Home > Consumer Reviews > XACT Comm SIRIUS RADIO RECEIVER ( XTR1 )

I love my Xact Sirius receiver. I works great, and I like the fact that the docking station can be turned to most any angle. Plus, Sirius may cost $3 more a month, but it has more than twice as much commercial free stations. That makes it so worth the extra $$$$

It's a nice device if you want to just look at it. I could not get the reception in my house. I placed the antenna at my window facing north/northwest as instructed and got nothing. I tried at every window and even outside. The best I could get was two minutes of reception followed by ten minutes of silence. The customer service people at Xact were impolite and not helpful. They told me that I needed to place the antenna on my roof. Obviously, if I had known that, I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. Sirius is a great service, but do not buy Xact products.

I bought the unit from a large retailer in Dec 2004, having been "sold" on the premise that the XACT unit had the most functionality for the price and was more portable than other units available - easily transferring from car to home to boombox, etc., if I elected those routes (with additional hardware). I liked the idea of portability and went with the XACT vehicle package.

I agree that the vehicle mounting unit is extremely limited. The actual mount has limited tilt and is cluncky with a screw that fastens to the back of the unit, making mounting and dismounting somewhat difficult. I ended up building my own base for the mount that fits in a cupholder, because the original mount wouldn't fit anywhere else. With my homemade creation, the setup works quite well. I keep my antenna on the dashboard and haven't had a big problem with reception. I even traveled 1200 miles across the county and the reception was fine. Of course, I did have to change FM modulator channels periodically from city to city, but that should be expected.

The unit is very limited overall. Scanning stations is very difficult while driving and I rely on my saved stations nearly exclusively. However, the keypad only gives access to 3 saved stations at a time and this can be annoying. I still haven't figured out the Memo/S-Seek button, even after reading the manual several times, and it seems usless.

Most troubling, in April, I returned to the big retailer where I purchased the unit (in Dec), to buy the home mounting dock. However, the retailer no longer carries XACT products in its stores. It is available on the web, but this is rather unsettling. I purchased the unit as the newest, best product less than 4 months ago and now I can't find it in any stores. I bought the unit for portability and versatility and it's already difficult to find the additional components for it.

In general, the redeeming quality of the XACT unit is that it allows me to listen to Sirius, which is an excellent service. Other than that, XACT offers poor functionality and design. If I were to do it again, I'd get a unit from a more recognizable company and definitely one with a dial.