XM radio in Tortola?

A friend of mine is taking his Jenneau 426 to Tortola for the winter.

He asked me if XM would work around Tortola, which shows as out of the
footprint on:
http://satelliteradio.digitalinsurrection.com/xmradio/xm_radio.php

Do any of you know how well XM works east of Cuba? The footprint edge runs
through Hispanola. Any info greatly appreciated.

Larry

 

At that high latitude, the bird's angle is quite close to the horizon, I
suspect. Overhead trees aren't a problem. The truck in front of you
would be. Here in SC, our sync orbit birds are at 45 degrees. That's
not as low as yours, but it's still an issue. In Tortola, at least, the
bird will be very high in the sky. I don't think they can point the
antenna so narrow without using lots of fuel to keep it pointed. We'll
see how it works. It's going, anyways.

http://directv.com/DTVAPP/customer/dishPointer.jsp
Although you can't point the standard XM antenna, this pointer
information from DirecTV can help you understand how low in the sky the
bird is in Maine or anywhere. DTV's birds are at different longitudes,
but must be at the same sync orbit to stay in place as XM.

Playing with the website, it looks like Maine's elevation to the birds
would be about 31 degrees.....very low towards the horizon and easy to
block, even if overhead is perfectly clear. Just driving by a 2 story
building in Maine would block the signal if you were driving East or West
or anything but SSW/NNE. There's another problem, YOU! If the antenna
were on the front of the bike and you were driving northerly, between the
antenna and the bird would be YOU...and you are quite a microwave
absorber. Your body would block the signal on any northerly trip, within
150 degrees.


Larry