Facility tour of SiriusXM Los Angeles

[@cruisingfanatic]

Great video, beautiful studios, I share the passion for the Mika arms too, I have one with a Neumann TLM102

[@timothystockman7533]

This is the first time I've seen Heil PR40 used in a broadcast studio. Usually I've seen them in ham radio shacks...

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

It's a pretty good mic. It's just a relative. newcomer to the market.

[@timothystockman7533]

@@TheBroadcastEngineer The microphone I've been using in my own home studio for voiceover is the AKG P220 (with the LF rolloff engaged). I think it sounds pretty good. Have you ever heard one?

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

I haven’t heard of that mic, but yes low end roll off is important.

[@Michael_Livingstone]

Neat! I’d be curious to see how the broadcasting end of SiriusXM works.

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

The actual transmission side of things? That’s for another trip to wherever their uplink is. Maybe one day!

[@Bill_N_ATX]

Their master controls and uplinks are distributed. You have the “Sirius” system in the NYC area and the “XM” system out of Washington DC. They also have a DR site south of Atlanta. It’s a pretty complex system with lots of layers of redundancy and security. I became involved in the XM system starting 22 years ago and as one visitor to the XM studios put it, “They were one white cat short of a James Bond film.” I remember a few months before launch taking a test radio to a large gathering of musician friends on the Caupon River in West Virginia. We were down in this valley surrounded by mountains and other radios just didn’t work. Yet we had 16 test channels of clear digital music being delivered to this 3 inch tall antenna. It was pretty amazing and surprised a lot of people. If I’d had them, I could have sold a lot of radios that day. A lot’s happened since then, both good and bad, but it’s still an amazing feat of science and engineering when you think about it.

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

@@Bill_N_ATX I have a longer version of this tour I’m working on for SBE chapter 47 Los Angeles. The question did come up about uplinks, and it sounds like things have changed a bit with their uplinks.

[@jchtylmegekr]

@@Bill_N_ATX I was only exposed to sat radio when it finally got to Canada. Amazing technology although in-car internet and other options were right around the corner. But for a while before Sirius took over and arguably “ruined” it, I really loved XM. The talent and programming was great, and as a music+tech+broadcast nerd I was fascinated by the whole thing.

[@jennifershuppert7023]

So cool to see how things are done behind the scenes! Love it! Thank you for sharing.

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

Why thank you very much! 😁

[@johnmoloney5296]

Very interesting video Marcus

[@lowlevelm]

Interesting how they use zetta, one would think they would have their own custom software

[@mikerichardson6973]

Kind of disappointing as this was just a studio and not broadcasting related necessarily. I was hoping to see satellite transmission stuff.

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

I was hoping to see that too. But I’d have to travel back east to see that. It’s on the channel bucket list!

[@alexmeyer434]

You would enjoy the DC broadcast facility