Trying to suss out some more information here - while I thought that this might be a strange situation, given what I now understand regarding Sirius' ground repeaters, it may not be.
TLDR: Wondering if it's possible that my radio is now only picking up the Sirius Ground Repeater Signal?
I have a 2011 Toyota Sienna Minivan with some major mileage on it - with a factory-installed JBL stereo with SiriusXM built-in. A few months ago, I noticed that I was getting an increasing number of drop-outs while driving. Then about six weeks ago, I stopped receiving a signal entirely (or so I thought) - I'd put my radio on a particular channel, I'd get the flashing "Loading" message on my screen, then "no signal".
Went through the normal resets, was told I'd have to take it into my dealer to see if it was an antenna failure (which seemed most-likely).
But then I did a couple of trips - Baltimore, DC, NYC and, this past weekend, the Tampa area. For whatever reason, I'd turned on the Sirius radio when I was in Baltimore, had forgotten about it, and a few minutes after I started driving, I started getting MUSIC!!!
Kept it on as I drove to DC that day, still got a signal in DC.
I thought it was working again... until I got SOUTH of DC, no signal anymore.
This happened when I was back in DC and Baltimore a few weeks later, NYC after that, etc.
ANYWAY - I brought the minivan in to get the antenna checked out. They said the antenna was fine, but that it was the SiriusXM module in the radio. Wound up pulling a radio out of the same model of my minivan at a yard nearby. But apparently, that radio, too couldn't get a signal (which I found VERY odd).
Then I found out about the ground repeaters and it would seem that my radio ONLY picking up ground repeaters - if that's possible.
So here are my questions:
Is it possible that my radio is only picking up ground repeaters, and if so, what would be causing that?
Did my dealership misdiagnose some kind of antenna problem? Was there some software update wherein my radio is ONLY picking up a Sirius signal but my antenna is both for Sirius AND for XM?
Is this really a module problem and I somehow, randomly, found another SiriusXM radio for the Toyora Sienna that had the EXACT SAME PROBLEM?
Or am I missing something else entirely.