# Where is the Siruis satellite located?



## scott T (Jul 6, 2006)

If I wanted to attempt to point my home antenna toward the true location of the bird, where is it at?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Sirius has 3 satellites on a polar orbit, two of which are always in view. So, your best shot would be nearly straight up.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Richard King said:


> Sirius has 3 satellites on a polar orbit, two of which are always in view. So, your best shot would be nearly straight up.


The Sirius birds are in an inclined elliptical orbit nota polar orbit.. If you were to track them you would see a figure eight pattern. Sirius does have plans to launch a satellite in a geosationarry orbit but I believe that does not happen till 2008.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I was close.  Still the best bet is straight up.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

I have my Sirius home antenna pointed southeast same angle as my XM home antenna, perfect signal no drop outs at anytime.

Here's an animated gif showing the geosynchronous orbit of the Sirius satellites.


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## sNEIRBO (Jul 23, 2006)

I tried for months to aim a Sirius antenna out a window, balance it on the window ledge, tape it to the window, etc. Sometimes I got great reception, other times I got nothing. It was frustrating the hell out of me.

In May I finally bought the 50's extension cable, ran the wire out my window, climbed up on the roof, located the antenna as close to the peak of my roof as possible, caulked it to my shingles, and leveled out the antenna. Since then I have been getting the full 3 bars of signal strength, 24 hours a day.

Then to get reception thoughout the whole house, I bought one of those $80 Whole House FM Transmitters and hooked my home dock up to that. Now I can tune any radio in my house to 107.9FM and listen to Sirius. (Do a Google Search for "Whole House FM Transmitter" or an Amazon Store search for "Whole House FM Transmitter Gold" to find one.)


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## sNEIRBO (Jul 23, 2006)

Steve Mehs said:


> I have my Sirius home antenna pointed southeast same angle as my XM home antenna, perfect signal no drop outs at anytime.
> 
> Here's an animated gif showing the geosynchronous orbit of the Sirius satellites.


Don't get confused by that animation. The animation is showing the "ground trace" for the Sirius birds. The actual flight paths of the birds is circular, on 3 slight different planes. But because of the direction they're circling, plus the rotation of the earth while they circle, they draw a figure 8 pattern on the ground. There would be no way to get a satellite to orbit in a figure 8 pattern unless it had some form of engine to power the flight path.


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## scott T (Jul 6, 2006)

sNEIRBO said:


> Don't get confused by that animation. The animation is showing the "ground trace" for the Sirius birds. The actual flight paths of the birds is circular, on 3 slight different planes. But because of the direction they're circling, plus the rotation of the earth while they circle, they draw a figure 8 pattern on the ground. There would be no way to get a satellite to orbit in a figure 8 pattern unless it had some form of engine to power the flight path.


I believe that this what you are referring to...










Red is Sirius
Blue is XM


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## sNEIRBO (Jul 23, 2006)

scott T said:


> I believe that this what you are referring to...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


EXACTLY! The birds go round the earth in circles, but draw a figure 8 pattern on the ground because the earth is moving as the birds circle.


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## obrienaj (Apr 8, 2004)

So this would explain why I can drive down a street in the morning and lose the signal for 20-30 seconds and not lose it at all when I drive down the same srteet 8 hours later ?


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Yep.


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