Satellite Radio

Ars Technica has a Satellite Radio Review. It discusses availability, content, and pricing. There are currently two providers in the market, XM Radio and Sirius. The technology behind it is quite involved, with XM Radio supporting a “100,000 Sq. Ft. broadcasting facility in Washington DC”. The whole enterprise is enormously expensive:

“Sirius radio operates three birds all at Geo-Sync orbit as well. When you add up the cost for digital audio storage, encoders, multiplexers, modems, satellite transmitters, and the “bird” you can easily see the enormous cost of deploying such a system.”

The difference with broadcast anaolog radio is that the signal is only converted to analog for the final step, after reception, before putting it to the analog speakers. Therefore, digital radio can transmit at a lower quality (“128kb/s, 44.1Khz stream”) than a corresponding analog signal. Even the new antennas are marvels that make all of this technology possible now, with “new antenna technology has shrunk the satellite antenna down to a small flat size that can receive the satellite signal while in motion.” The biggest drawback is, of course, interference from large buildings, bridges, etc. However, the service interruptions were usually limited to “around 5% of the time, but it is enough for me to mention it.” In order to address this problem, both companies will have to install ground-based hardware to work around obstructions.

“Fortunately, both XM and Sirius are going to install some 1,000 repeaters throughout the country. … The antenna will pick up this signal as well, and as noted above, the signal will go down the Terrestrial line into the receiver, for supposed un-interrupted reception.”

How is the quality of the signal? What about the content? How many commercials are played? Are there any non-commercial channels? The answers to all of these questions are pretty good. There aren’t nearly as many commercials; some channels have none − others have at most 6 minutes per hour. It is a pay service after all.

“Well, to put it simply, fantastic. Depending upon the receiver one chooses, you will notice clear highs, deep, resounding bass, and a clear mid-channel. To put it in terms we would understand, I’d say the audio sounds at least as good as a 128kb/s MP3, but is not quite CD quality.”

What kind of music is available? This guy says pretty much everything you could dream of is available. There are 100 channels of radio, way more than the handful of stations you probably consider acceptable in analog format. Many of them are dedicated format stations, all compiled and created by XM itself, with their own DJs and announcers, who seem to know what they’re doing.

“… a full 74 of them are direct XM formats. Only 26 of them of them are either re-broadcasts of large metro FM stations (with commercials and all), audio feeds from CNN, Fox News, CNBC, C-Span, and the Weather Channel, audio versions of MTV and VH1, or mostly talk content from major providers like Clear Channel (eg. Art Bell, Bruce Williams, Phil Hendrie, and Glen Beck). So a full 74% of XM Radio is unique content…”

The article gives an extemely complete rundown of the content available on page 4. For all of this, at around “$10/month, XM is a bargain”. So, it seems if you spend a fair amount of time listening ot radio in the car, or even at home, or you’re just sick of maintaining your MP3 collection (“…burning, categorizing, and ensuring that all your MP3s are in excellent condition is a lot of work”), the capital investment of $300 for the receiver and antenna should be well worth it.