Tuesday, Howard Stern will celebrate 1 year on the air at Sirius. They will replay his 1-9-06 show after the live one, and play the top 10 moments of 2006 as voted by the listeners.

It should be noted that his 1 year anniversary is actually a couple days before 1-9, because they were doing some audio checks and such and decided to go on the air spur-of-the-moment the week before the show officially started.

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While not a ‘Plug and Play’ radio, Alpine is really eyeing those features, and is, surprisingly, the first company that will let you plug your plug and play radio into the headunit to use the features such as replay, or artist/song seek. Using the $80 adapter, you can plug in your radio to control it all from the Headunit. Search and preview what’s on other stations, add a song you like into SongSeek, and even getting the GameAlerts, it looks like this is a really cool interface.

The adapter will work for all 2007 Ai-NET head units, including models: CDA-9883, CDA-9885, CDA-9887, iDA-X001, IVA-D105, IVA-W205. The only thing we are not 100% sure of is whether you need a plug and play radio that uses the universal dock for it to work, but that will likely be the case.

Hopefully, this will lead to 2008 models being able to do all these features without needing a Plug and Play tuner, but rather just the Sirius tuner box, or even an integrated tuner.

XM tried a similar product in 2003 with the Skylink by Blitzsafe, but the product never made it to the market. Additionally, this looks to be a product that will still allow the PNP to be utilized, and not put into a big box.

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With great sadness, Sirius Backstage has found out that DJ Dave McNamara, known on the airwaves as Dave Mac, passed away on Saturday morning due to cancer at the age of 43. He has been with Sirius for a long time, DJing on the Spectrum, Sirius Blues, and Sirius Disorder, and previously on other stations such as The Rock, before it was split in January 2004. He was a great DJ, and loved to talk with listeners. He responded to every email I have ever sent, and has even posted on Sirius Backstage. Dave, you will be missed.

The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, please make donations in Dave’s name to the American Cancer Society.

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Via Orbitcast

Altec Lansing and Sirius Satellite Radio have officially joined forces to deliver a new line up of high-quality audio products to Sirius Satellite Radio listeners.

“Pairing up with Altec Lansing was an obvious choice,” said Sean Gibbons, Vice President Consumer Electronics Product Management, Sirius Satellite Radio. “Combining Sirius’ industry leading 100-percent, commercial-free music and talk and entertainment programming with Altec Lansing’s innovative audio products will allow Sirius subscribers the convenience to listen to their favorite content in more locations than ever.”

I wonder if this will mean more accessories for the Stiletto? This is a good sign, and could bring in a sub-$100 speaker system for it, like Altec Lansing did for the first generation of XM2Go products.

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The Hall of Fame inductees have just been announced, and Grandmaster Flash, Saturdays at 5p on Hot Jamz, has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Other people include REM, The Ronettes, Van Halen, and Patti Smith. Be sure to hear all about the Induction Ceremony on Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, and possibly on Hot Jamz as well.

Bonus pic: the article’s picture of Eddie Van Halen. He ain’t looking good nowadays.

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Directed has unveiled a new website for Sirius, titled http://www.directedsirius.com. It features all of the products they have for Sirius thus far, and includes all of their products for Sirius, as well as descriptions and feature listings for them all. Currently there are no new products on it that Sirius could be unveiling for CES, although it will hopefully change.

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Directed Electronics has announced that they are releasing what they call the “Clifford Scout420 SIRIUS-Ready Portable Navigation System and Personal Media Player“. It is an all-in-one system that includes GPS navigation, a 20GB hard drive, full color screen, and, when using the optional dock for it, Sirius Radio.

The Sirius option, pictured, shows title, artist, channel logo, equalizer settings, and function buttons, which they have not said what they are yet. We believe out of the four bottom ones on the display, the left is likely a direct entry button, the second from the left is a jump button, second from right a settings button, and the right a preset button. It is unknown if it will allow you to record Sirius channels at this time, and you cannot use Sirius while on the go.

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Harmon Kardon is releasing a product called Drive+Play II. It is essentially a media manager that allows you to connect your MP3 player, bluetooth adapter, Sirius adapter, and play them easily without having a jumble of wires. It comes with a 3.5″ screen to see what you have, and a wireless knob you can mount near your steering wheel for easy navigation. It will be available for $399 in the Spring.

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Sirius has updated their rebate program for hardware. It is similar to the previous rebate they ran through the holiday season. The notable exceptions are that the Starmate Replay and its Xact Clone are no longer eligible hardware. The Stiletto rebate is continuing as before, $70 back with purchase of a Stiletto and home/car kit.

The rebate is good for radios purchased through February 24th, activated by 3/10, and the rebate is sent in and postmarked by March 24th.

Eligible radios:

Radios from Walmart, Walmart.com, Sam’s Club, and Target(but not Target.com) are not eligible for the rebate.

$20 - Starmate 4, Streamer GT

$30 - Conductor, Sportster 4, Streamer Replay

$50 - Tivoli, Alpine Tuner

$100 - S50

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DigitalHome.ca, a large Canadian tech blog, is reporting that Sirius Canada will add 20 new channels to its lineup, being 2 Canadian and 18 American channels, due to the agreement with the government that 10% of its lineup be Canadian content. It appears the new Canadian channels will be low-bandwidth traffic channels. If this is true, it will increase their total amount of channels allowed to 130, up from 110.

One part that confuses me is that they state they will add the ‘last remaining 18 channels to the Canadian lineup’ by doing this, but with the two new traffic channels, there would be 136 channels, and Canada cannot have more than 130. Either Sirius Canada will have three new channels rather than the reported two, or 6 channels will not be on Sirius Canada, likely Traffic and Weather channels.

Either way, assuming this is true, it looks like it will be much easier for those Canadians who have a US sub because they want the full lineup.

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