For many years, satellite television had been available to the viewer, allowing you to watch your favorite shows in high definition quality. It is now even possible to surf the Internet by these means and you get to enjoy super fast speed. So, it is logical that you should be able to listen to satellite radio with this technology. Swapping over from your regular radio to this new technology means that you no longer have to become frustrated over poor signal strength or quality. The broadcast quality is excellent and you never have to worry about constantly fine tuning your favorite station due an enlarged sized footprint.
In order to reach this quality, the recording and playback speed needs to be around the 384 kbps level. The music tracks are catalogued in a comparable way to the MP3 system, which uses names called ID3 tags. Each station on satellite radio attempts to create its own identity. A music station may try this by playing music only of one type or from only one era or decade. This means that you may get a satellite radio station called 1970's Punk music or Twentieth Century Classical Music.
On some channels, the music controller or disc jockey will choose, say, fifty minutes worth of music, will listen to it in order to determine that the quality and the order are correct and then let the computer play it over the airwaves. This allows ten minutes every hour for the news and then the sequence can be repeated automatically. Satellite transmission uses digital recordings and each station is encoded on a different frequency. Similarly, each decoder, say, in your car or your home needs to recognize and decode each channel separately too. This coding and decoding is done extremely quickly, in fact in what is called 'real time'.
What you may find different in listening to the radio in this digital age is that there will be less talk time, less intros and just good quality music. The disc jockey does still exist in satellite radio, but he takes more of a back seat. He will prepare the songs for the next hour and compile them onto a format that is like an MP3 to play; long gone are the days where records got stuck or jumped on your favorite show.
This isn't a bad thing, it just can get irritating listening to the same music over and over again. Satellite radio reaches millions of subscribers, and they can offer hundreds of stations. Some of the stations may require an upgraded subscription, but you will still have hundreds of stations available. This means you can listen to any type of music you can imagine, or talk radio programs that your local stations may not run.
In order to receive satellite transmissions, you will have to use a special antenna on your decoder. This antenna must be capable of receiving L-band broadcasts for it to be of use.
The standalone receivers start around $40 and go up from there. You also need to purchase a subscription for the service. The subscriptions are relatively cheap depending on the option you choose. In most cases you can get an extended plan for as low as $10 per month. If you want to pay monthly instead you may pay between $15-$20 per month. Many of the stations are funded through advertisers, but many are ad free thanks to the paid subscription.
In order to reach this quality, the recording and playback speed needs to be around the 384 kbps level. The music tracks are catalogued in a comparable way to the MP3 system, which uses names called ID3 tags. Each station on satellite radio attempts to create its own identity. A music station may try this by playing music only of one type or from only one era or decade. This means that you may get a satellite radio station called 1970's Punk music or Twentieth Century Classical Music.
On some channels, the music controller or disc jockey will choose, say, fifty minutes worth of music, will listen to it in order to determine that the quality and the order are correct and then let the computer play it over the airwaves. This allows ten minutes every hour for the news and then the sequence can be repeated automatically. Satellite transmission uses digital recordings and each station is encoded on a different frequency. Similarly, each decoder, say, in your car or your home needs to recognize and decode each channel separately too. This coding and decoding is done extremely quickly, in fact in what is called 'real time'.
What you may find different in listening to the radio in this digital age is that there will be less talk time, less intros and just good quality music. The disc jockey does still exist in satellite radio, but he takes more of a back seat. He will prepare the songs for the next hour and compile them onto a format that is like an MP3 to play; long gone are the days where records got stuck or jumped on your favorite show.
This isn't a bad thing, it just can get irritating listening to the same music over and over again. Satellite radio reaches millions of subscribers, and they can offer hundreds of stations. Some of the stations may require an upgraded subscription, but you will still have hundreds of stations available. This means you can listen to any type of music you can imagine, or talk radio programs that your local stations may not run.
In order to receive satellite transmissions, you will have to use a special antenna on your decoder. This antenna must be capable of receiving L-band broadcasts for it to be of use.
The standalone receivers start around $40 and go up from there. You also need to purchase a subscription for the service. The subscriptions are relatively cheap depending on the option you choose. In most cases you can get an extended plan for as low as $10 per month. If you want to pay monthly instead you may pay between $15-$20 per month. Many of the stations are funded through advertisers, but many are ad free thanks to the paid subscription.
