Long ago, I tried Sirius satellite radio on my Kenwood HU – but it was hopeless on the roads I drive every day, cutting out almost any time I saw a tree somewhere nearby! Eventually I ripped it out and scrapped it.
But thinking of the drive from Florida on The Great Ice Cream Run, I wondered about trying satellite radio again – I saw a good deal on an “add-in” XM radio receiver so decided to try it out.
All last week, it worked well; it didn’t drop out every time a tree showed itself – just once or twice for less than a second during my drive to/from work … and it worked very well on Friday during torrential rain. So I signed up to XM radio …
What happens? Today, it’s been absolutely useless, cutting out for at least 75% of the time – doesn’t seem to be related at all to anything much blocking the sky view (although I don’t really know where the XM satellite is in the sky).
Totally infuriating!
I decided to go to the XM website and complain, maybe demand my money back, but what do I see, in small letters in one corner of the site:
5/21 Service Degradation
You may be experiencing temporary degraded performance with your XM reception at the present time. XM is aware of the issue and working diligently to resolve it as soon as possible. We anticipate full signal strength will be restored by early Tuesday morning.
So is this a special “welcome” for me? I’m definitely satellite cursed 😦
Or maybe, XM radio fails like this every few weeks; I don’t know – anyone with experience out there? Of XM or Sirius?
M&I / GBMINI 
It’s not just you, Ian, XM’s satellite outage made national news today and affected the majority of their customers. What is surprising is they added two new satellites earlier this year, while keeping the old ones on standby as backups…so why couldn’t they switch to the backup?
But it is the first time this has happened in the history of either company, so I’m sure you will be OK for the ice cream run.
(And as you know I’ve been an ecstatic Sirius customer and proponent of satellite radio in general for over four years now)
I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of XM for a few years now and today is definitely the first time it has been anything this close to useless. xmradiofan.com were told that the outage was temporary while they upload a software update to one of the sats. Yeah, who does a blocking software update during prime time?
Another theory is that its Opie and Anthony’s revenge for being suspended.
Bottom line, this is very unusual for XM. I just hope they fix it soon.
Ian: XM’s four HS-702 satellites, built by Boeing, are geosynchronous, XM-1 called “Rock” is a hot backup at 85 degrees west longitude co-located with XM-3 called “Rythm”. XM-2 called “Roll”, also a hot backup, is co-located at 115 degrees longitude with XM-4 called “Blues”. XM-5, being built by Loral, is a ground spare. So as Rock and Roll fade into backup status (due to clouding solar panels) Rythm and Blues have taken over!
Thanks for the locations, Murray 🙂
My wife has Serius. She states she only loses signal in parking garages, underpasses. When I use her car I experience that also. iPod is it for me.
Grrrr….. still down today. I see that XM has a page up saying it will be fixed “midday Eastern Time” but they fail to say which day that will be… 🙂
Had to listen to the local idiots Jeff and Jerr today.
I hope the outage is revenge for XM suspending O and A. I know I won’t be giving them any money until they return to having uncensored radio.
Ok, XM claims all has been restored. We’ll see….
MUCH BETTER!
About 2s total cutouts on the extended drive tonight, out to Costco and back home – and the cutouts were understandable … hope it stays working 🙂
I’m in Florida now, and my rental SUV POS has XM. It was so-so yesterday. Maybe cutting out a few seconds every 10-20 minutes. All better today. Funny thing, though. Today we kept losing GPS satellite reception during flight testing in our helicopter. Of course that could just be our GPS installation shaking itself to pieces over time.
Hello Ian,
I had XM in the PT Cruiser until I got the MINI last December. I was one of their “beta launch” customers, since the beginning. I’d say that 99% of the time you will have coverage, unless they have one of these uncommon glitches. Mine was rock solid up and down Rt95 on trips to Orlando from Boston. They have repeaters in the large cities, so you don’t get dropout unless in a tunnel. Mine even worked in 80% of the Big Dig Boston tunnels, till right near the middle. Originally I got it so I could listen to the BBC World Service in the car. Now, with the MINI, all I do is drive and play CD’s, so no XM in the MINI yet. Are you using a roof mount antenna? Those antennas you throw on the dash are rubbish. Stick with them, it should work fine. And – next year, XM and Sirius may be combined into one company. Don’t know how that will work, as XM’s birds are geosync orbits and Sirius are low earth orbit, constantly moving. The antenna position on the car makes all the difference.
Dave
Thanks, Dave.
Yes to roof-mount antenna. XM was perfect again going to Gavins house and back today. Watching the signal levels, I see terrestrial being picked up as far out as Beverly – pretty good!
My Sirius came today; longer report later but so far – it cuts out under trees just like it used to (and with the antenna on the roof). No terrestrial signal (probably only right in the center of Boston)
For those of you with XM you can get a credit for the outages. From the Detroit Free Press:
RADIO: Glitch leads to customer credit
XM Satellite Radio said Tuesday it will give customers credit for two days’ worth of service after a software glitch interrupted reception in parts of the nationwide network.
“Subscribers who request a credit will receive one” by calling the listener care number at 800-967-2346, said spokesman Nathaniel Brown. For the typical subscription costing about $13 a month, that would come to about 87 cents.
You should be able to claim by email!