Blueskies wrote:
"601XL Builder" wrDOTgiacona@suddenlinkDOTnet wrote in message
...
Blueskies wrote:


That is exactly what I had in mind. Odd that is does not get the
press that Garmin and XM get...




It's not odd at all. It's not an open service meaning you have to use
their expensive hardware.

Sirius and XM are both closed systems that require their expensive
hardware. I was just reading in Avweek that XM has over 800 ground
stations to supplement their signals, and Sirius, because of their
three '24 hour' satellites, only has a few hundred ground stations.
Neither of these systems has ever made any money, and the are making
very bad business decisions ($500 million for Stern?!).

I think it is odd that they get all this press...

I couldn't agree more about Stern or the business decisions but they are
open as compared to the other system we were talking about because there are
several makers of the hardware and that lowers the price of the hardware.

As far as the 800 ground stations are concerned that is more for the radio
end of the business than the weather end. People just insist on driving
there cars on streets that happen to be between tall buildings.

I haven't done any research on Sirius and don't know what you mean by "24
hour" satellites but XM's two birds, "Rock" and "Roll" have given me 1000's
of hours of listening enjoyment and are worth every dime of the subscription
fees I've paid. When my plane is finished it will have my 3rd XM receiver in
it and it will be part of a Garmin 496. I had always planned to install an
XM receiver in the plane for the audio. It was just a nice surprise when
they added the WX service.