Leap Frog Technology At Work

[Lowdown in Lodi]

SIRI's "leap frog" technology has it replacing uninsured satellites to try
and beef up lousy reception.

Bad engineering choices. Satellite orbits & codec. Destroying Sirius.


blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/?p=5872


Sirius says its satellites won’t last as long as first thought

Lou Josephs reports: US satellite radio firm Sirius says its satellites won’t
last as long as first thought. The birds were supposed to work for 15
years — but Sirius says they’ll likely make it to only 13 years. That’s
partly because of the way they plan to change their in-orbit configuration.
Sirius says “our satellites have experienced circuit failures on their solar
arrays” but so far they’re all still operational.

Loral put these 3 birds in highly elipictical orbits, not geostationary -
which is why they have 3 satellites instead of two. You can thank the
sunspot cycle for the failures on the solar arrays.

[David]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 17:10:08 GMT, "Lowdown in Lodi" <Lodi@lowdown.com>
wrote:

>Bad engineering choices. Satellite orbits

Sirius got rid of its lame original managers; XM still has theirs.

>& codec.

Sirius sounds better than XM. XM is muddy and distorted. It sounds
dead.

> Sirius says they’ll likely make it to only 13 years. That’s
>partly because of the way they plan to change their in-orbit configuration.

As in one satellite over Canada, one satellite next door to XM. The
horror...

[Lowdown in Lodi]

>>Bad engineering choices. Satellite orbits
>
> Sirius got rid of its lame original managers; XM still has theirs.
>
>>& codec.

You surely are not referring to XM's engineering people. The smartest thing
XM did was to get out way ahead on the engineering front -- and frankly,
they haven't given up much of that lead to date.

I'll agree that XM hasn't trumpeted its engineering successes adequately --
but it is pretty obvious XM's people in Deerfield are continuing to trounce
SIRI's at every turn.

>
> Sirius sounds better than XM. XM is muddy and distorted. It sounds
> dead.

Only you and Sirius shareholders seem to agree about this. While a few Xm
listeners have complained about XM's SQ after March 1, the number is very
small and listeners who listen to both (other than you) are fairly
consistent with the position that XM sounds better.

Many of XM's talk channels probably aren't quite as good as SIRI's (although
the big ones, like O&A, are). But the music channels are no contest.

> As in one satellite over Canada, one satellite next door to XM. The
> horror...

I would not be surprised to see Sirius transition to a solely GEO
configuration during the next cycle. They face major reception issues that
are only getting worse.

There are other engineering choices besides codec and satellite
configuration that will haunt them for the forseeable future. But the codec
was a third-order blunder that is likely to leave them at a permanent
disadvantage to XM.

[David]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:29:24 GMT, "Lowdown in Lodi" <Lodi@lowdown.com>
wrote:


>There are other engineering choices besides codec and satellite
>configuration that will haunt them for the forseeable future. But the codec
>was a third-order blunder that is likely to leave them at a permanent
>disadvantage to XM.
>
You are a pompous fop know nothing other than what you think you hear
over cocktail weenies.

Why has XM not published a sound quality critique since May 2003?

[Lowdown in Lodi]

> Why has XM not published a sound quality critique since May 2003?

Why has Sirius not?

The reality is that the true HiFi reviewers won't touch Satellite Radio with
a ten-foot pole.

[David]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 21:59:32 GMT, "Lowdown in Lodi" <Lodi@lowdown.com>
wrote:

>
>> Why has XM not published a sound quality critique since May 2003?
>
>Why has Sirius not?
>
>The reality is that the true HiFi reviewers won't touch Satellite Radio with
>a ten-foot pole.
>
I'll take that bet.