Hey all—
I recently got a new vehicle with a “SiriusXM” radio and Im trying to figure out if it is based on Sirius or XM technology? Everything I can find says they are a “combination of both” and receive their own packages, while Sirius and XM units receive a SiriusXM signal.
I know there are two satellite radio licenses that they own. Sirius and XM used a different form of compression initially that was incompatible with the other’s radios (PAC vs AAC IIRC). Once the merge happened, they released one radio with both chipsets that lasted a very short time (IIRC it was called the MiRGE) — Sirius also used to run their satellites in a polar orbit that kept them constantly moving, but at a much higher LOS in the sky — they have since brought those down to the same locations as the XM satellites.
So with the “SiriusXM” radios, are they using a third highly compressed technology — or did they just pick the Sirius or XM side and go with it? Or can these radios see both types of compression? I noticed I’m now getting channels in the 300s and 400s I never received with my older Sirius equipment (it topped out just under 200 IIRC)
I wonder at which point they will feel there is few enough subscribers on the “losing” side and start to reduce the numbers of channels available there to make room for higher quality audio or more channels on the merged “SiriusXM” units? It’s been like 12 years now... I’m sure they could slowly start the process in that if you have a 10+ year old car you will start to see channels slowly drop away...
N
I recently got a new vehicle with a “SiriusXM” radio and Im trying to figure out if it is based on Sirius or XM technology? Everything I can find says they are a “combination of both” and receive their own packages, while Sirius and XM units receive a SiriusXM signal.
I know there are two satellite radio licenses that they own. Sirius and XM used a different form of compression initially that was incompatible with the other’s radios (PAC vs AAC IIRC). Once the merge happened, they released one radio with both chipsets that lasted a very short time (IIRC it was called the MiRGE) — Sirius also used to run their satellites in a polar orbit that kept them constantly moving, but at a much higher LOS in the sky — they have since brought those down to the same locations as the XM satellites.
So with the “SiriusXM” radios, are they using a third highly compressed technology — or did they just pick the Sirius or XM side and go with it? Or can these radios see both types of compression? I noticed I’m now getting channels in the 300s and 400s I never received with my older Sirius equipment (it topped out just under 200 IIRC)
I wonder at which point they will feel there is few enough subscribers on the “losing” side and start to reduce the numbers of channels available there to make room for higher quality audio or more channels on the merged “SiriusXM” units? It’s been like 12 years now... I’m sure they could slowly start the process in that if you have a 10+ year old car you will start to see channels slowly drop away...
N
