"Jonathan Goodish" wrote in message
...
In article L_SCe.40379$DC2.8922@okepread01,
"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote:
Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
it. If you know you aren't going to be flying for an extended period
of
time (months), you deactivate it.

I believe that XM charges a $75 activation fee if you deactivate and
then re-activate, so you would have to determine your break-even point
based on the plan to which you subscribe.



The issue isn't that they are turning it off to save you money. Your
system
gets an "Account Active" packet from time to time from the satelite. XM
has
no way of knowing if you received the packet so they can't stop charging
you.

There is really no way to know when your packet is going to come down the
stream. You might turn it on for a few minutes on Sunday night and then
go
to the airport Monday morning and it not be working.


My point is that if you know that you won't use the service for months,
why wouldn't you call to cancel it, and thus stop the monthly charges?
I never said anything about XM "turning off" anything.

I believe the receiver activation issues that some folks were having
were caused by the receiver losing the activation code. My
understanding is that the activation code is only sent when requested
from XM;it is not an automatic transmission as you suggest. If your
receiver loses the code, it becomes "deactivated" and you must call or
use the web site to tell XM to re-send the activation code.



I agree with you that if you aren't going to use the system for an extended
period of time the thing to do is turn off the service.

But if you use the XM regularly it will get the packet and keep on ticking.
I'd be willing to bet that if those that do get shut off pulled the plane
out of the hanger and turned the XM on and then left for a week when they
came back the XM would be working. (If the battery hasn't died.) But pilots
aren't known for paitence and in this case we're right to expect it to be
working when we turn it on if we paid for it.

Thier system and that of the sat/tv industry is based on the system being in
standby (thus being able to get the packet) even when you aren't using it.
Right now the system is is biased towards them getting paid. It doesn't work
unless it got the last packet. They need to change that around for the
aviation product so it works for X days weeks or years unless it gets a
cancel packet.