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Technology

Satellite Radio Coming Soon(?) 63

Posted by CmdrTaco from the one-can-only-hope dept.
elucidus sent us a story that talks about the current status of satellite radio. Lots of issues to deal with, and some good stuff mentioned. Personally, I think this is just a baby step before we have full custom audio stream dropped in, but my guess is that it'll be awhile before we have the bandwidth to broadcast stereo audio, from space, customized for every car in America, and do it in such a way that it's reasonably cost-competitive with old-fashioned radio.
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Satellite Radio Coming Soon(?) More

Satellite Radio Coming Soon(?)

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  • Whats the point? (Score:4)

    by Kiss the Blade ( 238661 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @11:34PM (#597277) Journal
    With the advent of digital radio in most countries meaning that it is easy to cram hundreds of stations into a very small bandwidth, and given the fact that the infastructure for this already exists, what is the point of moving to satellite radio?

    Surely satelite radio is a step backwards, because it would not provide local content, as it inevitably has an international footprint, and uses up priceless satelite bandwidth which could be better used for something else?

    KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

  • It's already here , checkout http://www.worldspace.com

    and that too they stream as a 128kb mp3 stream :-)

    Nagendra
    nagendra@SPAMMEPLEASEnagendra.com

  • And? (Score:2)

    by wangi ( 16741 )
    I know the Americans are backward - but surely they have radio channels on current sats? Europe's had it for ages...

    The only difference here is a factor of scale, and radio is so passe today...

  • Cool, Perhaps I will be able to listen to something better in my car than the crap on the Kansas City radio stations.
  • Has anyone here ever seen a mini satelite dish? It's broadcasting hundreds of audio channels commercial fromm and it comes with your 20$ per month subscription. Sound cheap enough? Add the commercials and You'll certainly make 20$ per person per month. The only problem is getting someone to intially build it and have faith that the listeners will come.
  • does anyone know if the defunct Iridium network could have been used for this?

  • i agree. i tuned in to an american radio station over the internet the other day cos i fancied a change. but i just found it weird. the DJs were quite different to what i've heard on english radio. and they were talking about american things that i didn't have a clue about. stuff like how they were at the "sox game" at the weekend, that sort of thing. i'd rather listen to more local radio and hear DJs talk about more relevant topics to me so i understand any jokes and find them funny.


    ---
  • It's broadcasting hundreds of audio channels commercial fromm

    Make that "Commercial Free"

  • Would be nice to get small niche news delivered, such as minor-pro hockey or baseball, as well as maybe a way to get advertising based on the specific location you are in.

    This would be better accomplished by regional companies. It would be smarter for them to provide the bandwidth only and not exclusive content.
  • Well, it could take the place of difficult-to-build infrastructure in the countries within the footprint. See http://www.worldspace.com/ for one example, mostly in Asian and african countries to start with.
  • Europe's had it for ages
    And it's in widespread use for deploying "shopping muzac" to stores...

  • On a long journey, I find the radio boring, tedious and repetitive. I prefer watcvhin television, but with only the standard terrestriqal channels, this is not much better.

    When is someone going to introduce in-car satelite television? Do they expect me to read to pass the time?
  • does anyone know if the defunct Iridium network could have been used for this?

    No, Iridium was designed for low bit rate (2400 BPS), low fidelity, voice communications.

  • A Satellite is an expensive appliance that only big corporations can afford.
    If satellite radio becomes a standard then it is obvious small, independant radio will disappear.
    Unless they are *given* an unlimited free broadcasting access, which should be a sign of democratisation of the media.
    Until then, I will still see Eliott-Carver-ness whenever I'll access information.
    --
  • Satellite bandwidth is hardly "priceless". In fact, it has a very definite price, depending on what plan you choose for your satellite TV. The obvious advantage for satellite in this case is that you can easily get nationwide coverage without having to build and maintain a lot of towers like you do in a cell phone network. Indeed, according to the article, Sirius is only planning to build 150 or so repeaters, and XM only 1500.

    I don't know what they're planning to do about local content, although it may be possible to add it (don't they already do that for some satellite TV packages?)
  • Hehehe ;)

    Tis true, you can pick up hundreds of radio stations if you've got a digital satellite antenna e.g. Sky Digital. And you can get an FM radio signal off most cable TV connections too...

    However... I've yet to see or hear about someone setting up a connection to Sky Digital in their car ;) For one thing, the antenna is directional, so either you'd have to keep re-aligning the dish, or get some other kind of satellite antenna that's more suitable for mobile use (besides, a dish on your car roof would just look ft00pid)...

    I suppose in the meantime you could get a bunch of mobile phones at 9600bps each, add them up to get 128kbps, link them all up to a laptop, and listen to streaming MP3 broadcasts :) (if you have more money than sense)...

  • If I recall correctly these services were going to charge a fee similar to basic cable for access. Which is cool, everyone's got to make a living. But why wouldn't I just spend the money up front on a mp3 player and load it with all the songs I like? It shouldn't be that much longer before you can sign up for mp3 subscription services that track what you like and send you cheap mp3's you might enjoy. That's likely to be a hell of a lot cheaper, and not as far off. Hell, if I had a mp3 player in my car that'd read cd media, I might just make the ultimate greatest hits cd, and never listen to crappy ads seperating crappier bands. (I think these new networks are just straight programing, but still, what would you pay to never hear The Backstreet Boys again?)

    It just seems to me that they'll have rough competition from mp3's in all their incarnations from the start, and later on from G3 phones that download music at ~2Mb/s and send it to your stereo via bluetooth. We'll all have the phones, and everyone's car stereo will be smart enough.... Just seems like a rocky road, and satellite prices being what they are....

  • Was actually playing with a digital satellite radio reciever [worldspace.com] last night.

    Although not really being pushed in the UK, it is in the Afristar [worldspace.com] footprint. Slightly less advanced than the system in the article, fixed position recievers with an antenna that has to "see" the sky (thick walls means no signal). Sound quality is fairly impressive through the optical out, with stations using between 16-128kbps, easily equivalent to FM stereo on the music stations.

    They are also pushing some data applications [worldspace.com] on the website, but no sign of the need accessories yet.

    Cheaper than any of the terrestrial digital recivers around at the moment (Sanyo was only 100 UKP), might make a nice replacement for that Multiband radio, that you take away on holiday.

  • When is someone going to introduce in-car satelite television? Do they expect me to read to pass the time?

    I'm not sure about this, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the main focus of your attention should be a little task called driving <g>

  • God, here we go with the NonAmeroCentrism again! Look, you silly NonAmericans, NonAmerica isn't the only place in the world! Perhaps you NonAmericans have heard of a little country called United States of America? Well, without it, you wouldn't even be NonAmericans... I guess you'd just be French or German or British or what have you... but never mind that.

    When will all you people learn that there ARE places outside NonAmerica?! I'm getting tired of all these arrogant NonYanks posting comments as if they're the only ones in the world that matter.
  • Can I suggest a Playstation 2 with Ridge Racer 5?
    That way you can concentrate on driving and have fun without having to get bored driving. :)
  • I tried that. Kept getting confused about which set of controls are which. Its very embarrasing turning the wheel when you mean to use the joypad. Its even worse when I get to a city and try to control my car with the joypad.

    And they refuse to let me use the PS2 in the ambulance.

  • Streaming radio over wireless IP is the future... (Score:3)

    by isaac ( 2852 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @12:12AM (#597299)
    Since getting 128k Ricochet [metricom.com] wireless IP service, I've been listening to little else but streaming MP3 Shoutcast/Icecast stations. It's sweet to be able to listen to my old college radio [fsu.edu] station, streaming without wires to my laptop (I just wish they had a higher-quality stream than 24kbps - I can listen to streams up to 64kbps without a hitch.)

    Once high-speed mobile internet service becomes more common, I expect to see streaming audio superceding conventional radio. These satellite audio broadcasting systems won't deliver enough bang for the buck compared to what mobile high-speed IP offers.

    -Isaac

  • and IIRC - a much higher freqency...

    --
  • This is a huge step in radio communication. This does mean however that a receiver will be required for radio broadcasts, and not a Sony 100W receiver, an actual box that will convert the satelite feed into audio. This means that they can put a price on the radio now, kinda like a cable company's music choice service.

    This would be even better if there was a more forgiving way of picking up a satelite feed. Granted the mini-dishes of today are a hell of a lot better than the 10' tall dishes that people used to put in their yards..it would be nice to have a smaller recipticle, maybe something that could even work on a car (assuming the car wasn't in a bridge, or had a clear line of sight to the sky)

    This also would mean that you don't have to listen to country music the entire duration of your road trip. I'm not sure how popular it will be as a pay per listen service though, people have come to expect free radio, but then again, who still uses an antenna to watch TV?

    It should be interesting to see how this develops.

  • As someone who was involved with satellite application programming, I can say that the problems involved in creating satellite based applications for non-analogue streamed data are enormous. Firstly, to prove boolean associative arrays on a parallel output device mediator such as a satellite demodulator is a difficult thing to do...the easiest way would be to retrometricise closed set compatible software using the tried-and-trusted method of numerically programming diagonally matrixed queries. The only other way to do this would be to program imaginary integer specific diagramatics, and I think that most programmers reading this would agree that that's not a good idea, since it could lead to several complications - including the possible need to macrodesign boolean polynomial equation identifiers specific to the application in question - not a nice thought, especially if you're running multiple satellite channels - then it'll also be neccessary to quantify timed long integer paradoxes on top of everything else! The general rule should be: if you're programming multiple memory stacks over multiple satellite channels, then PLEASE be aware that you need to redigitize logically programmable theoretical pipes and hypothesize cutting pipe contrived radials, otherwise your program WILL NOT WORK VERY WELL. The most efficient way to deal with this problem is to virtually trivialize complex conjuction composed computer generated interfaces and conglomerate statically linked theoretical pipes. If you keep all of this in mind, your satellite application development will be flawless.

  • It can be quite hard to come up with something original. We all know they all have a gun. And that they forget to raise their children after they are born. And that they don't know how a democracy works. And that they think they're superior to everyone else. And that they're all fat from all that fast-food. Does anyone have a new argument?
  • Most people do not want a 36 inch radome ball on their car. It would hold the gyro stable platform to use the dish on the car. Even though it is common on larger boats and ships at sea, I have never seen a gyro steered dish on a car. It is also a high maitnance item. The Gyro compass used to orient the dish isn't cheap.
  • Get a clue. My 800 watt microwave oven runs on 2.4 Ghz and doesn't break down the air. How many watts are you planning on receiving on your antenna. I don't plan to receive anything stronger than 1 millionth of what my home microwave oven produces. I would be suprised if my antenna received anything over a few microvolts.
  • Note, I am from the UK. We are different!

    The main advantage of normal radio is that it is extreemly portable. Stick a radio in your pocket and you can listen anywhere. I carry a pocket radio on the long bus journey to and from work, and also use it on a Saturday afternoon when leaving the football to find out how the other teams have done. How is sattelite going to work here?

    Digital radio would be a lot better. Currently I have problems with co-channel interference when travelling back from work, meaning that I can't here my local radio station until about 6.45pm, missing essential news bulletins. Digital terrestial radio would make things better. It would also make Radio 5 listenable on an evening.

  • IMHO radio sucks big time anyway .. here in brussels there's like not a single interesting radio station. i dont care wether they broadcast their shit over satelites or wathever, untill i'll be able to grab the microphone and reply to these asses.
  • You can stream fm radio quality sound using just 64 kbit. Many commercial radio stations are already available in the form of real audio or windows media streams. The upcoming generation of mobile phones will plenty of bandwidth available and will be connected to the internet (hint to mobile phone manufacturers: build in software for tuning in to streamed audio, this will be your desperately needed killer app).

    So to answer your question, not only is there no point in doing so, it would be a waste of energy and resources to get these satelites up and running since by the time these things are operational, most people will have good alternatives available.

    Satelite radio is a step backwards and it will come crashing down, just like iridium.
  • As someone who has worked in the broadcast radio business for most of my adult life, it remains to be seen if the satellite guys can bring anything new to the table.

    Both XM and Sirius are heavily invested by big broadcast companies like CBS and Clear Channel (the one I work for...)

    My concern is that these companies view this as simply more of the same instead of something new, much like they view their internet streaming.

    What's needed is something totally customizable. Someone else said it: Customizable stream to each car--you pick the program.

    Broadcasters still think in the "push" world. I firmly believe the future lies in the "pull" world.
  • The big thing that all of these discussions seem to miss is the idea of satellite delivered spoken word, or what the industry refers to as "talk radio". Many people discount this because they think it would only going to bring us programs like Rush Limbaugh [rushlimbaugh.com] or Dr. Laura [drlaura.com]. But consider a few other possibilities: These programs could be aggregated by genre to produce a financial planning radio channel or a car maintenance radio channel. If you aren't used to listening to stuff like this, you may turn up your nose, but each of these programs have huge, loyal audiences, and would help make satellite radio commercially viable.
    --

    Dave Aiello

  • This of course only happens where a resonant length of metal creates a high standing wave. An antenna with a load will drop the Q of the circuit and reduce the peak resonant voltage. I plan on having a reciever connected to the antenna on the car. Try the cultry experiment with and without a cup of coffee. Notice the difference?
  • Great another subscription cost every month. Another method of distilling an industry down to five or six players. Another way to fix something that ain't broke until it is.

    aw, screw it [ridiculopathy.com]

  • This also would mean that you don't have to listen to country music the entire duration of your road trip.

    You don't have to now. Get an empeg, or a CD player, or anything other than the factory AM/FM 8-track player that's still in your car because you refuse to patronize Best Buy - or don't realize they have a car audio section.

    Even Radio Shark sells car audio equipment, though if you were going to refuse to buy something, that would probably be a better choie than Best Buy.
    ---

  • Did anyone else notice the comment about paying for the programming that slipped out near the end of the article? They didn't say much about it, but it seems like that's their goal. If I have to pay to listen to NPR while I drive, heck with it, I'm keeping the CD player, forget about the satellite ..

    Not like we'll have much choice after the technology is rolled out, though. If they are planning to make it a revenue business, we can probably count on the satellite radio being built into every new car to hit the road, and I can hear the showroom sales pitch already .. just TRY to get them to put in an ordinary FM stereo or (gasp) let you install your own ..

  • A couple of people have mentioned Worldspace [worldspace.com] already. Worldspace is a satellite radio venture based out of Washington, DC, that aims to bring radio to developing countries, where many people live outside the range of conventional broadcast radio. In addition to the audio stream, there are data channels as well, opening some interesting possibilities for alternatives to traditional Internet access in the developing world.

    Worldspace has two satellites in place and broadcasting, covering Africa and Asia. A third and final satellite, covering Latin America, either is about to launch or is about to begin broadcasting (I can't remember which).

    The problem with Worldspace is getting a receiver. The low-end ones started at $350, which many people rightly pointed out was out of the reach of many of Worldspace's intended customers (though one often finds dirt-poor villages have at least one gigantic color television, so that was not necessarily an insurmountable barrier). The advertised prices recently came down to about $125-$175, which leads me to wonder if the company is in trouble.

    I live in Cairo, which has been in the footprint of Worldspace broadcasts for over a year, but I can't get a receiver to save my life. I was willing to blow the $350, but the sets aren't sold here and the company is consistently unresponsive to queries about alternative sources. (I even ordered one online from their website, but can't get them to confim, deny, or fill the order).

    The company claimed there were initial production problems, because the chipsets and everything had to be done custom. But the lingering distribution problems have not been adequately explained, and I can't imagine that bodes well for the venture.

    -

  • This is significantly different from current satellite radio in that you have to be able to receive the signal from a moving vehicle. Tracking and aiming is MUCH more difficult, because a car drives around, loses line of sight and all sorts of other gotchas. That's why it should be here shortly, and isn't already.

    I just hope that it isn't a huge step backwards in terms of sound quality, like digital radio is. Despite interference, FM stereo is pretty good next to something that has all the sound quality advantages of a low bitrate mp3. It might work in a car, though. The ambient noise could be enough that you don't notice your music sounds like crap.

  • While it is true that small independant radio stations will be unable to afford to launch their own satellite networks, I believe that this technology will actually allow more independant music and niche market talk shows to be broadcast. With the channel set expanded from ~10 to ~100 channels there is much more opportunity for real variety. With so many different channels avaliable it becomes possible to broadcast something other than the standard palatte of top 40, rock, top 100 country, urban contemporary, adult contemporary, oldies and NPR. There are very few places in the US where you can receive a radio station that does not fall very neatly into one of those categories. But with this new opportunity I forsee expansion of independant, special topic radio programs in much the same way that cable television brings us TV choices that are much more varies than in the days of the over the air networks.
    _____________
  • 1) it doesn't cover north america.

    2) it looks like the recievers have pointing antanae... it doesn't look like this technology would work with an automobile.

    Otherwise it looks interesting...
  • If I have to pay to listen to NPR while I drive, heck with it

    Actually, that's kind of the way that it's supposed to work now. You know, the listener supported thing.... You send them some money then they don't have to advertise for used cars everybody wins?
    _____________

  • DAB (Score:1)

    by Aztech ( 240868 )
    The DAB standard is pretty sweet when it comes to this, it can reieve standard digital anologue broadcasts and also had a band to receive digital signals from satellites.

    I wouldn't mind a WaveFinder [wavefinder.com] for christmas.
  • This could serve as a complement to international shortwave broadcasts. Shortwave radio reception is affected by many factors- location, time of day, weather and other atmospheric fluctuations, sunspot activity, etc. Assuming the signals you want to hear even reach you, you may only be able to hear them at 3 in the morning, or only when it rains in Cleveland, or whatever. Satellite broadcasts have an obvious advantage here.

    Of course, it can't replace the fun of messing around with frequency guides, propagation charts and sunspot reports in search of faint voices from the other side of the globe.

  • There is already some satellite radio in existence... we have a C/Ku-Band satellite dish (yeah, one of those big 10-foot ones like the farmers have)... and on certain satellites on certain transponders, you can find radio stations. There are listings of them in magazines like Orbit. But, I do think it would be quite nifty to be able to receive that in my car... that way, I could go wherever I wanted to and not worry about my radio stations going bye-bye when I travel.
  • Good luck receiving streaming audio in your car, anywhere in the country.


    ...phil
  • Asking folks to pay a subscription for radio just doesn't pass the common sense test.

    Doesn't anyone remember the lesson of Iridium? Great technology isn't sufficient for success in the marketplace.

    I hope this results in an IPO so that I can short it ;-)

  • As someone who works in radio I absolutely HAVE to post on this and explain to everyone about the current state of the industry and where it's headed, and it's not good.

    I've seen several posts warning about satellite radio and they are correct. If you, the listening public, are foolish enough to buy into satellite radio, there's no turning back down the road when people come to the realization later that it sucks and isn't what you want.

    A lot of you won't realize this but radio has already hit a critical point in the industry, and I don't mean technology-wise. Voice-tracking, the Prophet System, syndication, satellite, and huge conglomerates have already thinned the talent pool in both on- and off-air jobs in the industry. Chlorine's been tossed in the talent pool.

    This discussion recently came up at radioedge.net the other day. There are no new broadcast engineers out there (or the very least, there are very few). A lot of stations don't even have an engineer to maintain their equipment, and the ones that do have one engineeer have them maintaining 5 or 6 statiosn at once. Hardly enough to even really be maintaining them. And that's with just local broadcasts. Who's going to take care of the even-more complicated equipment for national and worldwide broadcasts

    Also voicetracking and satellite feeds have thinned the on-air talent pool. It's become nearly impossible for young talent to be given a shot at any stations, since there aren't any live overnight shifts at most stations and the other shifts are usually filled by more-experienced voices.

    It doesn't take a genius to see where this is going. Down the road there will not only be noone to take care of the stations equipment and such, but also no new voices to replace the old ones on the air.

    Let me put it this way. Think of the radio station you hate most in your neck of the woods. Given the /. crowd, it's probably a HotAC, Top40, or Country station. Why do you hate it? Because the same songs get played every hour? Because there's never any live jocks in the studio and it's all voice-tracked? Because there's never anything local that you care about on there?

    Well if satellite radio goes through as a reality, you're going to get all of the above and then some. Every station will be like this. Your options will be even more limited, your information even LESS local than it is already, and the stations are going to patronize the listening public with even LESS intellignet content than you hear already.

    And as it stands already, something like satellite radio will probably be the death-knell for radio, period.

    So I guess ask yourselves how much you care for radio. If you don't, then just let the industry slide away like it's doing now. A lot of people DON'T care, and I guess that's fine, to each his own.

    But if you really *do* care and listen to radio more than you watch TV, I'd start questioning some of this stuff now, and make sure you actively listen to and support your local radio.

    And no I'm not kidding with any of this -- the industry is in a really bad time right now and things truly are not looking good for it(thanks to ClearChannel and AM/FM). Anyone who's involved in radio because they truly love it will tell you this and confirm it.

    Even then it looks like it already might be too late for the medium. You've all been warned about this...

    -- Primis.

  • Shows like Geeks in Space already exist on the airwaves, and have for quite some time. It's just that very few stations will caryy them because they'd rather cram in another hour of Dr. Joy Browne, or another two hours of Coast-to-Coast with Mike Siegel (Art Bell's old shift), or something like that.

    The fact of the matter is this -- until people stop listening to crap like Advice Radio and stuff like that you will NOT see any other different types of talk shows unfortunately.

    There also will be no room for different shows in Satellite radio. Your options aren't going to expand, they're going to *lessen* because you'll have no local competition between and for shows. Instead of having 3 or 4 stations all airing competeing talk shows, you'll get one station airing one talk show, killing off the other three.

    Welcome to the future of radio.

    -- Primis.

  • I listen to the radio alot, simply because I grow tired of my CD/MP3 collections fairly quickly. I like non-top40 stations cause I hear a good mix of music I may otherwise not hear...especially if there's a good college station around.

    The things that bug me most about radio- DJ's and commercials. I'm listening to a music radio station cause I want to hear music! Not because I wanna hear how witty the DJ is, or to hear the same damn commercials over and over again.

    A few years ago, an uncle who works for the cable industry showed me cable radio. I fell in love (not with my uncle, with cable radio ;).
    WOW! Constant, non-stop music with artist, album, etc info fed right to the remote...hot damn!

    Ok, sometimes they get repeatative as well, but that's just something that needs changing on their end, and doesn't discount the value of constant radio.

    So, I don't care if my constant, commercial and DJ-free radio is received via radio waves, satellite, CDMA, cable, DSL, whatever... as long as I don't have to hear people TALK on my MUSIC stations.

    Of course, this doesn't apply to NPR, whose discussions I greatly respect, but no reason that can't be streamed too, eh? Well, money.

    Finally, there are websites that allow people to setup their own radio stations which is great too. Why even deal with a legacy radio station when I can tune into 123.456.789.0 and hear Joe Shmoe's CD collection?

    The only advantage of radio is true streaming- no congestion backups...but as the net advances, this will be negated too.
    Radio as a concept is great, but it's time to move on. Embrace broadband!

    *posted from Netscape 6, cause M18 won't do https:
  • I am anxiously awaiting this to become available specifically for this reason.

    I spend a LOT of time in the car traveling between metro areas which means that a large portion of each trip is in rural areas. I am addicted to talk radio and the NPR/PRI shows.

    Yeah, I've got an MP3 player, but for regular 5-8 hour commutes, just having music can get a bit boring.

  • I've noticed quite a few comments poo-pahing the idea of paying for radio. But I would guess those guys are not really the market the sat radio folks are targeting.

    The beauty of this sort of system is that you can get in your car in New York, and listen to the same station without interruption in a drive all the way to Los Angeles. That's what appeals to me.

    As some one spends a good quarter of my working day behind the wheel, usually driving to remote, rural work sites where the only availble radio is religious, country-western and spanish speaking, (and in the city, it's just bland pop), Sat radio will be a godsend. I'd gladly pay $10-30 a month for this.
  • I think you are totally wrong about this.

    Sure, they are going to have the Dr. Laura show, but only on one of the channels. It wouldn't make sense to air it on several of them. This leaves a lot of channels available even after you throw in all of the music for other types of offerings.

    I have heard that they plan on having a old-time radio comedy channel, a sci-fi channel, and others.

    While this will not be the end-all of radio, it is a temporary step that greatly improves on what is available now.

  • While the rest of the world has agreed on a single global standard for digital radio, the US has two different and incompatible satellite-based technologies and yet a third for terrestrial radio, all of which are unproven.

    Want to see how digital audio broadcasting should be done? Visit:

    http://www.worlddab.org

  • 1. Covers everyplace on earth except North America(as of now but in 2001 that too)

    2. Antenna is just 10cm disk which is mostly unidirectly and due to muultiple sats. no prob to catch them

    infact I am overwhelmed with some 100 CD quality channels :-)
  • This isn't all so great. You have exactly two licenses for US satellite radio systems, so there are only two corporations who will choose the programming. That's even worse than terrestrial AM/FM radio, which has been horribly consolidated. So what crap will satradio have? The 70's pop rock channel, the 80's pop rock channel, the Don Ho channel?

    Terrestrial digital radio is likewise only a couple of licensees, so it too will offer all the variety of McDonalds. The cheese and no cheese channels.
  • Abusing Americans is so much more fun than actually listening to them!
  • The problems you've sited for reduced support for the stations equipement is the fault of the management. They have decided to outsource the engineering or to share them/it amongst the 25% of radio stations in the local market all owned by the same company.

    The reduction of new talent shouldn't be blamed on satellite radio, but on management as well. There have been several radio teams I have seen let go, only to be replaced by rather marginal talent piped in from out of town.

    I tend to like being able to hear some music that isn't always made mainstream (such as comedy, novelty artists, some bluegrass or maybe some from the "Spoken Word" category.) Try to get that on your local station.

    If there can be at least one or two channels giving that format some airtime nationwide or globally, that will be a step up.

    The main problem I've seen with this reduction of talent in the radio station pool is short-sighted ness of the station manager or above.

    The lack of incoming talent or new voices are a lot like the competition faced in other careers: You have to wait for someone to quit, get fired or die. And of course, you also have to hope that the station management or their superiors don't decide to just give that time slot to their sister station to save a buck.

    Unless management feels it's less expensive (or more woth it) to have a warm butt in the seat at the station's studio that the bandwidth costs to pipe it in from a sister station of the mother conglomerate of stations, this will keep continuing.

    Don't blame Satellite radio or even the listeners, blame the station staff for doing it or letting it be done. You reap what you sew.
  • Cool! Simulcasted music with fireworks!

    Would Rush then zap his own dittoheads, or is it only the Liberal talkshow hosts?
  • What's the point you ask? Let me explain... Being a person who traveled extensively for more than a two year period, just being able to listen to something on the radio other than NPR that had a familiar sound was a dream never realized. You have a point so far as 99% of the country doesn't want to hear Joe D.J. from Bucktooth AR, but what this technology does open the door for is access to satellite radio from all over the country. Imagine going on vacation to the Grand Canyon and still being able to pick up your favorite radio station from home the entire way! Or even better, imagine having to go to Europe on business all the while listening to your home town D.J. keeping you informed of news and other events while you are away. That would help take a bite out of the alienation one often feels when submersed into a new culture in my opinion. This idea has so much more potential than just what will come of it in 5-6 months. There are a slew of other doors that will open once this one has. Mobile television, truly mobile Internet access, and heck, maybe one day this may provide an actual use for all those iridium satellites huh?
  • Actually, that's kind of the way that it's supposed to work now. You know, the listener supported thing.... You send them some money then they don't have to advertise for used cars everybody wins?
    Well, yeah, there's that, but I don't mind that so much. ;-) I was thinking more of having to swipe my Visa card in my own car to listen to *anything* on the radio .. something about that just seems wrong ..

  • The point stands. I did not say you should have a satelite on your car, real simply, the signal is there, all that needs to be made is a reciever to pickup that signal.

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