John W

I had Sirius installed two weeks ago, and while I love it, I'm now getting more and more frequent audio drop-outs on it.

It doesn't seem to matter where I'm driving and whether there are trees or overpasses, but every minute or so, I get a 1/2 second of no sound. It's not the same as what happens when in a tunnel or garage, where the display says 'acquiring' - it just drops momentarily and then is back on.

Anyone with Sirius experienced this?

wolverine

Haven't had that experience at all. Just when going under a bridge/overpass, in my garage, and in a tunnel. Never had a drop-out without something overhead.

Jimbo

Time to go back to the dealer or installer. May be a warranty issue.

gomac

I would think it has to do with Sun Spots. We are going through a cycle of solar activity that will cause a lot of RF/Sat interference for the next couple of weeks.

John W

you serious - wouldn't this affect my Sat TV, too? guess I can wait a couple of weeks - how long till it should stop, if, in fact, this is the cause?

cprgolds

My Sirius is working just fine. No unusual dropouts.

gomac

I was listening to Science Friday on PBS this past Friday and that was one of the topics about Sun Spot activity and the problems it was going to cause over the next week or so. The biggest problems they said would would be this week. It also depends upon where you are in relation to the axis tilt and the EM waves coming from the sun. That was why I wrote the previous post.

jksanford

I'm considering adding this to my car (I have NAV, so it wasn't an option at the time). I've noticed the dropout problems quite a bit when I rent cars from Hertz that have this service.

I'm not sure if it's the Hertz service (is it XM Radio) or just a problem with Satellite based radio. Is this a frequent problem? I'd be pretty upset after dropping another $500 or so, and the service doesn't work consisently.

Do these dropouts occur daily? When you guys refer to 'no more than normal', what is 'normal'?

Thanks,

James

SkiScubaSailDude

Sometimes seem to be worse than others, the other morning, it was very foggy, (yes I did have my foglights on...) and my sat radio was cutting out pretty bad. Usually though, its only due to overpasses, or tree covered streets. Its good enough most of the time for the skips to be only slight nusances. I still don't think i've played more than a handful of CD's in my auto..

Rudy

I remember reading about the two different technologies used by Sirius and XM but my memory may be a bit foggy on the details.

Sirius has three(?) satellites moving in sort of a figure eight around the country where XM's (two?) satellites are stationary.

XM is more prone to dropouts in cities with tall buildings, etc. since it's possible to have the signal blocked by a building. Because of this, XM has to install repeaters in certain areas (usually urban) to avoid this problem.

I think with Sirius, you're usually in view of at least two satellites so as long as you can "see" one, you don't drop out.

If your Sirius car is having frequent dropouts, you may have an issue with your antenna or something I guess.