Radio Beams

The two satellite Radio providers are XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio. These two are the main providers of the satellite channel broadcasting in the United States. Sirius has about 120 channels with a wide variety of channels like music, news, sports etc.

Sirius, broadcasts all over the North America. The quality of broadcasting signals produced is by using the advanced digital encoding technology. The sound quality is much better than the analog broadcaster can provide. The noise disturbances are completely eliminated and the transmission is clean and is identical to the quality of original track.

Sirius has two FCC approved licenses for digital radio in the United States. The digital radio broadcaster share the field of Satellite Digital Audio Radio Services (SDARS) with Sirius XM Satellite Radio Inc. Give below is the information of the company
Headquarters: New York City, New York.
Launch Date: 2002, July 1.
Satellite in Service: 3
Available Channels: 120
Monthly subscription: $12.95

It is a impressive corporate office. It is located in the heart of New York City with a big recording studio situated in Rockefeller Center. They have a big library of music of over 2 million tracks. The company has digital signals through the PAC encoding technology.

The Sirius satellite

The satellite used by Sirius is constant delivering digital radio broadcasting to Sirius subscribers. The Most problematic aspects of satellite radio broadcasting is the line of sight – which can be easily interrupted by landscape or buildings the Sirius commercial satellite have a slight advantage over their competitors, since they have a clearer line of sight. The three satellites used for broadcasting slowly orbit around the Earth and only two of them are functional at any time. This is because Sirius only has two transmission frequencies and by alternating satellite transmission they can eliminate interferences while also having a spare satellite to put to use in case something goes wrong with one of the others.

The 3 satellites take turns broadcasting transmission. Since the more inclined orbit provides better coverage, Canada and Mexico are also well covered by the digital broadcasting. This is the best feature of the Sirius satellite radio, as it enhances the benefit of not having to switch radio stations during long trips or while traveling outside US borders. Sirius also collaborates with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Standard Radio Inc. This would allow anyone in Canada to benefit from Sirius’ services while using any of the Canadian English and French channels.

Sirius broadcasting

The broadcasting signals are so strong you need only a small receiver to listen to the channels of Sirius. The small directional antennas are enough to take you anywhere whether you are on road or at home. The technology used is similar to GPS devices and the receivers don’t require pointing. Some of the new features of satellite radio refer to the extended broadcast information abilities, and the transmission can supply information on artist, music title or genre. The other new developments Sirius is working on is streaming video broadcasting

Sirius is one of the most popular satellite Radio stations. It has 150 channels. Out of which 65 are commercial free channels and other 56 air sports, news, talk, entertainment, weather conditions and traffic report.

They have many music channels, they have New country, classic country, Alternative country, and Bluegrass channels to choose from for the country crazy people. For hip hop lovers they have four channels dedicated to it. They are Hip-Hop Nation, Shade 45, Wax and Back Spin and of course the other streams are not left behind you can enjoy listening to R&B, Reggae and of course Rock. For the people having classical taste there is Classical pop, Chamber Music and Classical voices. For the Jazz enthusiast, they have six channels which play non stop Jazz music.

The satellite radio has lots of Music program that are hosted by international and national artists like Eminem, David Johansen Steve Van Zant, the Rolling Stone producer to name a few. They can be heard on the underground Garage Channel.

They also have dedicated channels for uncensored comedy, where you can listen to George Carlin, Margaret Cho, Cheech and Chong, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. In the sports channel you have a collection of channel like the NBA, the NFL and the NHL. Beside these regular channels they bring the men’s basket ball games, the 27 college hoop programs and Division I Men’ Basketball championship. For car lovers they have NASCAR, Nextel Cup Series, NASCAR Busch Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races can be heard.

Apart from entertainment, Sirius also has a news and talk channels which are ABC News & Talk, BBC World Service, BBC Mundo, Bloomberg, CNBC, Court TV, C-Span, CNN Headline News, Discovery Channel, E Entertainment, ESPN Channels, Fox News, Hispanic Talk, Radio Disney, Sirius Trucking Network, the Weather Channel, the liberal network Air America to name a few.

Besides this, it also includes a gay/lesbian news and talk station. By giving all these channels Sirius is all out to entertain as many people as possible and it is a determined challenger to XM. The XM is a better as comparison to the quality of sound and the stereo separation. So we shall see some improvement in the near future.

Also, in terms of gadgets, XM is more technological than Sirius. The Sirius has the XACT XRE1 that is a limited portable version of MyFi. Sirius also has no turners with TiVo like features which are available with XM. The companies like Alpine, Audiovox, Blaupunkt, Clarion, Delphi, Jensen, JVC, Kenwood, Sanyo, and Tivoli produce Sirius hardware.