TSS-Radio

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We are looking for customer submitted stories/articles to post in our blog.
Have a story? Great we would love to hear it.

Submit it to
Josh from TSS-Radio
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This is your chance to be heard.

Pick one of these subjects:
1. Tell us about your Sirius setup (esp. With pictures!).
2. Analysis of an item of Sirius news (and why its important to you or others).
3. Ideas for a new Sirius product(s).

Be creative and no Plagiarism

Multiple entries will be accepted
No purchase necessary and does not increase your chance of winning
Post will be picked based on content relative to anything Satellite radio.

One post will be selected as the winner on every Wednesday.

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The holiday season for TSS-Radio peaks about two weeks before christmas and subsides at the end of the January.  It is a fun time for us because we help lots of people, the adrenaline flows and we are on the top of our game, but everyone is a bit wiped right now and are glad that it is beginning to slow.

Here is a video of a busy day at TSS-Radio -

Our Shipping to Canada thus far has been through the United States Postal Service which gets handed off to Canada Post once through customs. For the most part things have been fine. We label and declare the customs value for each package honestly. Things have been shipped to Canada one of three methods, Global Priority Mail which averages 4-6 Business Days and Global Express Mail which Averages 3-5 Business Days. Global Priority does not have an official tracking system like UPS or FedEx but it comes with a Delivery Confirmation Number which will at least show that the item has been successfully delivered once it has arrived at the destination. Global Express mail does have tracking, but it’s still a step behind UPS and FedEx.

Starting very soon, we will begin shipping packages to Canada using DHL. The DHl sales rep stopped by today and I was more than blown away by the service. It should begin mid next week. Ultimately shipping a package Next Day should be more reasonable to Canada than it is within the United States using UPS. They are very competitive. It’s one of those things you’ve heard in the past but never quite taken the step to initiate anything.

All in all shipping say a SIRIUS Radio Car Antenna to Canada using DHL will take one business day and will cost roughly the same as the United States Postal Service’ Global Priority Mail which take about 4-6 Business Days. I also sincerely hope that Canadian customers take advantage of it since DHL does not have the same Brokerage fees as does UPS and FedEx.

On a separate note, last nights Episode of “Entourage” was not what I had hoped. But next weeks episode is partly shot at a restaurant in Beverly Hills, CA that I used to work in called Mastro’s Steakhouse . This will have been the third episode that was shot there, and this one seems to take place in the Wine Room. There was a time a few years back where I was working there and Bill Clinton had a private party in there with many celebrities including Quincy Jones, David Spade, Owen Wilson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many others. That same night, which was engraved in my memory, Conan O’Brien was there, he was hosting the Emmy’s later in the week, Britney Spears, and Joey McIntrye. I had the gumption to go up to Conan and tell him a joke based on the celebrities in the restaurant. He and his writers that he was eating with were more than kind, despite this being a fireable offense. They had told me that they’d consider the joke and play it the following week when he got back. Unfortunately the following week was the year anniversary of September 11. If you have a chance to watch “Entourage” it will be on next week on HBO usually around 11pm.

Somehow in the last week we got a lot of on Air Plugs. Maybe it just all landed on that one week. I’d love for it to always be like that. I was briefly interviewed by George Flowers on the Howard 100 News, Craig Gass mentioned us on the Jim Breuer show, and Steve Covino, “Covino” mentioned us as well on Octane. Thanks to all those for helping keep the SIRIUS sales up.

My personal weekend which only seems to last hours can always be frustrating for a number of reasons. It’s a balance of getting things together combined with working combined with attempting to relax. During the weekend always look forward to Monday-Friday since at least some solid work is getting done, not to mention new Stern shows breathing life into me.

Also Mondays is particularily good recently because of my new favorite show, “Entourage.” Artie Lange recently filmed an “Entourage” episode out in Los Angeles and that will definetely be a bonus. The show has some of the best cliff hangers ever.

This week we look forward to receiving our first batch of GM Sirius Connect Units on Wednesday. Of many many pieces we placed orders for back in 2005, we are getting a small batch. We have many customers who are eagerly awaiting their units but the supply is quite limited, which is very frustrating and once again, we have no control over getting more or not.

In a month things will be moving far faster with the introduction of the SIRIUS new Live Portable the SL100TK1, the new Universal Kits, the SUPH1, SUPV1, and SUBX1. For retailers, the Holiday Season is just around the corner.

DailyTech just wrote a pretty negative article Sirius Pulls Some Radios Due to FCC Probe about how the FCC ruling that some of the FM transmitters are too strong on SIRIUS radios has caused SIRIUS to stop shipping a bunch of radios. I have three comments:

1. The picture that DailyTech attached to the article is of the Sportster4 (SP4-TK1) one of the few sirius radios that has a newer, weaker, FM transmitter and is not affected by the FCCs latest decision

2. The decision has had a significant impact on our business. A lot of the better selling radios, like the Sirius S50, are not presently available, and our radio sales have slowed - I would be very surprised if this did not affect SIRIUS’ financials

3. One great solution to this problem is to use a Wired FM modulator, to hardwire your SIRIUS signal into your car - they are not hard to install, they are only $20 and the sound quality is much better

As usual, things have been going great here at TSS-Radio. The weather is great and its the time of year for installing that new SIRIUS system in your car or truck!
I have been taking pictures to help everyone out with their install. We have added detail pictures to all of the antennas so that you can now see what the connectors on each one are like. Hopefully this will clear up any confusion about which antenna you need for your receiver. As you may or may not know, there are 2 types of antenna connector. The first type is the Fakra connector which is a square plastic connector and only found on much older receivers like the Kenwood and some OEM SIRIUS car receivers (i.e. Infinity). The other type is a regular SMB which is what the majority of receivers and docking stations have. The SMB can be straight or right angle. I have also added photos to the Truck antenna to make it easier to see what the mounting hardware is like.

In other TSS news, we will be getting the much sought after Home Antenna back in stock. The Home Antenna can be mounted on the outside of your house for a clearer view of the sky. We have also just added a part that will help you get a cleaner looking vehicle Installation is the 12v Power Hardwire Cable. This cable will allow you to have the power for your 12v receiver hardwired to your cars power, NO MORE CIGARETTE LIGHTER ADAPTER!
While we are on the subject of antennas and installation, we would love to see your Sirius Installation! If you live in the Chicago area and have a great Sirius Installation in your vehicle, email me at ross@tss-radio.com. Have a great 4th!

Ross

We have been terrible about posting lately. One reason for that is that for the past 8 weeks we have been planning a relocation of our entire business. We are still a small company but over the past year we have grown out of our current space and need something bigger.

Also, for a variety of personal and business reasons we have decided to move the business from it’s current location in Los Angeles to Chicago. Moving such a long distance will further complicate the logistics of the move.

We expect the move to significantly improve the level of service that we are able to offer to our customers. We will have a better phone system, be able to stock more inventory, etc, etc, etc. Needless to say, we are really excited about it.

Unfortunately the downside of the move is that we need to shutdown for a little while. Anything ordered between Wednesday 2/15 and Tuesday 2/21 will not ship until Wednesday 2/22. We really don’t like the idea of being out of service for a whole week, but we really need that much time in order to ensure that the move goes smoothly.

We will post more details about the move and our new location soon.

We always seem to forget truly how busy it gets at this time. The Shipping Services get far behind. We trust USPS and UPS to get the job done, though at this holiday season it is difficult. Most Priority mail takes 2-3 days average. Some people think it takes a definite 2-3 days, but it’s more of an average, in fact many times, especially when things are not so hectic Priority Mail can get there the next day. Well, lot of the Priority Mail shipped out recently has been taking 3-6 days. Ugh. Also had a UPS Next Day Air to Houston that took 3 days. About 70% of the USPS has been 2-3 days but the rest hasn’t. USPS Express has been good and so has UPS 2nd Day Air.

Once a package leaves here it still depends on maybe 6 or so people to get their job done and quickly to get it to you on time.

Well, it’s almost over.