Sirius XM chatter

[shrpshtr325]

Crutchfield -> replace entertainment system.

im playing with macrodroid so i may have a solution in mind, will have to do some experimenting, check back next week.

with all the dropouts showing up lately it might be preferable to just have a streaming subscription for more than just the savings

 

[Robin]

I was considering just getting the app/web version and streaming through my AndroidAuto...

I'm also considering trying to get the price down by giving them the argument of "I can listen to podcasts/music for free so why should I keep them".

 

[Patrick]

I was considering just getting the app/web version and streaming through my AndroidAuto...

I'm also considering trying to get the price down by giving them the argument of "I can listen to podcasts/music for free so why should I keep them".

you'd be surprised where there isn't cell coverage.

 

[shrpshtr325]

you'd be surprised where there isn't cell coverage.

if your talking about commuting/local driving we are pretty well covered in nj,

if your talking about traveling then yes.

 

[trener1]

you'd be surprised where there isn't cell coverage.

This is indeed one of the reasons that I have Sirius to begin with, I started spending a fair amount of time up in the Catskills, and you wont be streaming much of anything in the car up there, so if you dont like to drive in silence it's pretty much the only way to go

 

[KF2M]

im playing with macrodroid so i may have a solution in mind, will have to do some experimenting, check back next week.

with all the dropouts showing up lately it might be preferable to just have a streaming subscription for more than just the savings

G4 solar storm just occurred. It will have an impact on all terrestrial communications for the coming days.

Space Weather by SolarHam

www.solarham.net

 

[rick81721]

G4 solar storm just occurred. It will have an impact on all terrestrial communications for the coming days.

Space Weather by SolarHam

www.solarham.net

My friend north of Minneapolis saw amazing aurora last night

 

[shrpshtr325]

G4 solar storm just occurred. It will have an impact on all terrestrial communications for the coming days.

Space Weather by SolarHam

www.solarham.net

My complaints are ongoing not recent. More likely related to interference from cell towers or similar

 

[Patrick]

My complaints are ongoing not recent. More likely related to interference from cell towers or similar

XM radios have two delivery vectors -
One is line of site to two geosync'd satellites
The other is ground based repeaters to cover areas that would be blocked - city streets, valleys, etc
Bandwidth is relatively low, which is why it doesn't need a dish.

In some cases, an individual building can get in the way if there is no local repeater - they think the area has good line of site.
In other cases, it will work in a tunnel, cause they planned for it.

Sirius has three (maybe 4 now) satellites in a tundra orbit - with a bit of offset, they go north/south, with the earth spinning under it,
the projection is a loop over north america, with two active at all times. The others go to sleep, and recharge as they make a loop over
the southern hemisphere somewhere (too lazy to look it up) - interestingly enough, these are launched out of the Kazakhstan space port.
The Russian scientists are specialists in this because of the shape of Russia (formerly USSR)

Cool animation here: http://neilrieck.net/docs/sirius.html

 

[KF2M]

My complaints are ongoing not recent. More likely related to interference from cell towers or similar

Could be your receiver or antenna as well. A poor connection can make all the difference. Though big objects like the water tower just outside my office will block all Satcomms including my company's Iridium radios, and GPS. Nice big shadow of nothingness which makes any testing for work that I do even harder. A typical celltower will not block a Sat radio. Too small, and the comms coming off the tower are far enough away in frequency to bother with a Sat radio. Though I have seen where a harmonic of transmitters signal could mix with the IF stage of a receiver and cause trouble. Usually that is because of poor filtering and internal shielding within the receiver but I do not think it is the case here.

 

[Bike N Gear]

So what causes interruptions in certain places throughout Metuchen? I can drive 400 miles to go skiing and not miss a beat, but there are a few spots in town were the signal always drops for a few seconds. Always has.

 

[shrpshtr325]

so all 3 of our cars with receivers have the same 'dead' zones, they are mostly near cell towers, and i have seen (unsubstantiated) claims that the new 5g cell towers cause interference with satellite radios, this seems to make the most sense, i have actually tried 3 different receiver antennas on my truck and the initial factory one gets the best reception.

There is ONE spot that seems like a tall building may be blocking it, but its still annoying (especially bc one of the areas is where i get stuck at a traffic light omw home from work, sometimes for multiple cycles of the light)

 

[Patrick]

The new receivers are iot connected. I wonder if they were smart enough to have it report dead spots?

 

[KF2M]

So what causes interruptions in certain places throughout Metuchen? I can drive 400 miles to go skiing and not miss a beat, but there are a few spots in town were the signal always drops for a few seconds. Always has.

It could any number of things. For example if the bird you are using is low on the horizon any large solid object in between could block the signal until the receiver handshakes with another bird (this happens so many times and you will not even realize unless it takes longer than usual to handshake then you will see a drop out since the radios buffer emptied). With that said other forms of RF can cause interference. Either masking the signal (more powerful than your intended received signal), or by mixing where stray RF at the right frequency could be picked up by the radio and mixed into IF sections of the receiver. The latter would mostly occur on older analog receivers and the radios output sounds like crap. With digital if the signal gets corrupted the receiver usually just goes silent.

 

[Sven Migot]

My friend north of Minneapolis saw amazing aurora last night

View attachment 210041

View attachment 210042

Lake George last night

Great Sacandaga Lake

 

[rlb]

Just re-upped both cars. I had the $4.99 deal ($6.46 w/ taxes) for 12 months previously. They offered me the same plan for $7.75 all-in. I took it without additional haggling, IMO that's better than I expected given the price increase of everything these days.

 

[shrpshtr325]

I keep getting the postcards for the 4.99/month deal....

 

[rlb]

I keep getting the postcards for the 4.99/month deal....

Is that what you have now? Or did you recently get a new car?

 

[Robson]

Just re-upped both cars. I had the $4.99 deal ($6.46 w/ taxes) for 12 months previously. They offered me the same plan for $7.75 all-in. I took it without additional haggling, IMO that's better than I expected given the price increase of everything these days.

$7.75 for what plan?

 

[rlb]

$7.75 for what plan?

Music and Entertainment I believe, also includes app access.