Radio Shack offered only the Sirius and carried one receiver for $150 that could be used in a car. The store sold a $50 adapter to use the receiver indoors; a boom-box attachment was also available, though not in stock, for $100.
Her father has the Sirius radio, the Radio Shack clerk said, and loves it because he spends a great deal of time in his car, traveling for business. Not only does he have lots of channel choices, but they don't fade away as he drives from town to town. She gave me a brochure listing the Sirius channels, and I went on my way.
Circuit City and Best Buy carry both Sirius and XM, and a Circuit City clerk told me many people are buying Sirius for Howard Stern. "XM is more family oriented," he says. The Best Buy clerk was enthusiastic about Major League Baseball on XM and the NFL on Sirius. Both salespeople offered good advice: Listen to each system first, and you can do that in some of the stores or over the Internet by signing up for a free trial on the stations' Web sites.
Sirius, based in New York, signed on Howard Stern with great fanfare, and he will move his program to the satellite station when his current contract expires in nine months.
XM, based in Washington, has Bob Edwards, who once presided over the early morning hours for National Public Radio.
The age group most attracted to satellite radio so far is the 18-to-34-year-olds, with more than 5 percent owning one of the radios, according to BIGresearch, which surveyed more than 7,000 consumers last month.
Older age groups hovered around 3 percent ownership, although 4 percent of those over 65 owned one.
And many of them didn't feel they knew enough about the stations to consider buying: 22.7 percent of the 35-to-44-year-olds said they didn't know enough about the service to consider buying it, as did 24.3 percent of the 45-to-54-year-olds, 28.5 percent of the 55-to-64-year-olds and 42 percent of those over 65.
I asked Phil Rist, vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, based in Ohio, why a relatively large number of those over 65, compared with other groups, had satellite radio and at the same time a high percentage of people in that age group said they didn't know enough to buy one.
"It started out as a feature in expensive automobiles," Rist said, "and probably that age group bought them with their cars."
Though the radios started out in cars, they're now going portable, and Rist said that means even a bigger challenge for traditional radio.
"They're getting hit from both sides," he said. "Not only is satellite expanding, but podcasting is taking off. People are realizing they can do more than download music, they can download talk shows [one example of podcasting], whatever special interest they desire. It doesn't have to be music."
And Rist isn't so sure older consumers won't warm up to the technology as well.
"The older you get, the more set in your ways you get," he said. "Still, the 65-and-older is one of faster-growing age groups."
Rist, who is 48, has hit his own technology walls. He doesn't have an iPod. He doesn't have satellite radio.
"And even today I don't know how to program a VCR," he said.
As for me, I have put off buying a satellite radio. I don't care for Howard Stern, and I don't get up early enough to listen to Bob Edwards. I pre-set my radio stations once, and I have no intention of facing all those buttons again.
