SIRIUS and the classic car...

Have you heard of SIRIUS Satellite Radio?

If you're an American, you probably have. SIRIUS and it's rival, XM, are the two satellite radio providers for North America and both have invested heavily in convincing the American radio listener to switch from terrestrial FM stations to the wonders of satellite radio.

And to be honest, there's a lot in it for the consumer. Commercial radio is pretty awful in America. All the stations are filled with commercials, sponsorships and promotions. In order to cut costs, programming is syndicated, automated and mangled. Playlists are incredibly restrictive. Originality is out the window.

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Satellite radio offers 100% commercial-free radio, unparalleled choice in musical styles (SIRIUS has 69 different music channels) and you can pick it up in crisp, digital quality from coast to coast thanks to transmitters hanging (or flying, in the case of the SIRIUS ones) through space.

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The only problem is: Terrestrial radio is free. To pick up satellite radio, you need to buy an actual radio transmitter (and SIRIUS and XM radios aren't cross compatible) and a subscription to either service, paid either monthly or as a 'lifetime' subscription.

That's a choice you have to make for yourself. Personally, I'd pay $12,95 a month just so I'm spared having to listen to those bloody GIECO commercials!

In any event, once you've chosen satellite radio, it's up to you to get listening and in the case of SIRIUS, this involves buying and installing a radio.

There are handheld versions, the Stiletto range, which are as intuitive as the average iPod (and can hold as much music, plus get all the SIRIUS radio channels.) You could buy a home unit which plugs into your stereo. In most people's cases, however, the best option is a Dock & Play unit which can be retrofitted in your car.

I am now the proud owner (or borrower) of a Starmate 4 Dock & Play radio. When it came to fitting this swanky new radio in my car, I really decided to test the SIRIUS promise of a simple installation. Out of the millions of SIRIUS radios being used across North America, I imagine very few have been fitted to a car quite as old as mine.

Behold the Militant Gingermobile. 'Bertha' or 'Traveler' depending on who you talk to. An '86 Lincoln Towncar that was designed and constructed a full decade before the technology in my Starmate 4 had even been envisaged.

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Despite the technology gap, the initial fitting of the Starmate seemed to be quite easy. The instructions helped me fit the radio 'dock' to one of my air-vents and the wires neatly slipped into the dash board the same way loose change does.

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In order to pick up the SIRIUS signal, I needed to fit an external antenna to my car. This little magnetic gidget ideally slaps to a big piece of sheet metal (of which the Lincoln has about 4,400lbs) and turns it into a gigantic antenna. The instructions say it has to go onto the roof.

This presented a problem. Despite being so enormous, my Lincoln Town Car has no bare metal on it's roof at all. The entire thing is covered in black vinyl - thick enough to stop the magnet from sticking to the car.

Fortunately the instructions give alternative options for pick up trucks and convertibles, so I was able to fathom a solution to my problem. Just as you'd have to do with a rag-top car, I stuck my antenna onto the boot of the Lincoln.

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The antenna wire from the dashboard radio trailed easily along the car and I was able to slip it under the edges of the carpet, hiding the wire from view and preventing any snagging. Then it was simple to pop it through the firewall - although I had to physically clamber into the boot to accomplish this, always worried that the lid would shut and trap me inside!

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Then I just snaked the cable around the hinge, attached antenna to radio and the job was done neatly and simply. It took about ten minutes and half of that was the commute from one end of my enormous car to the other.

Now SIRIUS is clever. Instead of fitting the tiny radio with speakers, it transmits it's own FM signal which my car's radio picks up, just as if it was a normal radio station. In order to accomplish this, I had to fit an FEA (I've forgotten what that stands for) in the rear window of the Lincoln, facing the radio antenna.

Once I've done that, I simply tune it to the correct frequency (in this case, 103.9FM - an unused local FM bandwidth) and SIRIUS comes roaring out of my speakers instead of that local crap they euphemistically call radio.

So even with an ancient car and the technical ingenuity of a brick, I managed to update the Militant Gingermobile with the latest in satellite audio technology in less than half an hour.

And the truly incredible thing?

It actually works!