Looks like the HEO satellites are done

[aegrotatio]

Looks like the HEO satellites are done. The date has passed (set in 2008) to decommission them. Sirius FM-5 and FM-6 are co-located with XM-5 and XM-6, respectively. Sirius FM-5 was supposed to hang around 96 degrees but they changed their mind for some reason.

Anyone notice a reduction in signal coverage on the Sirius side now that the northern constellation is shut down? That was the reason Sirius didn't need so many repeaters and I doubt SiriusXM is going to bother spending money on more repeaters for a service that is scheduled to die when its radios age out of the automobile market.

The other observation I made was that the Sirius FM-6 is twice as powerful as the old HEOs were.

 

[navychop]

Aren't they still selling Sirius only radios, especially in vehicles?

 

[TheKrell]

My 300 had a Sirius radio. When I first bought it, I was disappointed in the audio quality, and the dropouts were intolerable. Somebody somewhere fixed something, because I almost never have a dropout these days. I can even listen in our 6-story parking garage (except in the bottom floor).

 

[navychop]

With Pandora, podcasts, BBC and my own music, I don't miss SiriusXM.

 

[navychop]

Six stories? At work?

 

[Bobby]

With Pandora, podcasts, BBC and my own music, I don't miss SiriusXM.

I've got over 6,000 pieces of music on my iPad. I say pieces because my tastes are rather eclectic. I enjoy old rock, new rock, pop, classical, big band, country, new age, and on and on. I tell Siri to play music, shuffled, and she says OK. I get an entire mix of all of my favorite kinds of music. I am going to be taking a road trip to my daughters residence in Corvallis, OR in several months. It's a 9 1/2 hour ride. I will not be without sounds either way without a repeat or some DJ telling me anything.

 

[navychop]

WHAT? No Zydeco?

 

[Bobby]

Yeah, there's a little zydeco and a whole lot of blues and R&B, and soul too....

 

[stecle]

To me Sirius sounds like someone turned off the bass and treble and cranked the mid range until it distorted. I can't believe people pay money for this.

 

[TheKrell]

Six stories? At work?

Yup. I'm on 3 right now, because I come to work very early and the exit to my building is on that level.

 

[truckracer]

So is the XM platform the default standard for sat radio with the Sirius side eventually going obsolete?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[hwkn]

That's the plan.

 

[TheKrell]

Thanks for adding to this thread so I could take a second look and discover that an "HEO satellite" is a satellite in a highly elliptical orbit. I knew these as Molniya orbits, because the Russians invented the orbit as a kind of workaround for the high latitudes of much of Russia.

So, if there is a plan, what is the fall-dead date for Sirius radios?

 

[hwkn]

You'd have to ask Sirius.......everything is just conjecture until they do tell us.