rarenaro

Per someone's suggestion : reposting in E-Class Forum:

--

Hi - does anyone use Teletrek from Teleaid. Its thhe realtime traffic and route planning part of the website? You basically predefine your most frequent routes and the when you hit the "I" button, you can say "traffic" and it will tell you the conditions based on where you are (voice read). Looking for opinions on the feature. I signed up and can't really decide if I like it or not. seems to be accurate, but setting up routes on such a small map (which is what you get) is very tedious. Any opinions - good / bad?

Barry45RPM

I take it you have no Nav in the car?

I used to use a similar service provided by GM's Onstar. I only had this feature activated in 1 of my cars Onstar packages (mine), and found it to be a help only once or twice a year. Nevertheless, I kept it activated in my car as long as I owned it. You have to see how many times you use it VS how much it costs. I always felt, Onstar should have made it available on a per use basis, which sort of means it might not have been worth it. What do you think?

rarenaro

No - I have NAV in the car. But this service kind of works on top of that. I've used it several times and it appears to be accurate for traffic. It also tells you about subway delays, but the descriptions are far to general to be of any help (something like "nyc subways, service suspended") and that's it. No location, no specific line or even time affected.

Does you Sirius offer location based traffix reports (satellite based that is)?

Barry45RPM

Channel 150something is the channel for NYC-Phil traffic & weather every 4 minutes around the clock. It is NOT a traffic report based on where YOUR car is, but rather a traffic report like you would hear on the locat radio station. They know what arteries to report on, but that doesn't mean that you cant be on a major "local" artery & be told about it. The NY traffic report covers the 5 boroughs, the bridges & tunnels & the major commuter routes. to where most people reside after rush hour.

Its not like we have many alternates around here to change our route due to heavy traffic, but the service is as good as any radio stations is, plus there's no more than a 4 minute wait from the time they start the Philly part of the report.

Sometimes I listen to Miami or LA traffic just for the hell of it...

(I just noticed you live in NY...go to Circuit/City or Best Buy & listen in on one of their demo sets. The traffic/weather stations start at # 150) I LOVE satellite radio, even though some people think the MB antenna is hideous. Hell, some people might think a Stradavarius violin is ugly when compaired to a white plastic "electric" violin, even though the sound may be pleasing from both. Me? I'm in it for the entertainment & "1 station across the nation" thing. My next car will have a "Tiffany" style antenna when the engineers develop it. As magnificent as it is, its still only a car.

rarenaro

Barry45RPM:

Do you happen to know (a bit off topic) if satellite radio will work in an office building with slightly tinted windows? I've read reports that say tint is no good for satellite (metallic coating or something). Just got my E500 tinted, but was thinking about getting a satellite radio for my office. Any opinions of this? Thanks!

Barry45RPM

Haven't a clue. But if you e mail sirius at the tech info dept, they WILL answer you. BTW, once you are a subscriber, they will give you a password so that you can listen on your PC at the office for no extra charge, so buying an extra receiver/subscription wouldn't be necessary.