SP4 acquiring signal in a mixed signal environment

[johnbom]

I've had this refurb SP4 for about 2-3 years with very few problems (except for the Repeater being down a bunch of times).

All of the sudden, when I am in the car, and I have SAT and TER signal, it is in a constant acquiring signal mode. 5 seconds or so of audio- 5 seconds of acquiring signal.

I have tried this radio in my home soloists and work soloist. As long as I don't have a SAT signal, I have no issues. The moment I get both signals, acquiring signals comes back.

Tech Support on the phone isn't too helpful usually -- I get better info from these boards .

The radio is no longer under warranty.

Any ideas?

 

[Grath]

Repeater issues in South Carolina & North Carolina

Johnbom, as of today Sirius has confirmed that this is a problem with repeaters in both South Carolina and North Carolina. I am in the Columbia, SC area and I have seen this issue happening since last Wednesday, 10/22/08. I first called them on Thursday 10/23/08 and then again on Friday 10/24/08. Neither of those calls yielding anything further than the usual line that my radio must be broken.

Just today I finally got around to grabbing my wife's radio out of her car (she doesn't listen very often) and setting it up in my car side by side so I could quickly exchange parts and connections to test. BOTH radios were experiencing the same problems as you describe. When receiving either satellite OR terrestrial, everything is fine, but if you are in an area where you have both available, you get "Acquiring Signal" very often. Once I got tech support back on the line and explained everything I had done he commented that it sounded like I had done quite a bit of troubleshooting so he double checked all of his notices on repeater issues and read off a message that had come through indicating repeater issues in the Carolinas.

They told me that they were aware of it and repairs are in progress, but did not have an ETA. If I were them I would just power down all of the effected repeaters until repairs can be made. Obviously this is some sort of software or signaling issue if it's affecting multiple repeaters at once and not just 1 particular location. I also asked if there was some sort of hidden menu that would allow me to disable the terrestrial reception on the receiver and he indicated that there was not unfortunately.

As far as a credit, he said that once the issues were corrected I could call back and request a credit and it would most likely be granted.

 

[johnbom]

Johnbom, as of today Sirius has confirmed that this is a problem with repeaters in both South Carolina and North Carolina. Neither of those calls yielding anything further than the usual line that my radio must be broken.

Once I got tech support back on the line and explained everything I had done he commented that it sounded like I had done quite a bit of troubleshooting so he double checked all of his notices on repeater issues and read off a message that had come through indicating repeater issues in the Carolinas.

Thanks, Grath for helping me figure out that I wasn't crazy. I was having the same problems last Thursday 10/23 in a Ford Fusion Rental Car, too, but the people on the phone told me it is a broken radio. Two broken radios!?!

They always say no one calls, I'm the only one with issues. How do we get that part fixed?

 

[johnbom]

Just a moment ago, I noticed that my buffer was dwindling down (I have to take phone calls and such), and now I have no signal for either SAT or TER....

and we're back - hopefully they did the fix they needed to do.

 

[Grath]

Yes, it appears they fixed the problems (in Columbia at least) sometime yesterday. Did not have a single problem today.

 

[syphix]

Similar problem over the last 3-4 days with my Stiletto 100. On both the car and home dock (so, different antenna's), every so often I get a "Aquiring signal..." with audio drop out. The "Antenna aiming" shows full satellite strength...so, what's up?? Only happened 6-7 times over the past 3-4 days, but it's happened on both the home and the car dock.

Just happened as I'm typing this, listening to the Packers game...