Satellite Radio
Created | Updated Apr 20, 2007
As far back as the early twentieth century, people have been listening to the radio. They used it to get their news, listen to music, and hear their favorite radio programs. It was, in short, the entertainment medium for the masses.
Fast forward roughly eighty-five years. Radio is ubiquitous. We still use it for the same purposes as they used it for in the early 1900's. But as time has passed, the drawbacks of radio have become more and more apparent. Radio is fuzzy. Static fills your car when driving under bridges or through tunnels. The sound quality isn't very good. The content is limited to music and talk radio, both of which must be censored to make it appropriate for all ages. What we need is a new, more sophisticated way to listen.
Enter Satellite Radio. What we have here is a whole new way to listen. Clear, almost uninterruptable music/news/entertainment/what-have-you. Few commercials, with none on the music channels. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is auditory heaven.
Now, there are a few differences between setting up a traditional radio, and setting up a satellite radio. A traditional radio is an out-of-the-box ready device. Just plug it in and it's ready. A satellite radio, on the other hand, requires setting up an account with the company of your choice and subscribing to their service using a major credit card. Then you get to aim the antenna, which is a tricky affair. The direction you have to aim it depends on where you live, and the antenna must have an unobstructed "line-of-sight". Thankfully, the various companies' web sites have instructions for doing this (this, of course, only applies if you are setting up a home-based system. Vehicle-based systems do not need to be aimed). After you have performed this little bit of techno-voodoo, you are ready to listen.
Of course, it is well known that anything that relies on a signal from a satellite can be tempermental. The signal can fade in and out with the passing of the clouds, or it can get choppy when the wind blows a few tree branches in front of the antenna, or when you are driving through a city with tall buildings. Obviously, traditional radio doesn't have this problem. Standard radio waves go anywhere they please, obstacles or no, and never have a problem getting to a traditional radio.
But, signal issues aside, the overall sound quality is astounding. Most of the time, it can be as good or better than the CD player. And the variety of programming available is far superior to that which is offered by traditional radio.
Ok, lets get down to the technical bits. Back in 1992, the FCC allocated a bit of the radio spectrum in the "S" Band (which, by the way, is 2.3 GHz) for the broadcasting of Digital Audio Radio Service (shorthanded to DARS). XM and Sirius paid over $80 million a piece (or £46.5 million) to broadcast on this piece of the spectrum.
The companies use slightly different methods to get all this satellite radio to your ears. XM uses two satellites, dubbed "Rock" and "Roll", which orbit the Earth in a geostationary orbit, one at 85 degrees west longitude and the other at 115 degrees west longitude. Sirius uses three satellites, each on an inclined elliptical orbit. Ground stations send the data to the satellites, which then send them as encoded data to people's recievers, where the data will be decoded and turned into music, artist info and song info, of which the latter two are visible on your recievers' screen. In the event that you are driving through a city, where tall buildings can often block the incoming satellite signal, ground-based repeaters will pick up the slack and ensure that you get to hear your music/news/etc.
Worldspace Satellite radio works a bit differently. Currently, they have three satellites in a geostationary orbit, covering the vast majority of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the United Kingdom, plus South America and some of Mexico. They broadcast roughly 50 channels over the 1,467 to 1,492-megahertz segment of the L-Band spectrum. Currently, they are the worldwide leader in satellite radio broadcasting. While they don't have quite the channel/content selection of XM and Sirius, their ability to cover the vast majority of the world puts them ahead in satellite broadcasting.
These companies are funded mainly through Subscriber fees and advertising, with some revenue coming from various other companies that they have marketing agreements with, such as XM's deal with General Motors to have their radios installed in various makes and models of GM vehicles. The majority of the music channels on all three services are commercial-free, so the advertising is done through the talk, news, and entertainment channels.
It's an almost accepted fact that as entertainment providers provide more entertainment, the quality of said entertainment can sometimes deteriorate. It seems, though, that with satellite radio, the norm is the more, the merrier. More content available seems to just mean more and better variety, with little degradation in programming quality, and overall, the content available through the various providers seems solid and well-produced.
Fast forward roughly eighty-five years. Radio is ubiquitous. We still use it for the same purposes as they used it for in the early 1900's. But as time has passed, the drawbacks of radio have become more and more apparent. Radio is fuzzy. Static fills your car when driving under bridges or through tunnels. The sound quality isn't very good. The content is limited to music and talk radio, both of which must be censored to make it appropriate for all ages. What we need is a new, more sophisticated way to listen.
Enter Satellite Radio. What we have here is a whole new way to listen. Clear, almost uninterruptable music/news/entertainment/what-have-you. Few commercials, with none on the music channels. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is auditory heaven.
Now, there are a few differences between setting up a traditional radio, and setting up a satellite radio. A traditional radio is an out-of-the-box ready device. Just plug it in and it's ready. A satellite radio, on the other hand, requires setting up an account with the company of your choice and subscribing to their service using a major credit card. Then you get to aim the antenna, which is a tricky affair. The direction you have to aim it depends on where you live, and the antenna must have an unobstructed "line-of-sight". Thankfully, the various companies' web sites have instructions for doing this (this, of course, only applies if you are setting up a home-based system. Vehicle-based systems do not need to be aimed). After you have performed this little bit of techno-voodoo, you are ready to listen.
Of course, it is well known that anything that relies on a signal from a satellite can be tempermental. The signal can fade in and out with the passing of the clouds, or it can get choppy when the wind blows a few tree branches in front of the antenna, or when you are driving through a city with tall buildings. Obviously, traditional radio doesn't have this problem. Standard radio waves go anywhere they please, obstacles or no, and never have a problem getting to a traditional radio.
But, signal issues aside, the overall sound quality is astounding. Most of the time, it can be as good or better than the CD player. And the variety of programming available is far superior to that which is offered by traditional radio.
Ok, lets get down to the technical bits. Back in 1992, the FCC allocated a bit of the radio spectrum in the "S" Band (which, by the way, is 2.3 GHz) for the broadcasting of Digital Audio Radio Service (shorthanded to DARS). XM and Sirius paid over $80 million a piece (or £46.5 million) to broadcast on this piece of the spectrum.
The companies use slightly different methods to get all this satellite radio to your ears. XM uses two satellites, dubbed "Rock" and "Roll", which orbit the Earth in a geostationary orbit, one at 85 degrees west longitude and the other at 115 degrees west longitude. Sirius uses three satellites, each on an inclined elliptical orbit. Ground stations send the data to the satellites, which then send them as encoded data to people's recievers, where the data will be decoded and turned into music, artist info and song info, of which the latter two are visible on your recievers' screen. In the event that you are driving through a city, where tall buildings can often block the incoming satellite signal, ground-based repeaters will pick up the slack and ensure that you get to hear your music/news/etc.
Worldspace Satellite radio works a bit differently. Currently, they have three satellites in a geostationary orbit, covering the vast majority of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the United Kingdom, plus South America and some of Mexico. They broadcast roughly 50 channels over the 1,467 to 1,492-megahertz segment of the L-Band spectrum. Currently, they are the worldwide leader in satellite radio broadcasting. While they don't have quite the channel/content selection of XM and Sirius, their ability to cover the vast majority of the world puts them ahead in satellite broadcasting.
These companies are funded mainly through Subscriber fees and advertising, with some revenue coming from various other companies that they have marketing agreements with, such as XM's deal with General Motors to have their radios installed in various makes and models of GM vehicles. The majority of the music channels on all three services are commercial-free, so the advertising is done through the talk, news, and entertainment channels.
It's an almost accepted fact that as entertainment providers provide more entertainment, the quality of said entertainment can sometimes deteriorate. It seems, though, that with satellite radio, the norm is the more, the merrier. More content available seems to just mean more and better variety, with little degradation in programming quality, and overall, the content available through the various providers seems solid and well-produced.
