I think I’m suffering an appliance/electronic epidemic. About a week ago, my Pizzaz died (rest it’s soul). This hasn’t been too bad, since I really haven’t made pizza in awhile, and I have the oven as a backup.

Earlier this week, my xm2go tuner died. This was bad, because that was my only ticket to getting XM during my daily commute to work. I’m saddened by this, because that old tuner was pretty cool. It was the first portable tuner that XM released, and had the ability to record shows, pause live XM, and keep me entertained for hours on end. I knew that I had to get a new tuner, because my alternative (Milwaukee radio) still sucks.

I got that new tuner, and now I sport the Inno. This new tuner hasn’t had much listening time on it yet, but I have figured out several pretty sweet features:

• The built-in antenna is amazing compared to the xm2go. I can pick up a signal when standing in certain areas in my apartment with just the built-in antenna.
• The TuneSelect feature lets me do really sweet stuff with recording music (which, by the way, we’ll never see again on another tuner because it was this feature that XM was sued by the RIAA for). TuneSelect lets me record automatically whenever a specific song or artist plays. It still stays locked on the device, so I can’t copy it elsewhere. But I can listen to it whenever I want.
• So I’m listening to a station. A song comes on that I don’t recognize, but after the first minute or so, I realize that I love this song and I want to record it. Once I hit record, the Inno will record from the beginning of the song (up to 10 minutes previous, and assuming you were on that channel the entire time) all the way to the end. That is just kickass.
• XM+Napster. I’m upset that the Inno is not Napster ToGo capable (and their marketing should make this clear, as I was fooled by this). It does still integrate with Napster in a different way though. On the xm2go, I’d press the “mem” button when I heard a song, which would keep a copy of the title and artist in memory (up to 20). Then, from time to time, I’d manually copy this list to a text file on my computer (the infamous “xm.txt” file). With the Inno, I press “Bookmark” and the Inno keeps the title and artist. The difference is when I plug the Inno in my computer, my bookmark list shows up in Napster, allowing me to copy the list, listen to songs right away, or download them. Napster also lets me manage records (and listen to them).
• Two words: color screen.

I love my Inno, and it’s amazing holding the two tuners side by side and seeing how they’ve progressed. My only complaint with the Inno is actually a complaint with the FCC. The FCC ordered XM and Sirius that their new tuners must find a new way to broadcast over FM, as their old tuners were too powerful. Sirius just lowered the power of the FM modulator, and XM released this thing called SureConnect. Basically you’re supposed to clip this little thing around your antenna so the FM signal broadcasts directly on your antenna. The problem is they only designed this little device with cars with front- or back- antennas. My antenna, the RC-car on-the-top style, was not officially supported by XM. At first, I didn’t find a good way to mount the SureConnect device, so I tried a couple alternatives:

1. Use the built-in FM modulator in the Inno. This worked barely. With the FM power turned up “all the way,” I still barely heard the signal over my radio.

2. Use my FM modulator. This sort of worked, except I heard a horrible humming noise in the background whenever the Inno was plugged in.

The fix? I little bit of “hacking” my car. While I couldn’t attach the SureConnect device to the antenna, I could attach it to the cable that leads to the antenna. After removing the dome light in my car and disconnecting the antenna, I was able to attach the SureConnect directly on the antenna cable. Then I put everything back together, did some wire running and hiding, and I was finished. I have SureConnect in my car, but you’d never know it

I’m still not completely convinced that using an FM modulator is the best solution, so I’ve still got my eyes on the AUX input adapter for my Focus. I just need to pay up the ~$70 for it, and dedicate an afternoon to doing some stereo work in my car.

While I’m sad to see the xm2go, well, go, I am happy to have my XM back. Rock on!

~Jaker