Bike Gizmos

[Coyote Chris]

I know some of you already have sat com capability in devices you have purchased...heck, my Subaru has that for emergency use.
The New iPhone 14 has a free, soon to be paid, service that is very primitive but can get out an emergency text if need be where there is no cell phone coverage. Could spread to other phones.


The snows that started 15 days ago havent let up...so I am way behind winterizing farm equipment, etc.
I bought a $16 electric fuel transfer pump that works great from container to bike or for draining lawn tractor tanks.
I still havent found one that will easily reach to the bottom of a bike tank. Anyone see one that actually works? This one has a pretty ridged wand and the wand tip is big. The impeller is at the tip of the wand. All hoses I have used take "sets" and are hard to make straight.

 

[mikesim]

Not to be the one to rain on your parade, but I think that if you read the fine print, the Subaru Starlink service that you spoke of uses normal cell tower service and not satellite service like GM's On Star. I thought so too when I bought our Outback but after reading about the details I found that Starlink is cellular based.... the name is kind of misleading.

Is Subaru Starlink the Same As Starlink? – ProVsCons

Mike

 

[Coyote Chris]

Not to be the one to rain on your parade, but I think that if you read the fine print, the Subaru Starlink service that you spoke of uses normal cell tower service and not satellite service like GM's On Star. I thought so too when I bought our Outback but after reading about the details I found that Starlink is cellular based.... the name is kind of misleading.

Is Subaru Starlink the Same As Starlink? – ProVsCons

Mike

Its actually kind of both, although its like pulling teeth to find that out. For instance, to handle the 5G networks, my 2018 forester needed to be updated for two hours...yes...you got that right....at town internet speeds. Here was the original vision....ATT for cell coverage and Sirius XM for the sat connection. I have a small green LED that shows me when I am connected to a bird......
The one thing I DONT know is how much the sat actually does. Does the car have just a reciever? How does a sirius user pick a song or artist if Sirius is just one way.....? I have never seen the green sat connection go out although I have sophisicated software on my phone that tells me where the cell towers are and how strong they are. And pleanty of times there has been no signal on my ATT phone and a solid green sat light. I have googled this till the cows come home and the gear heads dont know anything....need a real telcom person.

SUBARU SELECTS SIRIUS XM CONNECTED VEHICLE SERVICES TO HELP POWER SUBARU STARLINK IN-VEHICLE PLATFORM AND AT&T 4G LTE NETWORK TO DELIVER MOBILE CONNECTIVITY - Subaru U.S. Media Center

Subaru of America, Inc. today announced agreements with Sirius XM Connected Vehicle Services Inc., a unit of Sirius XM, and AT&T* to provide enhancements to its Subaru STARLINK in-vehicle connectivity system.

media.subaru.com

ATT coverage is very spotty through the west....but even Verizon is spotty. Neither would work in many areas and Starlink would be worthless.

 

[mikesim]

Yup! Clear as mud for sure. Here is my understanding, which may be incorrect and subject to correction by someone more knowledgable than I.
The GPS part of Starlink is receive only which is effected by Sirius XM and the Nav software which I believe to be TomTom. Outgoing comms are by ATT cell phone towers. The way Sirius works is that there is a broad spectrum signal beamed down by the bird. The software in the Sirius unit in the vehicle discriminates what channels the reciever recieves if any. When you set up your Sirius receiver you tell Sirius what the serial number of your head unit is. The bird then beams down to the head unit what channels are authorized. You set up the head unit either through their website or their telephone landline. GM's OnStar is pure satellite going and coming. GM's got the sat capability when they aquired Ross Perot's company (name escapes me) way back when.

Mike

 

[RedLdr1]

Well actually Sirius and XM use ground based repeaters for sending their signal. Those repeaters are commonly located on a cell tower. It has been like that since Day 1 for both companies. In rural areas the signal really suffers as don't have a repeater network. Read all about it Here straight from SiriusXM.

 

[RedLdr1]

GM's OnStar is pure satellite going and coming. GM's got the sat capability when they aquired Ross Perot's company (name escapes me) way back when.

OnStar is a cellular based product. It was just marketing razzle dazzle implying a sat link capability. I worked at EDS, Perot's old company, and dabbled in the initial project on the call center side. When analog cellular went away early OnStar vehicles owners either had to pay to have a digital wireless upgrade or loss the OnStar feature. The upgrade kits were ridiculously priced at anywhere from $600 up. As digital requirements keep changing, like 3 / 4 / 5 / "G" generation, I expect to see that forced upgrade happen again. I was just forced to update my home alarm system to 5G as they tearing down the 4G antenna to expand 5G in my locality.

I prefer Ford's approach in linking to my cell phone so their features don't become obsolescent as easily due to cellular network advances.

 

[mikesim]

I'll be darned! I guess I was bamboozled by the OnStar razzle dazzle. I surely thought it was entirely sat based. Thanks for the heads up.