I’m not a Luddite by nature.

It took a lot of hard work to get to the point where I was skeptical enough about technology to be cynical. I’m proud of it. All this talk about satellite radio, for example, was very difficult to trust. Subscription radio? Well, having lived through the inception, acceptance, and popularity of Pay TV there’s only so much cynicism to spread around.

Both Sirius and XM offer three-day free trials. (Although I’m sure my e-mail will be layered with ads for years to come as a result of my registration.) Why not?

Here’s the deal, when I’m not listening to talk radio (and I don’t mean NPR), I like rock –classic, what I grew up with, rock and roll. Don’t give me “shock jocks.” IMO, they’re just cras people pandering to folk who never outgrew sophomore year of college. I don’t care about sports unless its NASCAR (although I’m not going to buy a Nextel phone and sign up for its NASCAR radio service); if there’s no harpsichord, don’t bother me with classical (OK, maybe the 1812 Overture, if done with canons…); just play me that good old time rock and roll. I’m tired of flipping through CDs (or 8-tracks, in the case of my ‘76 Camaro).

Both networks, thankfully, have Rock ‘n’ Roll channels. Excellent! XM breaks it down into a couple of decades, Sirius has a few flavors, one called “Classic Vinyl.” Sounds real.

There I sit, with my big hulky Extreme PC logged on to XM, listening over the Internet, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…. Goawd! Can’t their DJs just shut up? I don’t want AM Rock Cousin Brucey Clones climbing over the intro to almost every song. I’d be paying for this!! Then there’s the music. Sure, there’s some rock in there, but the majority of the tunes are either Top 40 or just plain Easy Listening. (Which are sometimes one and the same anyway…)

Over on Sirius I dial up Classic Vinyl… No DJs…. Oops, spoke too soon. Apparently the DJs wake up about 10:00am EST. Well, at least he’s not obnoxious and annoying –yet. (Okay, some overtalk on the end of the music, but not a lot. It’s more like FM, at least where I am. Wait, he just walked over the intro to We’re an American Band. They need to learn, it’s not the DJs we want to hear.) The music? It’s rock, mostly! Jethro Tull… T. Rex… Hendrix… Led Zeppelin… How the hell did Steely Dan get in there with Rikki Don’t Lose That Number? Still, the mix looks to be greater than 6:1 and I can live with that. (Although, having lived it, I’m not sure I’d classify Dylan as rock. Must be young guys doing the programming.) And there’s only the occasional plug for the service. (Which makes no sense. I have a big Sirius LOGO on the screen. There’d be a logo on the radio, if I had one. Do they think I’m thinking I’m on XM? Maybe it’s an FCC requirement…)

So what does it mean to me? If I was to bite the big satellite bullet in the sky, and with apologies to Willie Nelson, I’d probably stick Sirius in the Camaro. (That’s a BIG concession. It means chopping an otherwise pristine dashboard for a Sirius-compatible receiver and then finding a place for the Sirius tuner. None of that portable crap. I don’t want to drive in an elevator and only TV is allowed in the LofD&PC.) Admittedly, I’ve only put in a couple of hours on each side, and even then it was for specific entertainment content, but I don’t understand how XM became so big and bad. Much as I have no affection for Howard Stern, as long as Sirius doesn’t try to reclone itself as XM, hopefully he and the soon to be newly arrived Mel Karmazin can do good things for the service.