With Christmas coming up quickly, it may be time to find some good deals to get your friends and family hooked up. Here are some of the top deals found around the web, as of today, December 10th. If you find any deals worth mentioning, click on ‘comments’ below to let people know!.

TSS Radio has the Stratus for -$10 after $50 rebate, making you money when you give Sirius.

Shop.sirius.com has the InV for $19.99. Remember, this radio is not a plug and play, but just an in-car radio.

Are you an existing subscriber? Shop.sirius.com has the Sportster4 with Car kit, home kit, and $49.99 subscription card for $129.99, and a Stiletto, car kit, and $49.99 subscription card for $149.99. Must be an existing subscriber, log into shop.sirius.com to see offers.
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Sirius and NPR announced earlier today that they have created a new channel, only available on Sirius Internet Radio, that collects select NPR programming and makes it available to SIR subscribers. http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=Channel&cid=1186052421026

Sirius describes the channel as follows…

NPR SIR-1 offers in-depth news, features, and entertainment produced and assembled by NPR for SIRIUS Internet Radio. Featuring public radio favorites like Talk of the Nation, Day to Day, Marketplace and the Diane Rehm Show as well as new productions from independent producers and public radio stations nationwide.

This is a great add for users of wi-fi enabled radios like the Stilletto (although early reports are some are having trouble getting it on the Stilletto).

Thanks to member, dlnester for the find!!

Sirius will be selling a personal wireless ‘repeater’ starting next month. The SIRWRS1 has a picture at TSS-Radio(right) and you can sign up to be notified. The price is $99.99, and it will allow you to hook up an antenna up to 75 feet away(line of sight) from where your radio is.

The repeater works on the 900 MHz band. If you want to hook up additional radios, they will sell additional wireless receivers, dubbed SIRWRR1, for $49.99. Both will be available in mid-March.

Earlier today, Steve Jobs wrote a long open-letter on apple.com that he titled “Thoughts on Music”. The letter details his thoughts on encrypting music with DRM and why Apple does not want to license out its FairPlay DRM.

One point that he addresses at the end is that it would not only be very beneficial for the record companies to get rid of DRM, but that “Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat”. It would mean that all downloads would be unprotected, could be played on virtually any MP3 player and bought from any music store. As Steve Jobs notes: “2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves”. Doing this would only make online music the same type that you get on a CD: unprotected.

This could easily benefit Sirius, as well as XM. With this happening suddenly people can buy music in iTunes, then load it onto their Stiletto or S50. Suddenly those who don’t want a portable satellite radio player because they want something that can play iTunes will have a choice. It will also make the satellite radio companies and their hardware partners step up even more, as they will want to market their devices to more than just the people who are actively interested in satellite radio. Instead of having an MP3 player be a side benefit to the satellite radio, they can make satellite radio a side benefit to unlocked MP3 players.

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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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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If you can manage to get off the couch after that tryptophan induced coma, then hustle down to Best Buy for some great deals on SIRIUS.

The savvy shoppers at Orbitcast have snagged some adverts featuring the SIRIUS Sportster Reply for $49.99.

Keep up with the deals in their Black Friday Watch.

Comment here.

Chris Walker at CocoonTech.com has tried the Conductor first hand. Here’s some of this thoughts:

UEI and Sirius brought these out at a dinner party a few weeks ago, and they are really, really cool. Basically, you put the radio receiver part in your media cabinet, and then the remote communicates with it via Z-Wave — and the display on the remote has a 3-line display showing the categories, station, current song, etc.

I never really liked having to turn on my TV to change channels on the Satellite Radio receiver from across the room. Now, I could do it from any room in the house–and the IR connector on the receiver would let me control the volume on my AV receiver too (all via Z-Wave, hopping through my home network).

Plus, the remote is a very nice universal remote–so you can also control your TV, DVR, etc. the old fashioned way.

Pretty nifty. This unit uses the Z-Wave “AV control” and “external screen” (aka “screen metadata”) functionality, and you’ll be able to control it from software applications on your PC as well.

Crutchfield is taking preorders.

Source: CocoonTech.com

Comment here.

Source: iMedia Law Blog

Contrary to earlier reports XM & Sirius digital satellite receivers bought in the U.S. will not be locked down in Canada.

Satellite radio just got a little cheaper in this country as XM Radio Canada has informed Digital Home Canada that it will activate satellite radio receivers purchased in the United States provided the listener resides in Canada.

The change in policy means that grey marketers will be able to convert to XM Radio Canada without having to buy new receivers, and more importantly it means that Canadians will have access to the same radios which are being sold in the United States.

Here’s the full article via Digital Home.

Comment here.

Yesterday, Stiletto’s started arriving around the country at Circuit City locations (NOTE: Crutchfield has shipped them out, TSS Radio expects to begin shipments next week, and no word on when Best Buy will receive them). Backstage members are the first to review the Stiletto and provide pictures. Reviews for the most part have been good, with the occasional gripe that the wifi doesn’t work well or live on the go reception isn’t good. However, surprisingly, lots of people are reporting that live on the go reception works well.

Backstage members will remember all of the S50 problems, and early reviews seem to indicate that the Stiletto is virtually bug free. As more people receive them we will see if this holds true.

Keep watching our Stiletto forum for more reviews and pictures.