SiriusXM / Satellite Radio Reception

Aftika

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I am wondering if anyone else is having a serious reception problem with Sirius Satellite radio?

The previous vehicle that I had (2010 Ford F250) had a satellite radio built-in with its prehistoric Ford Sync system of the day. When I first bought the truck new, I enjoyed the free 3 months of service but never did subscribe as my days of highway travel were over and I never saw the value of the subscription for my 10-minute commute to work and back.

So now I bought a 2021 Bronco Sport and it too comes with a satellite radio built-in however whenever I tune to a station the reception is sooo bad that it is simply not usable. (in a 1-minute sample I would have it cut in and out up to 15 times on average with about 30 seconds of the 60-second time frame being dead silence.) this is not a "Rare occurrence" but rather it is the norm... no matter when I tune in to a satellite station, day, night, morning, evening. I have yet to tune in and it is working properly. I tune in local AM or FM stations and everything is crystal clear. (Yes - tried several different Sat stations)

I am wondering if either the design of the antenna on the BS is inferior to the one that was on the roof of my 11-year old F250, or if perhaps the satellite signal produced today from SiriusXM is nowhere near as strong as it was in the past.** I live on the very far east coast of Canada so perhaps the signal is not as strong here due to lack of population density making it less of a priority to ensure good coverage?

** Back in the day, Sirius and XM-Satelite did not merge in Canada until sometime after April of 2011... so maybe the satellite signal from XM was better prior to the merger?
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Glamdring70

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It should work better than older tech. I certainly get less cutouts with the Bronco antenna than with my previous one that was 10+ years old. Also, Sirius and XM each owned half of the Sat band space. So you could use an XM antenna for Sirius and vice versa but the individual branded antennas were better attenuated for the high band or low band. The modern hardware works on the whole spectrum.

See if you're in the coverage maps for Sat 5 or 6.

https://www.satbeams.com/footprints?norad=39360
https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?norad=35493

It's possible your antenna is faulty or the connection is loose. Let Ford diagnose it or see if all the cars on the lot get similar reception. That would rule out the sat signal. It could be seasonal or atmospheric too.
 

Whitenight

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I am wondering if anyone else is having a serious reception problem with Sirius Satellite radio?

The previous vehicle that I had (2010 Ford F250) had a satellite radio built-in with its prehistoric Ford Sync system of the day. When I first bought the truck new, I enjoyed the free 3 months of service but never did subscribe as my days of highway travel were over and I never saw the value of the subscription for my 10-minute commute to work and back.

So now I bought a 2021 Bronco Sport and it too comes with a satellite radio built-in however whenever I tune to a station the reception is sooo bad that it is simply not usable. (in a 1-minute sample I would have it cut in and out up to 15 times on average with about 30 seconds of the 60-second time frame being dead silence.) this is not a "Rare occurrence" but rather it is the norm... no matter when I tune in to a satellite station, day, night, morning, evening. I have yet to tune in and it is working properly. I tune in local AM or FM stations and everything is crystal clear. (Yes - tried several different Sat stations)

I am wondering if either the design of the antenna on the BS is inferior to the one that was on the roof of my 11-year old F250, or if perhaps the satellite signal produced today from SiriusXM is nowhere near as strong as it was in the past.** I live on the very far east coast of Canada so perhaps the signal is not as strong here due to lack of population density making it less of a priority to ensure good coverage?

** Back in the day, Sirius and XM-Satelite did not merge in Canada until sometime after April of 2011... so maybe the satellite signal from XM was better prior to the merger?
I have both a 2016 and 2019 Escape with the Sirius satellite Sync 3 system. Lately the reception is spotty where the system keeps saying searching for satellite signal when it never did it before. This can probably be attributed to the fact that there has been a lot of solar activity and meteor activity in the past couple of months. This can wreak havoc on the satellite signals and might be what you are experiencing. The AM/FM stations work since they are land based. I just deal with it and put some songs a USB drive and play them through the Sync 3 system instead.
 
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Aftika

Aftika

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It should work better than older tech. I certainly get less cutouts with the Bronco antenna than with my previous one that was 10+ years old.....
I would have thought so as well... however my 11 year old truck the reception was perfect for the 3 months I had the service.... and now... not so much :-(

Thank you for those links! Great information... according to the maps I should be well inside the coverage area maps for Sat 5 and 6. That rules out that possible theory. I guess I will have to take your suggustion to take a trip to Ford... which of course will kill a day or 2 of inconvience and time unfortunatly.
 
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Aftika

Aftika

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Lately the reception is spotty where the system keeps saying searching for satellite signal when it never did it before. This can probably be attributed to the fact that there has been a lot of solar activity and meteor activity in the past couple of months. This can wreak havoc on the satellite signals and might be what you are experiencing.
You know... I never put the thought together but in the news, there was the big solar flare / Nothern Lights stories just recently... that may indeed be the cause of my problems and I just never connected the dots...

I guess tomorrow morning I will have to try out the sat stations again and see if the problem has resolved itself, saving me the inconvenience of going into the dealership.
 


The Shark

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You know... I never put the thought together but in the news, there was the big solar flare / Nothern Lights stories just recently... that may indeed be the cause of my problems and I just never connected the dots...

I guess tomorrow morning I will have to try out the sat stations again and see if the problem has resolved itself, saving me the inconvenience of going into the dealership.
That's a really good point, could be atmospheric.
 
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Aftika

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I guess tomorrow morning I will have to try out the sat stations again and see if the problem has resolved itself, saving me the inconvenience of going into the dealership.
Well tried the Sat radio again yesterday and today mornings and evenings - still shite so I guess its a trip to the dealership unfortunately....
 

acslater

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Any luck with sat. radio? We have never had consistent issues with regular radio stations with any vehicle previously. Did you end up going to the dealership?
 

PugDad

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I read down through all these posts , to get to the ending and the page is cut out of the story! To bad people sometimes here never give us their final results. Seen it a few times now .
Such is life.
 

CableXJ

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I used the Sirius system on my 2016 F-150 for the free trial and the reception was bad on the highway and in the city. I used it a couple of times on my BS and it seemed to work better but not great. My local dealership told me Ford is going phaseout satellite radio on their new vehicles very soon. Won’t miss it.
 


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I used the Sirius system on my 2016 F-150 for the free trial and the reception was bad on the highway and in the city. I used it a couple of times on my BS and it seemed to work better but not great. My local dealership told me Ford is going phaseout satellite radio on their new vehicles very soon. Won’t miss it.
I have great SiriusXM reception since 2006 when I purchased the Lifetime Subscription for about $300 and have transferred SiriusXM service to my other vehicles. The SiriusXM radio and antenna are far better now then in my 2006 vehicle.

Ford did have a satellite radio delete option during the chip shortage but that option probably has gone away now. It is unlikely Ford will drop SiriusXM from Ford vehicles anytime soon.

Your dealership is probably confused with AM Radio where Ford did announce an intent to delete AM Radio however Congress is now considering forcing vehicle manufacturers to continue providing AM Radio so the AM Radio issue is yet to be resolved.

“Ford Motor Company says they plan to end the use of AM radios in their gas and electric consumer vehicles starting next year. The company confirmed its plans to the Detroit Free Press. “We are transitioning from AM radio for most new and updated 2024 models,” a Ford spokesperson told the Detroit Free Press. Apr 6, 2023”

Edit: 5/23/2023, Ford reversed course and is keeping AM radio:
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/05/23/ford-am-radio-vehicles/70247434007/
 
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Cactus22

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Your radio or antenna may have a fault. I have had XM then SiriusXM in my cars for twenty years. The only time reception fails is in a deep valley with a mountain blocking the satellite signal. Or in tunnels. :)
 

coopny

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As others have said, satellite radio reception should be good barring interference (valleys with mountains blocking signals, thick tree cover, tunnels, urban environments, etc.)... while one company, the actual service varies by device. FM-5 and FM-6 (dubbed Radiosat 5 & 6) satellites serve Sirius receivers, while XM-3 and XM-4 (dubbed Rhythm and Blues) serve XM receivers. (Two additional satellites are in-orbit spares that can serve either upon the failure or decommissioning of a satellite from either system).

I won't pretend to have knowledge of what frequency (Sirius or XM) the Bronco Sport hardware is receiving. Sirius used to have orbiting satellites for coverage moving around, but with FM-5 and FM-6 they went geostationary like XM. Some back in the day had attributed better signal on Sirius to their choice of using 3 orbiting satellites rather than 2 geostationary.

Looping back to the OP:
I live on the very far east coast of Canada so perhaps the signal is not as strong here due to lack of population density making it less of a priority to ensure good coverage?
Being at the very fringe of the coverage map (see here), they do disclaim that Satellite signal strength at border regions may be limited. It's possible that the geostationary orbit of the newer Sirius satellites was less favorable to the signal strength of the fringes, or that the antenna in the BS is weaker. Sirius XM Canada is an affiliate company, it's a technical ownership thing, not a different set of satellites from the US so it's not any change there...
 

Dude

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To add to a prior post, if you are in a fringe area hang in there .. the coverage and signal quality is expected to improve as new SiriusXM satellites come online relatively soon.


https://sky-brokers.com/supplier/siriusxm/

SatelliteMissionLaunch DateLauncherLaunch Operator
XM-1 (Roll) (defunct) May 08th, 2001Zenit 3SLSeaLaunch RUS/USA
XM-2 (Rock) (defunct) Mar 18th, 2001Zenit 3SLSeaLaunch RUS/USA
XM-3 (Rhythm)Feb 28th, 2005Zenit 3SLSeaLaunch RUS/USA
XM-4 (Blues)Oct 30th, 2006Zenit 3SLSeaLaunch RUS/USA
XM-5 Oct 14th, 2010Proton MILS KAZ
Sirius FM-1 (defunct)June 30th, 2000Proton KILS KAZ
Sirius FM-2 (defunct)Sept 05th, 2000Proton KILS KAZ
Sirius FM-3 (defunct)Nov 30th, 2000Proton KILS KAZ
Sirius FM-4 ground spare
Sirius FM-5 June 30th, 2009Falcon 9 SpaceX USA
Sirius FM-6Oct 25th, 2013 Falcon 9 SpaceX USA
SXM-7 (lost) Dec 13th, 2020Falcon 9 SpaceX USA
SXM-8June 06th, 2021Falcon 9 SpaceX USA
SXM-92024
SXM-102024
SXM-112026/27
SXM-122026/27
—
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