exactly...I usually find the free trial periods for XM before the commercials on TV when I start receiving the weather alerts for areas FAR away from where I live...
Yes the SS provides aviation and marine weather alerts for distant counties & shores, because you never know when you might find yourselves 200 miles away and unexpectedly airborne or amphibious in SS. I suppose any pilots or boaters might find such warnings useful. Anyone ever decided to change plans or route due to the distant weather reports? When I drive SS cross country or to Minnesota, I find the distant weather warnings to be possibly useful.
To add some fuel to the fire, I am in the unique position to transmit these weather alerts. Like I actually type them into the computer that transmits them to the world. It was not designed nor intended to be used via satcom like mylink. It was designed to be used with NOAA Weather Radio where each transmitter has a five digit County FIPS code (first two digits are state, last three are county) and that integrated well into the EAS (annoying beep, test of the emergency broadcast system on tv/radio). So if you had a weather radio, it would receive the special tones, and turn on warning you of impending doom, and only in the county is was programmed to be warned for. Then along came cell phones and SAME codes were invented. The powers that be decided it would be cool to be able to warn everyone of anything from child abductions to zombies anytime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_Area_Message_Encoding
That is where the clusterfork happened. Multiple agencies added to the codes and thousands of people have access to the system, 90% of which have no idea what they are doing. It also gets sent to this fubar system called ENDEC that passes it off to the satradio (and also local FM radio) and ultimately our cars. Along the way a lot of the original message gets corrupted. Most notably those 5 digit county FIPS codes get shortened to 4 digits and they add a zero into the code to make up for the lost digit. The end result is pissed off consumers who ignore the alerts entirely. I know I do. You could always just unplug the sat antenna in the shark fin.
EDIT: I called the technical help line for XM (866-463-5326) and the Indian dude that answered claims he can narrow down the alerts to just your zip code, or turn them off completely. We'll see how that turns out, as I'll be sending high heat warnings for my area for most of the week.
Update: Partial success. After calling the tech line and having them only show alerts for my zip code that has been the only thing I've seen pop up. However I was in a different state yesterday and the alerts from back home still popped up. The "local" alerts were still available, you just had to drill down through the weather app to find them.
I can't figure out how I still have XM, and thus the annoying alerts. The stations come in, and I do not have an active subscription. Bought the car in July, picked it up in October, can't imagine how I'm still getting it unless its a 12 month trial?
Wild, I haven't had that issue before. I've had the park assist turn back on after I've disabled it which is annoying. I'll keep an eye out for it, if or when it turns back on.
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