XM radio update

I just returned from about three weeks in the west with XM and have some observations.
I left the Wednesday after the Independence Day holiday and rode to the home of friends in Alma, Colo., just south of Breckenridge. I like to keep a journal of my travels and, when I sat down to write an account of my first day's ride - from Thorntown, IN to Topeka, KS - I realized I hadn't noticed all that much along the roadside. I found I reacted well to unexpected traffic movements, but the passing scenery didn't make all that much of an impression on me. That said, it was the most pleasant ride down I-70 through Missouri that I've ever experienced. Ditto the next day across Kansas.
I expected to lose the signal riding up into the mountains on U.S. 24 from Colorado Springs since the road passes through a deep canyon, but it never faltered. It was cool to ride for hours and hours listening to the same stations and never having them fade like terrestrial-based transmitters would.
There were occasions when the signal would blank out momentarily - like when a semitrailer truck would pass on my immediate south side, blocking the line of sight to the satellites, or going through the I-70 tunnels and gorge of Glenwood Canyon (I lost a couple of minutes of the long version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on that one).
From Alma, I rode up to the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America national rally in Spokane. In the southern Idaho desert, I ran into a rainstorm that looked small enough that I could just blast through. It turned out to be deeper and heavier than I'd guessed and by the time I got pulled over and stowed the Roady, the buttons had stopped working. Fortunately, when I rode into the clear and re-mounted the Roady, the hot desert wind dried out whatever moisture was causing the problem and it functioned perfectly again.
The cord with the in-line volume control is a straight-in plug, unlike the ones on the power supply and the antenna, which are right-angle connections. Consequently, the output cord sticks out to the left of the unit. This became a major issue last Sunday when I was gassing to leave Spokane for Crater Lake and Big Sur.
I flipped up my Marsee tankbag to access the gas tank and inadvertently slammed it into the projecting output cord, ripping the Roady from its mount. The cords held it from crashing to the ground, but the impact severely loosened the output plug connection and it became increasingly unreliable over the next two days of riding.
Finally, the next day, it got to the point where I could no longer get a good output connection.
Distraught over being stuck in California without XM, I got on the phone in my Motel 6 room in Red Bluff, CA and called the XM 800 number to see if they could direct me to the nearest XM retailer. I figured I was going to end up with a second unit for my wife anyway, so why not get it now and use it for the rest of the trip?
They directed me to a T/A truck stop about 17 miles south down I-5. I phoned the truck stop and determined that they had a Roady and would hold it for me.
I rode there, bought the unit, used my cell phone to do the activation and had a fully activated and functional Roady working by the time I got back to the motel - all in the space of about an hour and 15 minutes. I can't say enough about how easy it is to get the unit activated once it's hooked up and ready to use.
Needless to say, I made a habit of unplugging the output cord before flipping up the tankbag at every gas stop for the rest of the trip. I think the ultimate fix will be to get a right-angle stereo miniplug adaptor for the output cord. I made a cursory search for a Radio Shack in Frisco, Colo. on the way home but was unsuccessful.
Once I have the right-angle adaptor in place, I should be able to use my rain cover - it doesn't fit properly with the current setup, causing me to have to stow the unit in my tankbag whenever it looks like rain. Sean Franklin of Cyclegadgets.com said the unit needs to breathe, so running it from inside a tankbag is not a good idea.