Looks like the HEO satellites are done

aegrotatio

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Jan 23, 2006
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A Public Bathroom
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.
 
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).
 
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. :)
 
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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?
 

Radio services with traffic, etc.?

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