Satellite Radio?
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
I really don't know, I'd like to find out too. I wanna get XM, but I don't know if it'll work correctly with my system. I've got some subwoofers and amps hooked up in my SUV and it sounds great with CD's, but if I use the radio, the subs don't even seem to be on. I'd hate to pay for XM satellite radio and it still sounds just like the regular radio. My articles www.stillwaterexpress.com BlackDice
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
It really doesn't take much power, Stan. Although a geosynchronous orbit is about 35,000 km above the surface, all but the last 30 km is airless. The only power loss there is due to the inverse-square law. Atmospheric attenuation is much higher, but 30 km is as nothing. When conditions were right, I once chatted with a guy in Georgia - 3,000 miles away - using a 4W CB radio; a condition called "skip." Modern receivers are very sensitive, too, and remember that satellite transmitters have antennas that focus all of the output power into a relatively small part of the sky - the part that is roundish and mostly blue-green. Still, the cost seems quite reasonable. :-D Boredom, Bull$^%&, Baggage, Bar - all start with 'B'
Coincidence? -
I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
Stan Shannon wrote: I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. Stan - I just got one as a present from my son. It is XM and the version is XM2 Go. The great thing about this is that it is portable, about the size of an iPOD. It comes with 3 antennas, one for the car, one for home and a personal one that you can clip to your shirt if you want to listen while walking or whatever. Obviously it also comes with ear buds. In the car you can either broadcast to your radio via a choice of several FM bands (pick the one that doesn't have a local station broadcasting) or you can feed the radio via the tape deck. I highly recommend it. Especially station 12 (X-Country - great stuff), 74 (Blues), 121 (FoxNews) or 166 (America Right, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingrham, Michael Medved, Regan). Mike "liberals were driven crazy by Bush." Me To: Dixie Sluts, M. Moore, the Boss, Bon Jovi, Clooney, Penn, Babs, Soros, Redford, Gore, Daschle - "bye bye" Me "I voted for W." Me "There you go again." RR "Flushed the Johns" Me K(arl) wrote: Date:8:50 23 Feb '05 I love you.
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It really doesn't take much power, Stan. Although a geosynchronous orbit is about 35,000 km above the surface, all but the last 30 km is airless. The only power loss there is due to the inverse-square law. Atmospheric attenuation is much higher, but 30 km is as nothing. When conditions were right, I once chatted with a guy in Georgia - 3,000 miles away - using a 4W CB radio; a condition called "skip." Modern receivers are very sensitive, too, and remember that satellite transmitters have antennas that focus all of the output power into a relatively small part of the sky - the part that is roundish and mostly blue-green. Still, the cost seems quite reasonable. :-D Boredom, Bull$^%&, Baggage, Bar - all start with 'B'
Coincidence?Roger Wright wrote: It really doesn't take much power I wish I had time to do some research on it. I'm a former Navy electronics technician so I'm fairly comfortable with the physical principles involved. But I just can't seem to get my head around the notion of that signal being picked up reliably by a device I can carry around in my hand - while inside my car. Roger Wright wrote: satellite transmitters have antennas that focus all of the output power into a relatively small part of the sky Which explains how a dish in your backyard works - pointing at that small area of the sky. The reciever in my car ain't pointing at nothing.
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
I have Sirius on the my car and so far I am happy with the reception and its offering. The only time that I lose signal is when I am in a parking lot or under a highway. The quality is definitely better than FM radio but it is not a CD quality. It is more like 128 kbps MP3. Sirius offers 3 days free trial so you can sample their channels. Once you have an account with them, you would be able to listen streaming audio over internet as well. Compare XM and Sirius by subscribing to their free trial and sample their channels. Good luck.
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Stan Shannon wrote: I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. Stan - I just got one as a present from my son. It is XM and the version is XM2 Go. The great thing about this is that it is portable, about the size of an iPOD. It comes with 3 antennas, one for the car, one for home and a personal one that you can clip to your shirt if you want to listen while walking or whatever. Obviously it also comes with ear buds. In the car you can either broadcast to your radio via a choice of several FM bands (pick the one that doesn't have a local station broadcasting) or you can feed the radio via the tape deck. I highly recommend it. Especially station 12 (X-Country - great stuff), 74 (Blues), 121 (FoxNews) or 166 (America Right, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingrham, Michael Medved, Regan). Mike "liberals were driven crazy by Bush." Me To: Dixie Sluts, M. Moore, the Boss, Bon Jovi, Clooney, Penn, Babs, Soros, Redford, Gore, Daschle - "bye bye" Me "I voted for W." Me "There you go again." RR "Flushed the Johns" Me K(arl) wrote: Date:8:50 23 Feb '05 I love you.
Thanks, Mike. On that recommendation, I think I will make the plunge. Although, I'm thinking about Sirius rather than XM. I wouldn't think that there would be much difference between the two services.
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Stan Shannon wrote: I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. Stan - I just got one as a present from my son. It is XM and the version is XM2 Go. The great thing about this is that it is portable, about the size of an iPOD. It comes with 3 antennas, one for the car, one for home and a personal one that you can clip to your shirt if you want to listen while walking or whatever. Obviously it also comes with ear buds. In the car you can either broadcast to your radio via a choice of several FM bands (pick the one that doesn't have a local station broadcasting) or you can feed the radio via the tape deck. I highly recommend it. Especially station 12 (X-Country - great stuff), 74 (Blues), 121 (FoxNews) or 166 (America Right, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingrham, Michael Medved, Regan). Mike "liberals were driven crazy by Bush." Me To: Dixie Sluts, M. Moore, the Boss, Bon Jovi, Clooney, Penn, Babs, Soros, Redford, Gore, Daschle - "bye bye" Me "I voted for W." Me "There you go again." RR "Flushed the Johns" Me K(arl) wrote: Date:8:50 23 Feb '05 I love you.
Does the xm2 go work anywhere? I am looking into this also but I want to make sure that it works on the train. Also does it work in your office building? I really like the idea of satellite Radio espeically all the sports talk. Regular radio just has to many commercials. Especailly ESPN radio, they talk for like 10 mins and then have a 15 min commercial, its extremely annoying. :mad:
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
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Does the xm2 go work anywhere? I am looking into this also but I want to make sure that it works on the train. Also does it work in your office building? I really like the idea of satellite Radio espeically all the sports talk. Regular radio just has to many commercials. Especailly ESPN radio, they talk for like 10 mins and then have a 15 min commercial, its extremely annoying. :mad:
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
BrockVnm wrote: Does the xm2 go work anywhere? I live in an old high rise condo on the 6th floor. I use it in my office (which is in my home), an area where I can't get cell phone reception. The home antenna has a 25 foot line so you can position the antenna in the best possible location. I acctually bought a 50 foot extension (you can add 2) to get it to the window with the best exposure. The literature says yo need to point it to the southern sky but XM at least has signal repeaters on the ground in he bigger cities so mostly you need a clear shot at a window. I would imagine that the reception differes based on the building. I wouldn't think there would be a problem on a train. Mike "liberals were driven crazy by Bush." Me To: Dixie Sluts, M. Moore, the Boss, Bon Jovi, Clooney, Penn, Babs, Soros, Redford, Gore, Daschle - "bye bye" Me "I voted for W." Me "There you go again." RR "Flushed the Johns" Me K(arl) wrote: Date:8:50 23 Feb '05 I love you.
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Thanks, Mike. On that recommendation, I think I will make the plunge. Although, I'm thinking about Sirius rather than XM. I wouldn't think that there would be much difference between the two services.
Stan Shannon wrote: Sirius rather than XM Sirius has Pro football XM has Pro baseball but you can go on line to check out the offerings of each. Mike "liberals were driven crazy by Bush." Me To: Dixie Sluts, M. Moore, the Boss, Bon Jovi, Clooney, Penn, Babs, Soros, Redford, Gore, Daschle - "bye bye" Me "I voted for W." Me "There you go again." RR "Flushed the Johns" Me K(arl) wrote: Date:8:50 23 Feb '05 I love you.
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
we got Sirius and we are really disappointed with it. The reception is terrible. However, my mother in law got XM and it seems to work everywhere here in Salt Lake.
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
I have XM and I love it. I do not however have an add-on unit. Mine is integrated right into my car stereo (6 speaker with 6 disc CD changer and integrated XM) that was installed when I bought the car. The sound quality is superb and I love the fact that I can drive anywhere and not have to change channels. If you get an add-on unit your sound quality might not be as good though, but I am not sure. I guess it would depend on how you got the sound from the XM receiver into your stereo. There are several options to use there.. You can get one of those adapters that fit into a tape deck and play that way or you can get a receiver that re-broadcasts on an FM frequency to your radio. I have had times where the signal gets lost however. Usually if I drive under a large overpass or inside a parking garage I loose it. I have also lost it when driving between 2 tall buildings. I hear that some cities are actually installing repeaters for shadow areas like this…
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Roger Wright wrote: It really doesn't take much power I wish I had time to do some research on it. I'm a former Navy electronics technician so I'm fairly comfortable with the physical principles involved. But I just can't seem to get my head around the notion of that signal being picked up reliably by a device I can carry around in my hand - while inside my car. Roger Wright wrote: satellite transmitters have antennas that focus all of the output power into a relatively small part of the sky Which explains how a dish in your backyard works - pointing at that small area of the sky. The reciever in my car ain't pointing at nothing.
Think about the GPS system. It really only takes a fraction of a watt. Richard In a world of pollution, profanity, adolescence, zits, broccoli, racism, ozone depletion, sexism, stupid guys, and PMS, why the hell do people still tell me to have a nice day? --Unknown
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Roger Wright wrote: It really doesn't take much power I wish I had time to do some research on it. I'm a former Navy electronics technician so I'm fairly comfortable with the physical principles involved. But I just can't seem to get my head around the notion of that signal being picked up reliably by a device I can carry around in my hand - while inside my car. Roger Wright wrote: satellite transmitters have antennas that focus all of the output power into a relatively small part of the sky Which explains how a dish in your backyard works - pointing at that small area of the sky. The reciever in my car ain't pointing at nothing.
Stan Shannon wrote: Roger Wright wrote: satellite transmitters have antennas that focus all of the output power into a relatively small part of the sky Which explains how a dish in your backyard works - pointing at that small area of the sky. The reciever in my car ain't pointing at nothing. I think Roger was talking about the transmitters being directed earthward, not the receivers directed skyward. From the satellite's perspective earth is ball of diameter 12 at a distance of 35. A bit of trig reveals that all its energy can be focused into a beam with a spread of less tha 20 degrees and still cover all of the "visible" side of Earth. In reality they probably focus a satellite on a smaller target than the entire planet. Steve T
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
Not much more than GPS. The big enabling technolongy on this stuff has been the improved sensitiivity of receivers which as made many systems possible. 3G phones work with signals down to -120dBm, that is 10 to the minus 15th of a watt. In technical terms it's teenteenweeny ;) Elaine (sensitive fluffy tigress) The tigress is here :-D
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
I realize that Satelite Radio is a subscription based service, but if a person has a radio receiver, wouldn't they therefore be able to get the broadcasts? Or does it work like satelite tv service in that there is a card in the receiver box that is activated by the subscription company? I guess a signal is beamed down from the satelite to do this.
"Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who put them into action are priceless." - Unknown
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Thanks, Mike. On that recommendation, I think I will make the plunge. Although, I'm thinking about Sirius rather than XM. I wouldn't think that there would be much difference between the two services.
Stan Shannon wrote: I wouldn't think that there would be much difference between the two services. For all intents and purposes, probably not. The only big difference that I can see, not that it matters, is that Sirius does not use GEO satellites.
"Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who put them into action are priceless." - Unknown
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The company i work for do GPS stuff and we have blue tooth gps recievers that you can put in your pocket and walk around with. They are about the size of two match boxes and run for a few days on the internal battery.
Josh, I'm just curious what company this is. I work for Timex and we have a GPS based speed and distance system for athletes. We can't get anything as small as your talking about. Here[^] is some more info about our products. By the way, our first generation product used a Garmin designed device, while our current products use Navman technology. Regards, Brigg Thorp Senior Software Engineer Timex Corporation
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I'm thinking about getting satellite radio for my car. Is anyone useing it? Any opinions pro or con? It seems to be a very reasonably priced service if it performs as well as they claim. I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed in regard to how this technology works. I can understand that a satellite could produce enough energy to be picked up by a dish in your back yard. But it seems that to be picked up by a tiny little reciever in your car it would need the equivalent of a nuclear reactor in orbit pumping out a hundred billion watts of radio energy, or very numerous satellites in very low orbit. In either case, it would seem to be a very expensive operation to be offered for a mere $13/month.
Always wanted to know, if it's Satellite, does not have 2 way comunication, how can they make you pay? if you have a receiver, you will receive the broadcast. What technology are they using for stopping your receiver to receive the signal? Monthly broadcast key? Thanks Al