleto but am reading that also has reception problems...Seems like they need stronger reception on all counts!!
[2 of 2 customers found this review helpful]
from Myrtle Beach, SC on 10/24/2007
I have owned this particular model for almost a year and a half. This was sent to me by Sirius as a replacement for the original Sportster when it crapped out on me. I got one of the early models and it worked great for a while, but within 6 months I started losing satelite signal for no reason what so ever, even if I was not moving. I have the unit directly connected to the back of my stereo head unit and had it professionaly installed so I have no problems with static or background noise, but it is very annoying when you lose sigal in the middle of a song or broadcast of a sporting event. Within the last 3 months the unit has decided it does not want to turn on when I start my truck (I had the unit hardwired to the ignition so I did not have to plug it in to a car jack). When this happens it takes about 15 to 20 minutes for the unit to actually come on and then I will loose satelite signal about every 5 minutes. I think when this one eventually dies on me I will just by an in dash head unit instead of just the window or vent mounted receiver and a new antenna. I think part of the reason I am losing satelite signal is due to the fact that I still have the original antenna which is about 2 years old. I like Sirius and their programming a lot and really do not want to switch to XM and anyone that has had satellite knows, it is almost impossible to listen to regular radio after this.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Minneapolis, MN on 10/9/2007
first 6 months a 1/3 of the buttons burned out. Recently I was loosing signal. [...] I?m very disappointed in what a piece of junk the sportster is. If I have to buy a new receiver ([$]) every year when I renew my service ([$]) I will opt out. I don?t see the point. The remote never worked worth a (well you know) when it was new.
from Kansas City, MO on 9/15/2007
I like this receiver and its reception. Simple to run through an ordinary home audio receiver or amp. Only trouble is, Sirius channel hosts and employees invade your privacy by auditing you in your home or office. Channel announcers, in the course of regular broadcasts, will talk about you with personally-directed remarks, or try to elicit some verbal response. They will say most anything other than your name and address. It is quite annoying. Howard Stern and the Maxim channel are particulary bad. I'm still trying to figure out how they're hacking into my residence for audio.
from Duluth, MN on 9/5/2007
I was very disappointed with this product. I bought this last week for my husband?s birthday. He installed it on Friday before we left town for vacation and it didn't work. No reception!! We had a different receiver before but unfortunately the light display went out on it and we had no problem with the reception. It came in perfect. [...] We found out that this particular model needs to have an extra adapter for the FM transmitter. It cost another [$]. It also needs to be plugged in to an outlet so now you have cords running all over. This isn't even the best part! After installing this adapter and leaving town for our trip we noticed that there is a high pitch buzzing sound in the background. This just drives me crazy. Good think I keep the box and all the receipts because this one is going back!!!!
I have been a Sirius subscriber for 3 years. This is my third unit! They break so fast, and these were my home units, not even used in the car. You just turn them on one day, and they don't work. With all the gorgeous tech out there, they really are poorly designed.
good luck if you live in florida, terrible reception on bridges, horrible if your car does get hot inside, don't get me started on the boom box, we have sent 2 back and are returning this one as it does not work if you are in the sun. called sirius and they know that...sent me a new antanea and same prob....[...] car okay stay away from the boom box!!
Great unit! I had the Sirius One before this. I liked the old unit except that even at max audio out the sound was to weak for my taste. Also, the Sirius One has a hard to read screen unless you are looking at it straight on. The new Sirius 4 is great! Sound output blows the old unit away. And the big, bright screen is easy to read. I am seeing complaints regarding the FM modulator. I can't comment on that since I have mine connected by way of RCA plugs directly into the back of my car stereo. Connecting it this way you truly get CD quality sound! Highly recommended but hard wire it to the car if you can for the best results.
I had a problem in the begining with the reception on the Sportster4, i called Sirius and they did not have a fix howerver i called Radio Shack. The manager at Radio shack was extremely helpful, appartently some of the packages were sent out with out the FM transmitter antenna. This is a small wire that connects to the back of the radio. Since I have connected this, I do not get any background noise at all!!! I called Sirius and informed them of the problem, they said that they have received alot of calls about this. Now I think this is one of the best radio's Sirius has out there.
from NC on 10/16/2006
I have the starmate replay that has been good to me except for the display being way to bright for night driving. I purchased the sportster 4 because the display could be tunred down dimmer than the starmate. Well, the sportster 4 has this annoying background static on every channel I try on the FM and the sound is poor. I hope radio shack will offer me a return on this, its not worth the money. If sirius would only offer a starmate replay with a backlight color selection option (red, blue, green, ect.), I would be a happy camper.
I just bought this radio a week ago and I love it, very mobile, sounds great, easy to use, You can dim the screen. I've read some reviews that dog the way the cords plug into it, It comes with a vent mount for your vehicle that works great, also read that fm transmitter is weak, I would have to say some days are better than others, I did talk to a sales associate and they say that the first models are going to have a better fm transmitter than the newer ones for the fact that when they first came out the fm transmitter was too strong and was interfering with other broadcasting channels, for this model I think it works pretty good.
great tuner, only drawback is if you program too many alerts the unit works fine but beeps everytime one of those alerts comes up. the fm tuner took a while to program as you have to find a good station that your radio will give you the best sound from. i have two cars and on my 2004 car the fm tuner work great on any station but on my 1990 it will only work on certain stations. if you have a tape player than a cassette insert from radioshack will be your best bet.
The Sportster4 is horrible. The FM transmitter does allow you to pick any station, however all that you receive static. I have called Sirius and they are aware of the problem but do not have a fix for it ?YET?. If you put your hand on the cradle some of the static goes away. I had the Orbital Receiver and had no problem with the reception; unfortunately it stopped receiving the updates. I would not recommend this receiver until they get this fixed. This is Very frustrating driving down the road and not getting clear reception.