FINALLY the right XM feng shui for my office

Generally throughout the Phoenix area an XM receiver will work indoors. XM is a satellite radio service intended for the US and Canada, delivered from two satellites. The standard antenna works just fine throughout the US, Canada and Northern Mexico. People get the signal as far south as Trinidad in the Caribbean by putting the standard antenna on a satellite dish and aiming at one of the two XM sats, although you have to have an address in the US and Canada to subscribe, it's a copyright issue.

It works indoors in major cities either because you just happen to have line of sight through a window (not likely) or because of the repeaters that are scattered all over the urban area to keep the signal from dropping when you pass through a tunnel, under a bridge or are in some area where you don't have line of sight to the satellite.

Outside a major city you're generally out of luck indoors as there are no repeaters.

At my last workplace I listened to XM all day long. It picked up a repeater signal and worked great.

In my current office it had been another story until today when I happened to try again. Looks like a ground-based repeater has been added near here because with the antenna pointed "just so I get mostly drop-out free reception. Previously I could hear like 20 seconds at a time with 20 seconds of silence in between - I wasn't getting a good signal from any direction.

It works now!!! I hope it lasts... it will mean one more thing to keep track of since the subscription is on a postage-stamp sized cartridge that I have to move between the office and the car. The cartridge is unique to my subscription I guess and the signal cannot be received without it being present in the receiver.

I'd love to be listening to the comedy channel but that'll be a weekend-only thing, it's far too dirty for the office. Someone would freak.