XM satellite Radio

[englishal]

A couple of weeks ago I flew to the USA on United. I tuned to the XM satellite radio channels just after take off and could listen to them....

So if this is the case, that XM satellite radio can be received in the UK, why don't we get XM receivers, and more importantly is there a chance that we may get XM weather services too (on our G496's etc...)....???

[Henry Hallam]

Looking at the orbits and coverage maps, I'm finding it hard to believe that even with a very good but non-tracking antenna on the aircraft, it could pick up XM signals from Europe. Are you sure it wasn't recorded?

[S-Works]

Not a chance. I have a 496 with the XM antenna and it can't get anything from the XM sats anywhere in europe even at airways heights.

I would agree you were probably listening to a recording.

[IO540]

One could always receive the stray radiation from the satellite but not with an off the shelf XM receiver.

The only way in Europe is a satellite phone and via the internet as usual. Currently I am looking at doing something along these lines. One can get between 2.4 and 9.6k bits per second - OK for text data and just about OK for e.g. Meteox (http://www.meteox.com) weather radar if one uses their PDA (non-animated) GIF option.

Incidentally a G496 purchased in Europe does not contain the XM modem. A bit naughty of Garmin.....

[S-Works]

Actually IO you as a consumer are given the choice of having an XM antenna or not in Europe. If you don't want one you pay less. I bought mine in Europe from Harry M and got the antenna.

I have a motorola Sat phone you can borrow if you want to test. I used on the boat in the Red Sea for maintaining email contact. It has massive latency around 350ms and is slow but is fine for simple text type emails.

[denhamflyer]

I also have XM built into the G1000 - more importantly I was after all the fancy weather stuff so I contacted them.

In essence the response was:-

"The Satellites we have will not cover Europe and we have no plans to launch a service in Europe"

I then did some more research and interpreted it as:-

"go away we are having a hard time get a return in the usa"

There have a lot of competition in the US that they were not expecting when the business plan was put together. This was over a year ago so it could change, but I think it would require major investment for a small market here in Europe.

If anyone knows any different then I will be pleased to hear.

PS. I have never had a signal here in Europe (more precisely Scotland - South Of Spain)

[Wrong Stuff]

I have a motorola Sat phone you can borrow if you want to test. I used on the boat in the Red Sea for maintaining email contact. It has massive latency around 350ms and is slow but is fine for simple text type emails.
I've thought about getting a satellite phone for this now they're starting to come down in price. If you do manage to do any testing, IO, I'd be very interested to hear how you get on.

[englishal]

Are you sure it wasn't recorded?
Could've been I suppose....

XM is great on the G1000 - and not distracting at all the way it mutes during ATC speak.

About time we had a satellite radio service in the UK.....