Sirius radio, or more generally satellite radio, came out just a few years ago. If you’ve never listened to satellite radio or heard about it, this article is your lucky break. In this article you’ll find out what satellite radio is and how it works.

Just like name indicates, satellite radio uses satellites and related equipment to broadcast radio channels to car or home radios. The concept really received its impetus in 1992 when FCC set aside a chunk of radio frequency for what they called Digital Audio Radio Service (DARS). Five years later, Sirius Radio and XM Satellite Radio purchased licenses from FCC, and both companies started putting pieces into place to be able to start broadcasting.

Conventional radio waves can only travel 35 to 45 miles before they die out. The signal for satellite radio services is broadcast more than 20,000 miles above Earth’s surface. Programming on satellite radio is subscriber based, meaning you pay a monthly fee to descramble signal from satellites. But, most satellite radio service comes commercial free, so you don’t have to worry about channel hopping. Channels include music, talk radio, sporting events, kids programs, and news.

There are currently three major players in satellite radio game: Sirius radio, XM satellite radio, and WorldSpace. Sirius radio covers North America, including continental U.S., Canada, and Alaska. XM provides service in continental U.S. WorldSpace is developing coverage in other parts of world (Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America) and are definitely most ambitious in terms of client coverage (a potential of 4.6 billion clients covered on 5 different continents). Each company uses different satellite technology and methods to provide service in their respective areas.

Satellite radio equipment, such as car receivers and home stereos, are sold at a variety of consumer electronic stores, and are starting to become standard installations in new cars. Conventional radios cannot receive satellite radio transmissions, so picking up service usually entails purchasing a receiver, though some kits are available to make conventional radios satellite-radio compatible.

Most of free software that you will find is not supported. There will be no one at other end of software. What does this mean to you and your business? It means that if you have a technical support issue and you need help fast, that help will be hard to find, if you are able to find help at all.

Some of more popular free software does have available user supported help groups. These are groups of users who congregate out there in Cyberspace and are sporadically available to provide assistance to others. You can always try to send an email message to developer if you can find developer. But because of its very nature as a FREE item, no one is under any obligation to help you with your issue, quickly or otherwise.

It’s also important that you understand motivation behind developing free software. First, there are some programmers who just have too much time on their hands. These individuals will just create free software to give them something to do. Programmers are notorious problem-solvers, and creating software is a great way to accomplish this.

Some developers create software and offer it for free out of goodness of their heart. Hard to believe in this day and age, but it happens. And there are other programmers who get a feeling of altruism when they create software. They offer it for free with hopes that masses will marvel at their creation.