gonna probably pull the trigger on one of these and was wondering which is better? i searched but found too many different opinions

 

i would say keep the xm i have both services and i like xm a little better

 

Had xm for several years. liked it very well. have sirius now and not alot of difference but since I like baseball and don't like Stern, I would go with xm if I had a choice

 

Aren't they basicly the same now? I had Sirius a few yrs back and just activated XM. Got the same Sirius stations - just different channel numbers.

 

They are the same company now. SiriusXM.

 

yea, they have been the same company for at least a year or two now.

 

Same company, but the satellites and radios are still different. I bought a separate XM radio for my old truck and most of the last 10 minutes of my morning commute were in silence. I did some googling and finally found out that XM satellites are lower on the horizon than Sirius satellites so their signal gets blocked more easily.

Now I have an '08 F150 with a factory Sirius radio. SiriusXM has some great customer service. I called them up, told them my situation, and they switched me right over to Sirius and even gave me 3 months free.

So they're sort of the same... I initially chose XM because they had SEC sports channels. I don't get those any more, but it's nice not to drive in silence.

 

XM basically has a stationary (relative to the Earth) satellite that is parked over the equator, so it is indeed low on the horizon. That results in two things: it's easier for something to "shadow" you from the satellite (trees, buildings, etc.) and the satellite is also farther away from you.

Sirius uses three satellites that are at angles to the Earth's rotation, each completing one orbit per day but at different angles and positions relative to each other. As the Earth turns beneath them, the three satellites trace out a figure-8 pattern over the Northern and Southern hemispheres, with the upper part of the "8" centered over the continental U.S. and somewhat tighter than the lower part of the "8" that's in the Southern hemisphere. One of the three satellites is pretty much directly overhead in the continental U.S. at all times; thus you're getting a signal from directly overhead rather than from low on the horizon (preventing the "shadowing" to a large extent), and since the satellite is over your head rather than out over the equator, it's also closer.

It's actually pretty slick how the folks at Sirius designed their system. Their uplink dishes have to change where they're pointing as each day progresses in order to stay pointing at the satellite that happens to be over the U.S. at any given time, but that's a small price in complexity to pay in order to have the benefit of a signal that's nearly always coming from straight overhead.

 

XM has two satellites named "Rhythm" and "Blues" and each has a backup satellite nearby (which are the two originals "Rock" and "Roll").

I have XM, it's been good for me.

I don't care for Stern or Opie and Anthony either one.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...ite-radio2.htm

My '07 had factory Sirius in it, I use the factory Sirius antenna for my XM SkyFi.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sa...s-antenna.html